The NFL came close to putting the Cleveland Browns back in the national spotlight in a way that would have sounded unthinkable not long ago.
According to Rob Tornoe of The Philadelphia Inquirer, the league seriously weighed moving Cleveland’s Week 8 rematch with the Pittsburgh Steelers into Sunday Night Football. It never happened, and the AFC North matchup stays in its original 1 p.m. CBS slot, but the fact that it was even on the table says plenty about how the Browns are being viewed right now.
“The NFL decided Tuesday not to flex the Birds’ Week 8 matchup against the Washington Commanders (1-4-1) off NBC’s Sunday Night Football, according to league sources. Despite that, the NFL seriously considered swapping in an AFC North matchup between the Cleveland Browns (4-2) at Pittsburgh Steelers (4-2), which instead remains at 1 p.m. on CBS,” Tornoe wrote.
That consideration tracks with what Cleveland has done through six weeks of the Todd Monken era. The Browns have stacked up four wins, and they’ve done it while fighting through their own mistakes and a history that usually keeps them off prime-time stages. This season, though, they’ve started to look like a team the league at least has to think about.
They already beat Pittsburgh in prime time once this year, a game that doesn’t change this one on paper but does add to the larger picture. It’s become harder to dismiss what Cleveland is putting together, especially after the way the roster has been built through the draft.
The Browns have hit on the last couple of NFL Drafts, and that young core has sped up the rebuild. Andrew Berry and his staff have put together a group that’s good enough to win even when the operation isn’t clean, and that’s not a sentence many would have expected to write about this team a year ago.
There are still issues to clean up, and this isn’t some finished product. But Monken has the Browns moving in the right direction, and the buy-in appears to be there. The organization finally has a clear vision, and that has given the team a different feel.
For years, Cleveland has been a bottom-feeder, a team that too often found a way to trip over itself right when things started to go right. That possibility still hangs over them, and this season could still turn out to be smoke and mirrors.
Even so, the sense around this group is hard to ignore. It feels different. It feels like the Browns are building something that can last, and that even the usual chaos around them might not be enough to tear it down.
In Other News...
Browns Fans Have A Real Beef With How The League Treated Steelers Week
The AFC North is suddenly looking every bit like the leagues most compelling division race, with the Browns and Steelers both sitting at 5-2 after Week 7 and Cincinnati right there after a win of its own. Clevelands next meeting with Pittsburgh had enough juice for the NFL to at least consider moving it into a prime-time spotlight, especially with both teams playing meaningful football this early in the season.
Instead, the league kept Eagles-Commanders in the Sunday night window, leaving Browns fans to wonder why a showdown with real division stakes did not get the extra stage. Cleveland still has plenty to play for, and Deshaun Watsons knack for late-game drives has been a major reason why, with five game-winning marches already this season. The issue now is not whether the Browns belong in the conversation, but whether the schedule makers saw the matchup the same way the standings do. [Read more 🡒]
Browns Set Up A Huge Steelers Showdown With First Place At Stake
The Browns Week 7 win over the Titans kept them in a familiar place for this point in October, sitting atop the AFC North at 5-2 and putting the division race squarely on their next game. Around them, the playoff picture in the AFC is already tightening, and the standings only sharpen the importance of every head-to-head matchup inside the division.
Pittsburgh now waits in Week 8 for a rematch that carries first place on the line, which is exactly the kind of late-October game that starts to tell you who is for real. The bigger league-wide backdrop is just as interesting, with both the AFC North and NFC North featuring all four teams above .500, a reminder that the division race in Cleveland is unfolding inside one of the NFLs deepest neighborhoods. [Read more 🡒]
Deshaun Watson May Have Finally Changed What Was Holding Browns Back
Deshaun Watsons most encouraging afternoon of the season may have been less about the box score than the way it looked while it was happening. In the Browns win over the Titans, Watson completed 70 percent of his passes on a season-high 36 attempts, and the bigger takeaway was the way he played within the offense. He looked more decisive, got rid of the ball faster and helped Cleveland find a rhythm that had been missing for much of the year.
The adjustment appears to have started after that rough first half in Week 6, when the offense seemed to hit a wall. Since then, Watson has leaned more on the passing game and less on his legs, a shift that has fit better under Todd Monken and made Clevelands attack look far more functional. The question now is whether this was a one-game reset or the start of a real change in how the Browns want to move forward. [Read more 🡒]