The Cleveland Browns are starting to look a little like last year’s New England Patriots, and the connection is hard to miss.
That link makes sense on a few levels. Patriots head coach Mike Vrabel spent the 2024 season in Berea as a coaching and personnel consultant, and now the parallels between his first season in Foxboro and Todd Monken’s opening stretch with the Browns in 2026 are becoming more obvious by the week.
Both teams were coming off rough stretches that forced change. New England had won just eight games over the previous two seasons before making a coaching switch. Cleveland’s eight combined wins across the 2024 and 2025 seasons was what finally got Kevin Stefanski dismissed in January.
Vrabel’s Patriots started to turn heads around this point last year, too. A prime-time win over Buffalo moved them from early-season curiosity to something more serious.
No one is saying Deshaun Watson is about to make a Drake Maye-style leap into the MVP race. And no one is pretending the Browns look like a Super Bowl team after four games. Still, the similarities are there for more than one reason.
One of the biggest is the schedule. New England’s 2025 slate drew plenty of attention because it wound up being one of the most favorable in NFL history based on opponent winning percentage.
Patriots fans hated hearing it, but the results backed it up. Good teams beat the teams they’re supposed to beat, and after Week 4 last season, New England lost only once the rest of the regular season - 35-31 to Buffalo, despite leading 21-0 at halftime.
Cleveland may have a similar path ahead. The Browns are about to enter a difficult run with four road games in five weeks, but the opponents don’t look nearly as intimidating as they once did. The Jets are 1-3, the Titans are 0-4, the Steelers are 2-2, and the Saints are 1-3.
Then comes a home game against the winless Houston Texans in Week 10, followed by the bye. After that, the Browns return with three straight home games against the Bengals, Raiders, and Falcons.
A 10-game winning streak like the one New England put together last year is a stretch. But Cleveland does have a shot to make it four straight this week against the Jets, and there’s room to keep piling up wins during that favorable middle portion of the schedule.
The injury picture may also be tilting Cleveland’s way, just as it did for the Patriots in 2025. New England managed to avoid the kind of major injury wave that can wreck a season, even while dealing with stretches missed by linebacker Robert Spillane, defensive tackle Milton Williams, and left tackle Will Campbell. All three were back for the playoff run.
The Browns have had their own issues, including the loss of edge rusher Alex Wright in training camp and a knee injury to top defensive tackle Mason Graham. Graham does not appear headed for injured reserve, and Monken has not ruled him out for Sunday’s game against the Jets, though he did not practice Wednesday.
Cleveland could also benefit from what’s happening on the other sideline. The Jets may be without several key players this week, including running back Breece Hall, wide receiver Adonai Mitchell, guard Dylan Parham, and defensive back Jarvis Brownlee Jr.
And the next game on the calendar could carry even more weight. The Browns will host the Baltimore Ravens next week in what could be a battle for sole possession of first place in the division. Lamar Jackson is currently considered week-to-week with an ankle injury and feels questionable at best for Week 6.
There is, of course, a limit to the comparison. New England’s 8-26 run was a short-lived downturn; Cleveland’s struggles have been more baked into the franchise’s recent identity.
But the Patriots did show something important once Vrabel got there. They started moving on from aging veterans and making room for younger players.
Vrabel, a defensive-minded coach, quickly moved safety Kyle Dugger aside for rookie Craig Woodson, and that helped lift the defense. Monken has made similar choices on offense, including putting Austin Barber into the starting lineup at guard and dropping veteran receiver Jerry Jeudy in favor of second-round rookie Denzel Boston.
Those kinds of decisions matter. Building a culture is one thing.
Getting everyone to buy in is another. Vrabel got that done fast in 2025, and the Browns are beginning to send the same kind of signal.
In Other News...
Browns Postgame Tragedy Leaves One Grim Downtown Cleveland Mystery
A postgame disappearance in downtown Cleveland has turned into a grim recovery effort after Phoenix Phillips, a 24-year-old Maryland resident and Pittsburgh Steelers fan, vanished after attending a football game. Police began a missing persons investigation after Phillips' abandoned cell phone was found near West 10th Street, a clue that narrowed the search but did little to explain how the night unraveled.
Emergency teams searching the area on Tuesday found a body in the Cuyahoga River, and authorities confirmed it was Phillips. The case has left the downtown area with a somber shadow after what began as a football outing, and the focus now shifts to piecing together Phillips' final movements in the hours after the game. [Read more 🡒]
Browns Suddenly Have A Pass Rush Concern They Cant Ignore
Derek Barnetts arrival gave Cleveland a needed boost off the edge after Alex Wright went down, and through four games the veteran has quickly become one of the Browns most disruptive defenders. He has led the team in quarterback pressures and has even climbed into the top tier league-wide in pressure rate, which is exactly the kind of production Cleveland hoped to find when it brought him in.
Now the Browns are dealing with a different kind of edge-rush question. Barnett missed a recent practice because of an ankle injury, and with an upcoming game on the schedule, Cleveland has to get ready as if it might be without one of its most productive pass-rush pieces. For a defense that already needed help there, that is a problem it cant simply shrug off. [Read more 🡒]
Browns Suddenly Have A Quarterback Decision Watson Can't Ignore
Dillon Gabriels return to the Browns quarterback mix puts a little more pressure on a room that has already had to sort through injuries and uncertainty. Activated from injured reserve, Gabriel now gives Cleveland a 21-day window to decide whether he belongs on the active roster, and that timeline alone makes his status worth watching as the team keeps piecing together its depth behind center.
Deshaun Watson has already acknowledged Gabriels involvement around the team during his own injury absence, and he sounded confident in the quarterbacks Cleveland has on hand. The real question now is whether Gabriel pushes for the backup job or settles in as an emergency third option, a decision the Browns have to make while trying to keep the position stable and avoid another headache later on. [Read more 🡒]