The Cleveland Browns completed their latest disappointing season on Saturday with a 35-10 loss to the Baltimore Ravens, dropping them to 3-14 and another last-place finish in the AFC North.
The Browns are no strangers to awful seasons at this point, but Myles Garrett, their best player, made a stunning comparison to what it feels like.
He said the season was an even bigger disappointment than the 0-16 season in 2017.
“Probably a more disappointing season because what we expected out of ourselves,” Garrett said in the postgame news conference. “What we had built here before. That’s how I take it.”
It is hard to argue with that logic.
While 0-16 is objectively the worst season, that Browns team had absolutely zero expectations and was in the middle of an extensive rebuild where losing for draft position was the only expectation.
Garrett was a rookie on that team.
The Browns were a playoff team a year ago and came into this season hoping to compete for the division title. They had an elite defense in 2023 and were hoping quarterback Deshaun Watson could bounce back. Instead of doing that, they completely failed across the board.
The defense took a step backward despite another elite year from Garrett, while the offense had to use four different quarterbacks and never found any consistency.
Now they go into next season with the same issues at quarterback and a team full of holes on both sides of the ball. The only positive to come out of it is the fact they are locked into a top-three pick and could potentially get the No. 1 pick in the 2025 NFL Draft, depending on Sunday’s results.