These Cleveland Browns moves feel like… well, like Cleveland. Re-signing Tre Avery and D’Angelo Ross to bolster the cornerback room feels like patching up the roof after a long winter, not building a new extension. It tells me the front office is looking to fill in the margins, to keep depth, and perhaps hold onto some known quantities rather than swinging for the fences. After a 5-12 season, it’s hard to get genuinely excited about two depth cornerback re-signings, even if those players have shown flashes. No one in the Dawg Pound is tearing up their season tickets over it, but nobody's ordering commemorative t-shirts either. It’s a very *practical* set of moves, and if there’s one thing Cleveland knows, it’s practicality.
What these moves don't do, though, is address the glaring holes that kept the Cleveland Browns out of contention last year. Our offense sputtered more often than a vintage car on a cold January morning, and while defense wasn't always the issue, you can't be giving up 379 points in a season and expect to be playing deep into January. We still need impact players on both sides of the ball – a true difference-maker at wide receiver to take some pressure off, and an interior defensive lineman who can disrupt. Walking through the West Side Market on a Saturday, you hear folks talking about needing a real spark, something to make you believe this team can climb back to the top of the AFC North. These re-signings are fine, but they don't exactly light that fire.
My expectations for the Cleveland Browns next season remain cautiously pessimistic, at least until we see some genuine game-changers come through the doors. These are the kinds of moves that keep a team treading water, not the kind that push them towards the promised land. We’ve seen this story before. But that doesn’t mean we stop believing. From the East Side to the Dawg Pound — Cleveland, we don't quit.
Terrence Okafor, MiTL Sports Desk.
You can hear all the takes on these moves with the morning crew. Tune in at mornings.live.