When should the Cleveland Browns consider shutting talent down?

The Cleveland Browns are heading to a losing season and shutting down talent may be smart.

The Cleveland Browns are heading to their second straight losing season, and 14th losing season in 16 seasons, with the club only posting a winning mark in 2020 and 2007 over that time span. The losing is bad enough but the Browns are dealing with enough at the moment beyond that. The Deshaun Watson situation is only getting more complicated as the days go on, there is uncertainty over Kevin Stefanski’s job, despite it being Andrew Berry who gave him the talent, and the team is largely riddled with injuries that have derailed the season, at least defensively.

So with the team only 5-8, and the team facing four tough challenges to close out the year, we have to ask sincerely at what point do we start shutting down players? While there may be some “nobility” in playing guys at the end of the year for “pride” and “dignity”, just to flex on people and say “see, we never gave up!”, we also have to point to the folly in coaching like that.

If Nick Chubb or Myles Garrett specifically, get hurt in a pointless game in January and it alters their next season or career, is anyone going to say “yeah, but they ruined their career playing for pride!”

No, we’ll all say “why the heck were they still playing?

The Browns should play for a winning season still, mainly because this franchise is a laughing stock and being able to have two winning seasons in three years is a heck of a lot better than having them 13 seasons apart. Yet, if they lose one more time, just shut down the All-Pros. No Garrett, no Chubb, no Wyatt Teller, no Joel Bitonio, and no Tommy Togiai or Grant Delpit, but that’s mostly because I’m tired of watching those last two suck on Sundays.

The final few games should be about exploring the Cleveland Browns’ future

When the team inevitably loses at some point over the next few games, the team should switch focus to its younger players like Jerome Ford, and David Bell. Anyone who isn’t playing for a spot or a new contract should be sat. Guys like Watson, Jack Conklin, Jedrick Wills, Kareem Hunt, etc, guys with a need to keep playing for one reason or another, should.

The rest of the squad should be the surviving players from the last few drafts. Berry’s classes have been bad, and they’re not looking like winners by any means. So the only way to justify keeping them and Berry by proxy is if they can actually produce at some point.

What better time to find out if they can than at the end of the season? Otherwise, we’re just going to keep drafting running backs who don’t play and who want to see yet another running back get drafted who isn’t likely to see action.

Use the remaining time to see what the pups can do.