The Cleveland Browns have had a poor record for a historically long time. Most fans say that the team is “close” to being on the next level, but others see zero signs of them being “close” in any aspects of the game.

For starters, the Browns have had 23 different starting quarterbacks since 2000. Even for people who do not understand a touchdown from a field goal, they can probably figure out this is not a good stat for the team.

It is not like any of the quarterbacks have had much potential either. Quarterback Brady Quinn had very high hopes coming into Cleveland. Fans believed he could have been the quarterback to take them to the next level; however, in 12 games, Quinn posted a 3-9 record.

All the blame cannot go on the quarterback, just like all the praise cannot go towards him. The quarterback needs to be surrounded with offensive weapons or a good defense in order to succeed. Neither of these have been the case. The Browns had high hopes in star wide receiver Josh Gordon. This was, of course, was until he could not stop smoking marijuana and found himself getting suspended more than he was actually playing. While Joe Haden has been a lockdown corner for the past five years, he has fallen off a cliff his past two seasons. This is due to him just getting burnt too often by Steeler wide receiver Antonio Brown or just getting injured every one out of every three games.

The signing of wide receivers Dwayne Bowe and Brian Hartline were supposed to bring life to the Browns offense. They have done just about everything but that. The Browns have virtually zero weapons on the offensive side of the ball. If they had decided to trade away Joe Thomas before the trade deadline, some would come close to saying that their defense has more of a chance to score than the offense.

The defense has had tons of problems all year. They had high expectations coming into the season, and they did not meet any of them. The Browns rank in the bottom three for almost every category of run defense. They give up the most amount of yards and are bottom three in touchdowns and yards per carry.

It is just silly to say that the Brown’s are “close” to anything really. They do not have much potential to do anything unless they hire guys who know how to find players out of college who will succeed. No one knew the likes of Time Brady; however, picking Justin Gilbert and Johnny Manziel over Odell Beckham JR and Khalil Mack is just not going to get it done. Unless of course, the organization secretly wants to lose, because sometimes it honestly looks as so.