CLEVELAND -- Cleveland Browns general manager John Dorsey has been in his current role for only four months, but he is a quick study of the past, and recent history has not been kind to football fans in Cleveland.
Heading into the 2018 NFL Draft, which is just one week away, Dorsey is committed to rewriting that history sooner rather than later.
“This is an important draft for this organization and the community of Cleveland,” Dorsey said in his pre-draft press conference Thursday.
With a season-ending loss to the Pittsburgh Steelers at Heinz Field on New Year’s Eve 2017, the Browns went winless in a 16-game schedule for the first time in franchise history, and their 17th consecutive loss overall dropped the organization to a league-worst 1-31 since the opening game of 2016.
The Browns have not won on a Sunday afternoon since December 13, 2015, and those 33 straight Sunday losses are an NFL record.
Last season, the Browns set the record for the worst 28-game stretch in NFL history, as they “bested” the previous mark of 2-26 set by the expansion Tampa Bay Buccaneers during the 1976-1977 seasons with a 1-27 mark that got four losses worse after Week 13.
Over the last four-plus years, the Browns have gone 4-49, which is the worst mark in the league in that timespan, and the record has not been much better since Dee and Jimmy Haslam officially purchased the team in October of 2012.
In five seasons under the Haslams’ majority ownership, the Browns have posted an NFL-worst 15-65 record. Factoring in the remaining games of the 2012 season after the sale was approved at an NFL Owners Meeting in Chicago, the Browns have gone 19-70.
“We all know that the Cleveland Browns’ fan base is as good as there is in the National Football League, and I understand the passion of why they’re so good,” Dorsey said.
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Currently, the Browns hold nine selections in the 2018 NFL Draft, including the Nos. 1 and 4 picks in the first round, as well as the Nos. 1, 3 and 32 choices in round two. Additionally, the Browns have one pick each in the fourth (No. 14) and fifth (No. 13) rounds, along with two sixth-round choices (Nos. 1 and 14).
“I was reading a book somewhere where the original 11 teams in the National Football League, I was going through this and I found it fascinating that five of those 11 teams were all from Ohio,” Dorsey said. “It just shows you the importance of football in this community.
“All I can tell them is it won’t be from a lack of hard work. We’re going to do our due-diligence in terms of trying to bring really good football players here and awaken the sleeping giant. We’re going to wake this thing. That’s how I look at it.”
