From the moment coach Hue Jackson arrived in Cleveland this past January, he’s been telling the Browns they must “expect to win.”
The slogan is emblazoned on a wall of the team’s renovated training facility in a hallway connecting the locker room and practice fields. It’s on a banner hanging in the field house at team headquarters. It’s a frequent sound bite from Jackson.
Yet the Browns (0-5) will be the NFL’s only winless team when they face the Tennessee Titans (2-3) beginning at 1 p.m. Sunday at Nissan Stadium.
“Everybody is frustrated,” wide receiver Terrelle Pryor said. “But this is the time that we have to stick together and keep fighting because if we don’t quit, good things are going to come.”
For now, Jackson is holding his ultra-young team together. But at some point, players must win to remain convinced the franchise’s plan is working.
“It would validate everything,” Jackson said. “If you build the foundation right, there is all kind of other things we can point to, too, as well. I want to win as bad as anybody. The players do, too, and they deserve it. But no one is going to just hand us a game. We are going to have to go take what we want and go earn the right to win.”
Jackson inherited a 3-13 team. Then the new regime led by head of football operations Sashi Brown, chief strategy officer Paul DePodesta and Jackson discarded several veteran players in the offseason as part of an aggressive rebuild and youth movement.
Outsiders didn’t expect the Browns to be close to good heading into this season, and no one could have accounted for the roster being decimated by injuries to the extent it has been.
But none of those factors diminishes the importance of winning as Jackson attempts to change the organization’s culture.
“No one wants to lose or likes losing,” special teams coordinator Chris Tabor said. “I just beat my daughter last night in checkers and loved it. To win, you have to do things right, and we are teaching them. The culture here is great. What Coach [Jackson] is instilling in the players has been unbelievable. ... When we get that taste of winning, it will be infectious.”
Examples surround the Browns. The Cavaliers are NBA champions, and the Indians are knocking on the door of the World Series.
The phrase “only in Cleveland” used to refer to the misery and bad luck of the city’s professional sports teams, but it’s been replaced by “only the Browns.”
“It is nice to watch the city react to the sports teams here doing a great job, and that is where we want to get,” defensive coordinator Ray Horton said. “So we are working as hard as we can to be just like the Cavs and the Indians and make everybody proud.”
It’s going to be a while. The Browns have lost their past seven games and 14 of their last 15 dating back to the 2015 season. The Browns are 7.5-point underdogs against Titans and, should they lose, it would be their worst start to a season since the 1999 expansion team began 0-7.
“I don’t sleep well,” Horton said. “[But] most days that I come in, my drive in, I think that we are one day closer to the playoffs. That is what absolutely fuels me here is that we are one day closer to the playoffs. Hue has been an unbelievable head coach as far as structure, excitement, energy and passion. It trickles down.”
Jackson has said he doesn’t want his young players to grow accustomed to losing. Keeping them from falling into the trap is easier said than done when they haven’t won.
“You’ve got a standard,” cornerback Jamar Taylor said. “All the things that got us into losing positions you can’t accept it. You can’t make it seem like it’s OK. You have to push for excellence. As long as the coaches demand that and the older players and players like me demand it, I think we’ll never get used to it. I’m never going to get used to it. It’s not fun. It’s not what we play for. It’s not what you want to be known as.”
Players must make a concerted effort to avoid complacency.
“Losses come. How are we going to change that?” Pryor said. “You’ve got to keep fighting. Just because we’re losing, I’m not a loser. ... It doesn’t make your mindset. Guys are mad.”
Cornerback Tramon Williams conceded the morale of the locker room could be in serious danger if the losses continue to stack up, though he’s hopeful it’ll endure.
“I feel the vibe of this team,” Williams said. “We’re going to stick together, and we’re going to keep it together no matter whether we get a win this Sunday or after that.”
Remember, the Browns didn’t even experience winning in the preseason. The exhibition games don’t count, but going 0-4 in them still doesn’t feel good.
They’ve come close to winning three times in the regular season but suffered heartbreaking defeats to Baltimore, Miami and Washington in consecutive games.
So a first victory would work wonders for the psyches of the players, even the eternal optimists like Pryor.
“Once you get the taste of winning, you never know,” Pryor said. “Six weeks in, we’re 0-5. Let’s go to the next one, try to get the next one. As far as I’m concerned, just like everybody else, we still have a chance to make the playoffs. As long as you keep that mindset and that togetherness that we’re going to keep fighting and start plugging at this thing, you never know what can transpire.”
Nate Ulrich can be reached at nulrich@thebeaconjournal.com. Read the Browns blog at www.ohio.com/browns. Follow him on Twitter at www.twitter.com/NateUlrichABJ.