Cleveland, OH (92.3 The Fan) – The Browns 2019 schedule, along with the rest of the league’s, will be unveiled Wednesday at 8 p.m. the NFL announced Tuesday.
It is expected that the Browns will receive at least one prime time game per network, which means they’ll play on Thursday night for Fox as well as appear on NBC’s Sunday night football and ESPN’s Monday night football.
They’ll also likely be scheduled multiple times in the prime Sunday 4:15 window.
Rumors and speculation have swirled that they’ll open the season at New York against the Jets Monday, September 9, which makes perfect sense with this not only being the 100th season for the NFL but the 50th season of Monday Night Football and the two teams played in the inaugural game in 1970 at Cleveland Municipal Stadium. Throw in a Baker Mayfield-Sam Darnold matchup and Jets defensive coordinator Gregg Williams going against his former team and it might be too juicy for ESPN and the league to pass up.
Book a divisional game either against the Steelers or Ravens for prime time and with a trip to New England and the defending NFC champion Los Angeles Rams coming to Cleveland, those are two more games that have the networks itching to carry them at night.
This season the Browns will face four playoff teams from 2018 – at the defending Super Bowl champion Patriots and host the team they beat in Super Bowl LIII – the Rams – as well as the Seattle Seahawks at home and of course they’ll play a home and home against the AFC North champion Ravens.
The Buffalo Bills, Miami Dolphins and Tennessee Titans will also visit Cleveland while the Browns will also travel to Denver, San Francisco and Arizona outside of divisional play.
The combined record of their upcoming 16 opponents last season was 123-131-2. The .484 combined winning percentage gives the Browns the 23rd most difficult schedule – or the sixth-easiest schedule – in the league this coming season.
In 2018 the Browns played the fifth-toughest schedule in the league, playing six games against playoff teams and their opponents combined to go 131-123-2.
As Freddie Kitchens makes his NFL head coaching debut for Cleveland, the Browns will face five teams that have new head coaches – Miami, the Jets, Bengals, Arizona and Denver.
Much is expected of the Browns, who finished the 2018 season winning five of their last seven games to go 7-8-1, their best season since a 7-9 mark in 2014 and 10-6 campaign in 2007 and ending the longest playoff drought in the NFL – 16 years and counting – won’t be easy.
Wednesday night we’ll find out how tough that road will be this fall.
