And it’s been a long time coming too.
“We have been treating each and every week like a playoff game,” interim head coach Gregg Williams said.
It starts this weekend when they host the Carolina Panthers, who have seen their season completely fall apart having lost their last four games following a 6-2 start, and they can do significant damage to Carolina’s playoff hopes with a victory.
“These are elimination games, almost mini playoff games,” left guard and longest tenured Brown on the active roster Joel Bitonio said. “We’re trying to take it a week at a time and beat the Panthers and maybe kick them out of the playoffs in the NFC.”
The Browns, by the slimmest of margins, still remain mathematically alive for the playoffs as well at 4-7-1.
“We’re still alive,” safety Damarious Randall said. “I feel like if we win out, I feel like things will work itself out and we will end up in the playoffs.”
For the Browns to make the playoffs Randall is right, they must win out, and then do a lot of hoping and praying to the football gods seeing as they are 12th in the conference.
They know it too.
“We need a lot of things to happen, we understand that,” safety Briean Boddy-Calhoun said. “But the only way we can get in there is if we clean shot. We gotta win every single game from here on out.”
Making the stretch run even more enticing is the fact that all four opponents remaining on the Browns’ 2018 schedule remain in the playoff hunt.
“We’re all about trying to have the best record, 8-7-1,” Boddy-Calhoun said. “Right now that’s all we got on our mind: 8-7-1. We can only do that by taking it one game at a time and that starts with Carolina on Sunday.”
Carolina comes to town as the seventh seed in the NFC and desperate for a win but the players are trying to keep the focus on themselves, and what they can still accomplish and what they can prevent their opponents from achieving.
“We’ve got the opportunity to finish 8-7-1 and I’m sure if I would’ve told you all guys that before the season, you all probably would’ve laughed at me,” Randall said. “It is definitely a lot of positives to take up out of this season, but we’re still pushing forward and we’re definitely still looking for that last playoff spot.”
If Cleveland wins out, they’d finish a season above .500 for the first time since 2007 when the team went 10-6, and it would mark just the third time since 1999 they avoided a losing record.
The Browns will travel next Saturday to 6-6 Denver. The Broncos are 10th in the AFC behind the Colts (6-6), Dolphins (6-6) and Titans (7-6), who are on the outside looking in.
The 5-7 Bengals, who visit Dec. 23, are a spot ahead of the Browns, No. 11 in the AFC.
Baltimore, where Cleveland will end the regular season this year, currently holds the sixth and final playoff spot. The Ravens are 7-5.
“If we’re going home, somebody gotta come home with is,” Boddy-Calhoun said. “That’s how we think about it. Oh, if we’re not going to the playoffs neither are ya’ll. We want everyone to have that sour taste if we have it.”
A win over Cincinnati or Baltimore would secure the first winning record within the AFC North for the Browns since the division was formed in 2002.
While the playoffs for Cleveland feel like a pipe dream, there’s still a lot to play for this month.
“It’s cool to be in December playing meaningful games,” Bitonio said. “It’s fun, man. Anytime you can win some more games and the last couple of years we only won one game so if we can get close to .500 or above .500 would be a cool thing for us.”