CLEVELAND, Ohio (92.3 The Fan) – Joel Bitonio has heard the stories from back in the day where once upon a time the Browns were a force to be reckoned with.
Unfortunately, since being drafted in the second round of the 2014 NFL Draft, Bitonio has endured just about everything with the Browns, except being a legitimate playoff contender.
Until this year.
“It feels good,” Bitonio said Thursday. “I know the Browns fans and the community has been behind this team and has experienced winning, obviously way back when but even in the 80’s and stuff when they were making runs to the championship games and stuff, there’s a tradition of winning.
“You want to be part of that turnaround. We’ve been through a few GMs and a few head coaches and stuff and hopefully now this is the norm.”
To his point, Kevin Stefanski is Bitonio’s fourth full-time head coach and Andrew Berry is the team’s fourth top football executive over that span.
Stefanski has preached one day, one game at a time since walking in the door in January and his message has taken hold within the locker room – or on Zoom.
“We are worried about right here now,” quarterback Baker Mayfield said. “We have a big picture mindset – there is no doubt about that, and I would lying to you if I said otherwise – but we have a very singular-game focus week to week.
“We have a great matchup against the Titans, and this game is an AFC matchup that obviously means a lot. We know that.”
During Bitonio’s rookie year the Browns got a taste of the playoff race at 6-3 before losing their six of their final seven games and the franchise going of the deep end to lose 50 of their next 55 games overall.
“Obviously that season didn’t end the way we wanted it to,” Bitonio said. “But you felt the excitement in Weeks 10, 11 and 12 that year and then it obviously fell off a cliff.”
Times have gotten better for Bitonio and the Browns over the least three years.
Since 2018, the Browns are a .500 team – 21-21-1.
Coincidently that’s the same year Mayfield was drafted No. 1 overall.
Mayfield and the Browns enter the month of December 8-3, the best record for the franchise in 26 years, and with an opportunity to clinch a playoff berth for the first time in 18, which would end the league’s longest drought.
“This is the stretch of the season where every game counts and every play counts,” Mayfield said. “You have to make these moments count. These are the things that we have been trying to build up to, and we are here now. We are in the middle of it so let’s seize the moment.”
If the playoffs were to start this weekend, the Browns would be the top Wild Card in the AFC and the No. 5 seed, but there's a lot of football to be played.
“We know that we’ve got to take it one game at a time and that our position isn’t set in stone,” receiver Jarvis Landry, who is coming off his best game of the season – 143 yards and a TD last week, said. “We still have to go out here and win games and play good football.”
The critics will say the Browns haven’t beaten anybody because they’re 7-0 against teams below .500 and 1-3 against those above it and in contention.
A big test awaits Sunday in Tennessee where the Titans are also 8-3 but leading the AFC South.
“We’re definitely going to have our hands full,” Landry said. “We’re excited for the challenge. We’re excited about the opportunity and again, I still feel and believe that our best football is going to be in these last couple months, and it has to be.
“It’s no secret the best teams or the better teams are the teams that go on their run and those runs start in November and December.”
