Browns coach Hue Jackson has won one game in two seasons with the team, so it’s no surprise that he wants “to turn the page on that as fast as we can.”
Thanks to the moves overseen by General Manager John Dorsey this offseason, Jackson thinks he has a roster suited to that task. Jackson believes the players brought into the team “a good mix” when it comes to previous NFL success and players still on their way up as well. He also believes they are more talented across the board.
“If you look across the locker room, every position group has been upgraded with more talent,” Jackson said, via Albert Breer of SI.com. “It’s everywhere. That in itself, when you look from one guy to the next, they can see it, there’s been more talent brought on to this football team. ... I’ve been in this for a while, so there are things you can tell. I’m not ever going to say our team is not good enough, or we’re not this or not that. We’ll know when we get to training camp. But I do know there’s talent on this football team. And I think that’s obvious. If you look around the roster, there’s been some players who’ve been really good players on other teams.”
If there’s an area to quibble with Jackson’s assessment, it would be at tackle due to Joe Thomas’ retirement but it’s hard not to see the upgrades in other areas. The Browns overhauled their secondary, brought in two new running backs, traded for wide receiver Jarvis Landry and took quarterback Baker Mayfield with the first overall pick to go with Tyrod Taylor.
That’s a lot of new pieces and they come with new expectations of success that Jackson hasn’t had to deal with the last two years. Falling short could mean a focus on changes to other areas of the organization in 2019.
