Owner Jimmy Haslam says Browns aren’t punting on 2026: ‘Take the over’

BEREA, Ohio — Jimmy Haslam says his rebuilding Cleveland Browns are in no way planning to tank or punt on the 2026 season.

Though the franchise owner conceded that the Browns have taken on a future-focused approach that included the June trade of two-time NFL Defensive Player of the Year Myles Garrett, Haslam said Friday that he expects the Browns to win sooner rather than later. That includes immediately improving on the team’s performance from the last two seasons.

“I think the odds (on the season win total) are for us to win 5 1/2 games,” Haslam said. “I’d take the over.”

The Browns’ full training camp opened Wednesday, and most of the external focus is on the quarterback competition between Deshaun Watson and Shedeur Sanders. The Browns acquired 25-year-old defensive end Jared Verse and three future NFL Draft picks, including a 2027 first-rounder, from the Los Angeles Rams in the Garrett trade, and the long-term winner of the quarterback job might not arrive in Cleveland until next April via the 2027 draft.

Speaking to reporters for the first time since late March, Haslam sounded like an owner who was well aware of that, too. Still, he believes in the young core put together by general manager Andrew Berry and the offensive acumen of new head coach Todd Monken.

“We want to be a contending playoff team in 2027,” Haslam said. “That doesn’t mean we can’t make it in ’26.”

Haslam cited the likelihood that the Browns will have “double-digit starters” in their first or second NFL seasons as a reason for choosing “improved expectations” and continued growth as more realistic goals for 2026 than a return to the playoffs.

The Browns went to the playoffs in 2020 and 2023, but they have won just eight games over the past two seasons and fired coach Kevin Stefanski last January. Berry kept his job and got ownership approval to trade Garrett on June 1, the first day the team could spread around $41 million in salary-cap dead money triggered by the trade over multiple seasons.

“It was not an easy decision to trade Myles,” Haslam said. “But we’ve made it, and we’re moving on. We’re excited about (Verse) and those three picks. I think we’ve seen the last two years the value of having those high picks.”

The Browns traded three first-round picks to the Houston Texans in March 2022 for the right to give Watson a fully-guaranteed contract that runs through 2026. Watson has made just 19 starts in four seasons and hasn’t played since October 2024.

In March 2025, Haslam accurately called the Watson trade “a swing and a miss,” but the Browns failed to find a long-term answer at quarterback again last season and still have Watson on the roster in large part because the team still has around $80 million in salary-cap commitments to him after his contract expires. The Browns have had 10 starting quarterbacks since the Watson trade and at least three starters in each of the last three seasons.

Garrett first publicly asked for a trade in early 2025. The Browns instead signed him to an extension. After Garrett set the NFL single-season record with 23 sacks last season, the Browns modified his contract to make a trade more likely.

Earlier this offseason, Berry said the 2026 Browns would likely have one of the league’s youngest rosters and would continue to focus on finding and developing young, foundational players. Berry traded down in the first round in 2025 to acquire an extra 2026 first-round pick, and he drafted linebacker Carson Schwesinger, last season’s NFL Defensive Rookie of the Year, in the second round in 2025.

The Browns appear committed to Berry. For now, they’re giving Watson one more shot and letting Sanders try to prove he’s worth further development. If there’s a quarterback search in early 2027, Haslam and Berry want it to come with a strong young core in place — maybe even one that tops last season’s 5-12 record.

“Certainly, we’ve had a bit of a youth movement here, but that doesn’t necessarily mean every transaction is going to be a 24-year-old player or something along those lines,” Berry said. “I keep saying that young doesn’t necessarily equal bad, (and) I don’t think that (youth) has to be a cop-out for expectation or performance.

“But as we think about it, our goal going into the season is to be a tough and competitive team that develops and plays its best football towards the end. We want to control and focus on the things we can control, because so many things factor in over the course of a year. If we can focus on the narrow set of things within our control — how we prepare every day, how we organize things of that nature — then we believe we’re gonna be happy with what the end of the year looks like.”