Column: 0-16 or not: Browns finally have direction

As the Cleveland Browns go charging toward 0-16, I cannot be upset.

Sure, I can be disappointed the Browns, particularly in the early season, lost a few close games or more recently were barely competitive in double-digit losses.

I can be disappointed Corey Coleman's rookie season was interrupted by injury at a critical juncture. I can be disappointed the Browns have lost 22 of their past 23 games, putting the 7-4 start from the 2014 season in the distant past.

I, however, cannot be upset.

I applauded the direction the Browns chose to go during the offseason. For most of the past 17 seasons, the Browns signed aging free agents and combined them with high draft picks, hoping, praying to get to nine wins and a wild card berth.

The Browns reached nine wins twice and the playoffs once. Usually, the Browns have re-lived the same season where they would trudge their way to 4-6 or 5-7 only to see injuries pile up and the season roll downhill, becoming a lump of coal under the tree by Christmas.

A year ago, the Browns had one of the oldest rosters in the NFL and finished 3-13. This season, they have the youngest and will finish not far from it.

In 1999, the Browns went for the quick fix. They attempted to pair veteran free agents with rookie skill players in hopes of being Carolina and Jacksonville, which a few years earlier each reached the conference title games in their second season.

Instead, it began this never-ending cycle. The veterans washed out of the league within a couple of years at the same time it was deemed time for a new coach and a new batch of rookie skill players.

The Browns finally said no more and gone were past-his-prime Donte Whitner and past-his-barely prime Dwayne Bowe. The Browns dove headfirst into a new approach of building from the ground up with young players across the board.

Was it without risk? Of course not. The approach to turn to analytics depending on your perspective either was an attempt to be ahead of the curve as the NFL catches up with MLB or NBA in the use of data-driven analysis, or it was a Hail Mary not dissimilar from the one Tim Couch completed against the Saints to give the "New Browns" their first win in 1999.

Without that win and an inexplicable one in Pittsburgh of all places a few weeks later, that team would have gone 0-16. This team might unless a fire-breathing Robert Griffin III returns to action Sunday, the Bengals realize their nightmarish season is beyond saving or if Mother Nature decides to give the Browns one as she did for their key snow-filled victory against Buffalo in 2007.

With the Browns, we have seen 4-12 and 2-14. We have not seen 0-16. We have not seen long-term success either, and I have hitched my wagon to the current approach.

I am ready to see it through, and I hope the Browns are, too.

Kurt Snyder is a sports writer for The Advocate. Tell him what you think at ksnyder@newarkadvocate.com.