Pro Football Network has the Cleveland Browns pegged with the third-worst chance of winning the AFC North in 2026, a reminder that the franchise’s rebound may still have a long climb ahead. Cleveland won five games last season, but the new projection frames Week 1 of the 2026 NFL season as the start of another year in which the Browns are expected to take plenty of losses.
That is why Browns Depth Chart searches are drawing attention now: the question is not whether Cleveland changed, but whether those changes were enough. Almost everything has changed for the Browns, and the roster is said to have improved this offseason, yet the division outlook still leaves them behind most of the field. The gap matters because the club’s 2026 season is being measured not just against improvement, but against whether that improvement can move them from the bottom of the AFC North toward relevance.
The rest of the division helps explain why the Browns are not being given much credit. The AFC North was down last year for a variety of reasons, including injuries, and three of the four teams fired their coaches. Zac Taylor was the only coach who stayed in place, while Mike McCarthy arrived as the new head coach of the Pittsburgh Steelers. If Joe Burrow and Lamar Jackson are healthy, the Cincinnati Bengals and Baltimore Ravens should be more competitive in 2026, which makes the path for Cleveland even narrower.
That is what gives the projection its bite. Pro Football Network is not saying the Browns cannot win the division; it is saying they are still being treated like a long shot even after the roster changes that were supposed to lift them. Cleveland is one of eight teams that finished at the bottom of its division last year, and the flat answer from the odds is that the market does not yet believe the rebuild has closed the distance.
The Browns’ season will not be decided by a projection in June or July, but the starting point is plain: they enter 2026 carrying the weight of five victories, a reshaped roster and a division that looks stronger than it did a year ago. If Cleveland is going to turn those changes into a title run, it will have to prove that the numbers missed something important.
