HOW MANY PRIMETIME GAMES WILL THE BROWNS HAVE IN 2024?

The Cleveland Browns are taking a step up in class when it comes to their opponents in 2024.

Out are the Tennessee Titans and quarterback Ryan Tannehill, the Indianapolis Colts (Gardner Minshew), the Arizona Cardinals (Clayton Tune), the Chicago Bears (Justin Fields), the Houston Texans (David Mills), and the New York Jets (Trevor Siemian).

In their place is a schedule filled with the Kansas City Chiefs (Patrick Mahomes), the Los Angeles Chargers (Justin Herbert), the Dallas Cowboys (Dak Prescott), the Miami Dolphins (Tua Tagovailoa), the Philadelphia Eagles (Jalen Hurts), the Atlanta Falcons (Kirk Cousins), and the Cincinnati Bengals with a healthy Joe Burrow. (Well, that last one probably doesn’t matter as much.)

A high-profile schedule combined with a team coming off a playoff appearance puts the Browns in line for the national spotlight when the NFL releases the 2024 schedule later this month.

Cleveland was once a popular choice for primetime games, having hosted the very first Monday Night Football game in 1970, and fans could always plan to see the Browns under the lights consistently up through the 1995 season.

The number of available primetime and/or national games has grown over the years as the NFL now plays on Sunday nights, Monday nights, Thursday nights, Black Friday, and again this year with a Christmas Day doubleheader.

So which games might put the Browns in the best position for a primetime or national TV spot this fall?

The AFC North will likely be as competitive as always, so the games against the Baltimore Ravens, Pittsburgh Steelers, and Bengals are a solid option.

Looking outside the division, the networks want the Chiefs and the Cowboys in the spotlight as much as possible, so both of those games will be up for, at the very least, the late afternoon Sunday slot if not in primetime.

For a while, it looked like the Browns would be opening the season in Brazil against the Eagles, but the league chose the Green Bay Packers instead. That could leave the Browns looking at a trip to London to take on the Jacksonville Jaguars.

The home game with the Dolphins could also be in play as the league could hype the matchup between Cleveland’s secondary and Miami’s passing attack, with the bonus of Odell Beckham Jr.’s return to Cleveland for a “revenge” game. (OBJ was unsurprisingly inactive when the Browns hosted his former team, the Ravens, last season.)

The Browns landed a pair of primetime games last season, and given a strong schedule this season, let’s go with the league bumping that up to three - a divisional game on a Thursday night, a home Sunday night game against the Chiefs or Cowboys, and either a Monday night game against the Eagles or the London trip to face the Jaguars.

It would not be a surprise to see the home games against the Chargers, Dolphins, and either the Steelers or Ravens, find their way into the late afternoon window as well.

2024-05-07T13:09:15Z dg43tfdfdgfd