Todd Monken is hoping for a sweltering summer for his first Browns training camp.
He’ll need all the humidity Northeast Ohio can offer in August to prepare his team for the steam box that awaits them in the first two weeks of the regular season.
In one of the more unusual starts to a Brown season, the schedule-makers sent the Browns to bug-infested Florida for their first two games – at Jacksonville in Week 1 and at Tampa in Week 2.
The Browns have played their first two games of a season on the road 10 times in their history, most recently in 1986. But never have they been deported to bug-infested Florida for back-to-back games in early September, when the heat index regularly exceeds 100 degrees.
Monken has coached in both cities in his NFL career, so he knows what’s in store, weather-wise.
“It’s going be fun to start off the year going against the Jaguars with the turnaround that they had last year,” Monken said in a statement released by the Browns. “And with the Bucs, winning the division four of the last five years, it’s the ultimate challenge.
“Our guys are going to have to be ready because it’s going to be Florida, 1 o’clock, early in the year, so it’s going to be hot. And I wouldn’t want it any other way.”
The back-to-backers in Florida is just one of a few odd quirks the Browns were assigned in the season schedule released by the NFL on Thursday night.
Such as:
* The home opener comes in Week 3 against the Carolina Panthers, perhaps the least attractive home opponent of the season.
* The Browns have 1 o’clock kickoffs for 16 of their 17 games. The exception is their lone prime-time appearance, home against the Pittsburgh Steelers, on Thursday night on Week 4. The game will be streamed on Amazon Prime Video and also carried on a local Cleveland station to be determined.
“There’s nothing like getting a prime-time home game, let alone when you end up with a rival within the division that completely kicks it up a notch,” Monken said. “So, we’re excited, especially that early in the year,” Monken said. “It’s the first divisional game and the only way you can guarantee making the playoffs is to win the division. So obviously, starting off 1-0 in the division will be paramount.”
* The Browns have games against only four teams that qualified for the playoffs in 2025. But three of them come in the first four weeks – Week 1 against Jacksonville, Week 3 against Carolina and Week 4 against Pittsburgh.
* The two trips to the New Jersey swamp lands are spaced in Weeks 5 (against the Jets) and 15 (Giants).
* Monken’s first game against Baltimore, the team he served as offensive coordinator the past three years, comes in Week 6 at home.
* There are three consecutive road games in Weeks 7-9 at Tennessee, at Pittsburgh, and at New Orleans. The Week 8 game in Pittsburgh, where the Browns have suffered 22 consecutive regular-season losses, comes the week after the Steelers play the Saints in Paris, France. So, that’s kind of an edge for the Browns.
“The season is made up of many challenges,” Monken said. “That three-game stretch is going to be tough. If we want to be the team that we think we can become, we’ve got to overcome those challenges.”
* After the three-game road swing comes a five-week homestand – against Houston, then the bye on Week 11, then home games against Las Vegas, Cincinnati and Atlanta. The Falcons game on Week 14 marks former coach Kevin Stefanski’s return to Huntington Bank Field with his new team.
* The Browns better fatten their record in that homestand because their final month features three road games in four weeks. They’re at the Giants, at Baltimore on Christmas weekend, home v. Indianapolis in Week 17, and finish at Cincinnati.
The Bengals game could be flexed to Saturday, January 9, or Sunday, January 10, depending on playoff implications. By then, the AFC North race could be hotly contested – but in a different form from the start of this Browns season.
Preseason: The Browns’ preseason schedule includes a road game in Chicago in preseason Week 1 (date and time to be announced), followed by home games against Buffalo on August 22 (1 p.m.) and against New England on August 27 (8 p.m.).