How early is too early to start cheering for draft picks?

It can be crushingly difficult to root against your team. Folks frequently complain that it’s anti-fanlike to cheer for your team’s opponent, and it often feels traitorous to do so.

So what’s worse: the feeling of faithlessness you get when you bail on the season and hope for a high pick, or the feeling of hopelessness you experience when your team does absolutely nothing that could cause you to have any faith in them? It’s really up to the individual to make that determination.

If the season ended today (and for Browns fans it feels like it has), the Dawgs would be in position to draft second overall, behind only the Patriots. Can they get to No. 1?

Weakness of schedule is the key determining factor separating teams with identical records. And at the moment C.town is tied at 1-5 with New England, Jacksonville, and Carolina; the Rams and Titans each have just one win also, but they’ve already had bye weeks — making them 1-4.

To begin the season, using last year’s winning percentages, the Browns were anticipated to have the hardest schedule in the league. Using projected win totals from oddsmakers for 2024, the Pats have the most difficult schedule (buoyed by the supreme optimism of the betting public in the Jets). The Browns have the fourth toughest schedule by this metric.

Using the first criterion, Tennessee was tied for 10th easiest; using the second metric, their path is fifth hardest. And they share a division with another of the one-win clubs: the Jags. The Panthers’ schedule will be more difficult than last season’s record would lead one to believe because of improvements within a division that was marked by relative futility throughout. It seems more probable — compared to the others on the list — that Los Angeles will pull itself from this quagmire of fruitless inefficacy.

I personally don’t want to be told how to be a fan and I don’t want to tell anyone else how to either. Any way in which we can hope they improve and be more competitive seems like a better path than the road paved with dung they’ve been dragging the fanbase through for six weeks.

At this stage it certainly seems less likely that they’ll turn things around and compete for a playoff spot than for them to continue circling the drain and flirt with drafting first overall. And their refusal to make obvious changes that could benefit the team this season makes it seem as though they’re aiming for the latter.

—@PoisonPill4