Jimmy Haslam 'highly confident' that this is the year the Browns turn it around

The Browns owner says there's a different vibe in the building, despite just four wins in two seaons

The Browns are one of the worst franchises in professional football. To their credit, they are trying to fix that, though this has been a recurring theme since the team returned to the NFL in 1999. But owner Jimmy Haslam, who took over in 2012, feels like the organization is finally on the right track, thanks in no small part to coach Hue Jackson and a front office stocked with Harvard grads, including a former Major League Baseball general manager.

"The difference between this year and last year in terms of feeling in the building is noticeably different," Haslam said, via the Akron Beacon Journal's Nate Ulrich. "We were able to obviously to bring in some top-flight talent during the offseason, have what we believe to be a very successful draft and I'm highly confident that this will be the year when the Browns begin to turn around and perform at the level they should. I'm highly, highly confident we got the right guy to lead the ship, and that's head coach Hue Jackson."

That "top-flight talent" includes wide receiver Kenny Britt and offensive linemen JC Tretter and Kevin Zeitler. The Browns also landed three first-round picks -- edge rusher Myles Garrett, safety Jabrill Peppers and tight end David Njoku -- as well as potential quarterback of the future DeShone Kizer in Round 2. On paper, this team doesn't resemble the outfit that went 3-13 in 2015 or just 1-15 a season ago. And that's a welcome development for Haslam -- and Jackson, who has no interest in reliving all the recent losing.

"I don't even want to talk about last year, what [foundation] was set, because a lot of stuff wasn't set," the second-year coach said. "I do feel better about [this year]. Our draft shows that we've put more quality talent on our team. I think it showed last year that our guys understood our process, and they worked hard. We just couldn't seem to win because of it.

"Now, hopefully we have enough talent to where we can finish games and finish games better and finishing hopefully leads to winning. But at the end of day, all of this is about winning. It's not about anything else. We need to see tangible wins in order for this organization to be moving forward."

For all the new faces, the Browns' biggest issue remains at quarterback where 2016 third-rounder Cody Kessler is the front-runner for the job. Kessler started eight games last season, so he has some experience, but he was 0-8 in those starts. Brock Osweiler, who was acquired in a trade this spring, is also an option, though he flamed out in record fashion during his one season in Houston.

Ideally, the Browns will continue to improve in 2017, and can look to a quarterback-stacked 2018 NFL Draft to find the final piece to a puzzle that has been two decades in the making.

For now, the rebuilding continues. And despite falling woefully short of expectations in 2016, reasons for optimism remain. Just consider what Haslam said last August: "We could win four or five games and feel good about things or we could win eight. We'll all know when we stand here on Jan. 1st if we're improving. We're going to have a young team.''

The Browns won once and yet we can't remember the last there was this much excitement about professional football in Cleveland.