The 2004 Cleveland Browns season was the team's 56th season and 52nd with the

National Football League The National Football League (NFL) is a professional American football league that consists of 32 teams, divided equally between the American Football Conference (AFC) and the National Football Conference (NFC). The NFL is one of the ...

. The Browns were looking to improve on their 5–11 record from 2003 and return to their 2002 playoff position; however, hindered by a tough schedule they regressed further and only won four games. On November 30, Butch Davis resigned as head coach and general manager of the team. He was succeeded by offensive coordinator Terry Robiskie. Robiskie promoted tight end coach Rob Chudzinski to offensive coordinator. On September 12, the Browns defeated the Baltimore Ravens, 20–3, marking the team's only Week 1 win since returning to the NFL in

1999 File:1999 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: The funeral procession of King Hussein of Jordan in Amman; the 1999 İzmit earthquake kills over 17,000 people in Turkey; the Columbine High School massacre, one of the first major school shootin ...

until they defeated the Carolina Panthers in

2022 File:2022 collage V1.png, Clockwise, from top left: Road junction at Yamato-Saidaiji Station several hours after the assassination of Shinzo Abe; 2022 Sri Lankan protests, Anti-government protest in Sri Lanka in front of the Presidential Secretari ...

, 26-24. In the 24 seasons since the Browns returned to the league, the Browns opening week record is 2–20–1.

2004 NFL Draft

Roster

Schedule

Football statistics site ''

Football Outsiders Football Outsiders (FO) is a website started in July 2003 which focuses on advanced statistical analysis of the NFL. The site is run by a staff of regular writers, who produce a series of weekly columns using both the site's in-house statistics ...

'' calculated that the 2004 Browns played the toughest schedule of any NFL team between 1989 and 2013, based on strength of opponent, although ''

Pro Football Reference Pro-Football-Reference.com is a website providing a variety of statistics for American football. It is one of the few sites that provides information on both active and retired players. The site provides statistics for teams dating back to 1920. ...

''''Pro Football Reference'
2004 Cleveland Browns
/ref> argues that their schedule was only the fifth-toughest in this span and twelfth-toughest non-strike since

1971 * The year 1971 had three partial solar eclipses ( February 25, July 22 and August 20) and two total lunar eclipses (February 10, and August 6). The world population increased by 2.1% this year, the highest increase in history. Events Ja ...

.Tougher schedules according to ''Pro Football Reference'' in non-strike seasons since 1971 were suffered by, in descending order of toughness, the 2010 Buffalo Bills, the 1975 Browns and 1975 Jets (equal), the 2009 Tampa Bay Buccaneers, the 2010 Miami Dolphins, the 1979 Cincinnati Bengals, the 1977 Kansas City Chiefs, the 1973 San Francisco 49ers, and lastly by the 1991 Phoenix Cardinals and 2015 San Francisco 49ers (equal). The Browns played just one game – their Week 16 contest against the Miami Dolphins – against a team with fewer than six wins, and played five against opponents with 12 or more wins, including a total of three against Steelers and Patriots who were a combined 28–2 against their remaining opponents. Apart from their

AFC North The American Football Conference – Northern Division or AFC North is one of the four divisions of the American Football Conference (AFC) in the National Football League (NFL). The division was adopted after the restructuring of the 2002 NFL s ...

division games, the Browns played against the

AFC East The American Football Conference – Eastern Division or AFC East is one of the four Division (sport), divisions of the American Football Conference (AFC) in the National Football League (NFL). There are currently four teams that reside in the d ...

and

NFC East The National Football Conference – Eastern Division or NFC East is one of the four Division (sport), divisions of the National Football Conference (NFC) in the National Football League (NFL). It currently has four members: the Dallas Cowboys ...

according to the conference rotation, and played the Chargers and Texans based on 2003 divisional positions.

Standings

Notes

References

External links

2004 Cleveland Browns
at Pro Football Reference (Profootballreference.com)
2004 Cleveland Browns Statistics
at jt-sw.com
2004 Cleveland Browns Schedule
at jt-sw.com

at DatabaseFootball.com

Cleveland Cleveland ( ), officially the City of Cleveland, is a city in the U.S. state of Ohio and the county seat of Cuyahoga County. Located in the northeastern part of the state, it is situated along the southern shore of Lake Erie, across the U.S. ...

Cleveland Browns seasons

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