As has become the norm on Lake Erie, the Cleveland Browns are having a season from hell. The Browns opened the year with veteran quarterback Joe Flacco as the starting quarterback, but the offense didn’t click the same way it did a couple of seasons ago under Flacco, when he won Comeback Player of the Year with the franchise.
The Browns then pivoted to rookie Dillon Gabriel and traded Flacco to the Cincinnati Bengals, but the results have been just as poor. Cleveland has won just one game under Gabriel, and he has yet to turn in an impressive performance.
Last week, the Browns lost a close game to a New York Jets team that couldn’t get much of anything at all going on offense. Cleveland had a chance to win, but Gabriel failed to come through on a fourth-and-one.
Now, offensive coordinator Tommy Reese is expressing regret for even putting the team in a position where it even needed Gabriel to deliver, according to one prominent team insider.
“Browns OC Tommy Rees said he wishes he could have his 4th-and-1 play call late in the loss to the Jets,” reported ESPN’s Daniel Oyefusi.
“Certainly could have handled that differently and executed it differently,” Reese said. “I should have run the ball.”
> Rees: "I should have run the ball." [https://t.co/1ow7EiqF1P](https://t.co/1ow7EiqF1P)
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> — Daniel Oyefusi (@DanielOyefusi) [November 13, 2025](https://twitter.com/DanielOyefusi/status/1989015408100421976?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw)
Fans reacted to the take on social media.
“I mean DG had two guys open right in front of him so im not sure how you could have handled it any better,” one fan wrote on Twitter.
“From what Brad has said Tommy was a big believer in Gabriel as well. Haven’t seen his name listed on those updates recently, so don’t know how he currently feels, but you get what you ask for,” somoene else added.
It’ll be interesting to see when Cleveland pulls the plug on the Gabriel experiment.