Coach Todd Monken prioritizes home-field recovery over Florida’s heat, as Cleveland Browns prepare to open season with back-to-back Florida road games
In a rare scheduling quirk, the Cleveland Browns will open up the 2026 season on the road for back-to-back games in Weeks 1 and 2, both of which send the franchise into the Florida heat to face the Jacksonville Jaguars and then the Tampa Bay Buccaneers.
It's fairly common in the NFL that when a team plays consecutive games in a certain region of the country, they sometimes stay there for the week of practice in between.
For example, back in 2024, the Browns played back-to-back games in Denver, then Los Angeles and ultimately flew to LA and practiced there for a week before facing the Chargers.
Fast forward to 2026 and some people wondered if first-year head coach Todd Monken would try something similar during the first two weeks of the season. But the 60-year-old coach quickly shot that idea down and explained why this week.
“Not really. It’s not that far of a trip, West Coast is a little bit different in terms of the travel and the time, we’re in the same time," Monken said.
While the time zone point is a good one, there is at least one other reason why an extended stay in Florida would have made some sense.
"The only thing would have been the weather, could’ve been that," Monken explained. "But there’s a lot of logistics that go into that. You balance sleeping in your own bed, being here, as opposed to the weather. We balanced it and said we’re coming back.”
There certainly could have been some minor benefits to the Browns staying in Florida after the season opener against the Jags. Instead, they'll fly back home to prepare for a highly anticipated matchup with ex-Browns QB Baker Mayfield and the Bucs.
Ironically, Cleveland has had its very own taste of Florida weather this past week with an extended summer heat wave lingering over the last few days. In light of those first two games of the season, Monken appreciated the extra days of summer.
"What a blessing yesterday was, being out there where the heat index, whatever the hell they call it, ‘feels like’, was in the 90s," he said. "Tried to tell everyone it is a blessing. It won’t feel like that today, but it will be when we play next week."
Coaches tend to take advantage of even the smallest advantages to help their team win. Clearly, Monken believes the advantages of staying in Florida weren't enough of warrant sticking around in between the team's first two games.
