The Cleveland Browns have never appeared in the Super Bowl and have only made the playoffs once in the past 20 years, but tight end David Njoku told ESPN that the 2023/24 season will be their best yet.
Nigerian-American Njoku has been with the Browns since he was drafted from the Miami Hurricanes in 2017, and was part of the team that made the playoffs in 2020/21 for the first time in 18 years.
“I’m going on year seven now as an NFL player throughout my career – college and the professional leagues… I feel like this year, we have all the tools necessary to achieve greatness,” Njoku told ESPN.
“I’ve recently been taking more and more of a leadership role and it’s not so much for personal attributes but bringing your teammates along with you for success. I watch more in-depth… I see things progress and I see chemistry go through the roof.
“Even though the season hasn’t even started yet, we’ve taken large strides in the right direction with knowing your teammate, knowing your coach, knowing each player.
“Everything has aligned in the right way and organically at that, so I’m just really excited and I know everyone loves talking about what they can achieve, but I’d rather just show this year that we’re a force to be reckoned with.”
The franchise was the most successful in the country in the 1940s All-America Football Conference (AAFC) with four championships, which they followed up with four more in the early days of the NFL prior to the merger with the American Football League (AFL) in 1970.
However, since the first Super Bowl championship game in January 1967, the Browns have been absent from the showpiece.
Their preseason has been patchy, recording one win, one tie, and two defeats in four games. They will take solace from the scorelines in the losses though, losing by one to the Kansas City Chiefs, and two to the Washington Commanders this weekend.
While Njoku is preparing for an intense year on the field, he has equally important goals off it as he attempts to grow The Uprise Flag Football League in his family’s country of origin, Nigeria.
He is one of the team owners in the league, which is part of New York Giants legend Osi Umenyiora’s efforts to spearhead the growth of the NFL in Africa. Others include Romeo Okwara, Emmanuel Ogbah and Maurice Jones-Drew.
“He (Umenyiora) was the one who reached out to me with the idea and I loved it – the best first step to create even bigger and better things out there in Nigeria to do with American football,” Njoku said.
“Ideally, the massive plan is to somehow come up with a way that we play NFL games in Nigeria or just in Africa in general. If we play NFL games anywhere in Africa, that’s a huge step in the right direction.
“But this flag football league, I believe, was just aired on national television in Nigeria for the first time recently. We know that we’re far from getting done, but these are great steps in the right direction.
“Baby steps. I’m just saying that my father always said that before you walk, you crawl, and before you run, you walk. We’re just trying to make things possible for people that don’t have the same resources that I myself had growing up with everything I’ve been dealt with.”
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Since Umenyiora started The Uprise and began hosting camps across Africa in 2021, all seven prospects to come through his mentorship and graduate from the NFL International Player Pathway (IPP) Program have been Nigerian – Roy Mbaeteka, Kehinde Oginni Hassan, Haggai Ndubuisi, CJ Okoye, David Ebuka Agoha, Chukwuebuka Godrick and Kenneth Odumegwu.
“I think we’ve come a long way. I think there’s a bunch of Nigerian football players before me that made a great impact and God willing, there will be a bunch after me that will make a great impact,” Njoku said.
“I’m sure there’s many, many people in Nigeria that’s been watching American football since they were little kids that just never got the chance to showcase what they can do. There are players out there who have got crazy ability that can do what NFL coaches and owners want players to do.
“There’s also players that have raw talent that with the proper understanding and training can be exceptional players. The first step was just to get a foot in the door to show that we have talent.
“Obviously myself – I’m Nigerian – and there’s many Nigerian athletes in all sports throughout the world that are excelling at such a high level.
“We all know that Nigerians as a whole are very athletic; we’re intelligent and we know how to achieve tasks at hand. It’s just a matter of showcasing more talent that can be utilized for the good.”
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