How does 12-5 sound?

Predicting how a National Football League team will do throughout the course of a 17-game season is hazardous at best, disastrous at worst.

Take, for example, the Browns' 2017 season. Who in their right mind would have foreseen an 0-16 season as a followup to the 1-15 monumental disaster the year before? Not even -- and you'll excuse the expression -- Hue Jackson.

Your friendly and curmudgeonly prognosticator that season was bursting with optimism -- confidently and foolishly -- believing the Browns would improve from 1-15 to 3-13. Little did I know -- an expression Jackson absentmindedly probably used throughout the season -- how really awful that team was.

As it turned out, and while fewer and fewer fans were paying anything that resembled attention at the time, the nadir had been reached. The corner was slowly being turned. 

See ya Hue arrived midway through 2018. Howdy interim head coach Gregg Williams. Thanks for your eight games and don't let the door . . . And howdy do Freddie Kitchens, who was just smart enough to last the entire 2019 season before eventually meeting that same door.

From that point on, with one smart step at a time, this franchise began a journey that grew up with amazing alacrity. It was, for the most part, orchestrated by Paul DePodesta, a baseball man who had been given the nebulous title of chief strategy officer.

It began with the signing of Kevin Stefanski as head coach in mid-January in 2019. Exactly two weeks later, Andrew Berry returned to Cleveland as general manager. And just like that, the losing culture than had enveloped and smothered the team residing at 76 Lou Groza Blvd. in Berea disappeared.

So here we are, the club's first post-season appearance since 2002 and first post-season victory since 1995 in its back pocket, approaching the most anticipated regular season since the NFL permitted Cleveland back into the league in 1999.

Most fans in Browns Nation never saw last season's 11-5 coming. They always hoped for something like that. The pessimists kept waiting for the whole thing to collapse as it always had in the past. The defense did on a weekly basis, but the offense . . . well, the offense had other ideas. 

That brings us to 2021. It's time once again to haul out the crystal ball and see what lies in store.

Berry and Stefanski have combined their unique talents to craft one of the most talented and dangerous rosters in the entire league in a stunningly short period of time. The national media finally caught on that the Browns no longer are the league's stepchild.  

And the defense that imploded last season? Fixed. Berry took care of that with numerous wise free-agent signings and even wiser drafting this past offseason. He has put a team with high quality talent squarely in the crosshairs of opponents.

This season's defense is much more athletic, decidedly faster and quicker and features better tacklers. No longer will the offense be forced to outscore opponents to win games. 

It all portends a fun 17 games. There will be the normal highs and lows along the way. Not to worry. Just know this team employs a very intelligent coaching staff.

In the last two decades, most Browns teams hoped they would win. A few thought they would. And now, for the first time, it is a team that knows it will win.

The toughest part of the schedule is the 12 consecutive games before the bye week, including three of four on the road before the off week. Endurance and avoiding major injuries will be the key factors leading up to the final five games. Three of those games are at home. 

Four of the final six games will be against AFC North opponents, which should be interesting if there is anything resembling a multi-team battle for the playoffs.

The Browns lost five games last season. Would have been three with smarter coaching in one game (New York Jets) and just one stinking defensive stand in a shootout against Baltimore. This year, they will lose another five games and they'll all be on the road. .

It has  been reported that half the teams that make the playoffs one season don't qualify the next season. That won't happen with this team, It is well primed to win. The possibility of losing games does not enter its psyche.

That won't happen in Cleveland. Not this season. Not with this team. Make it: 12-5.