Three months ago, Cleveland Browns coach Hue Jackson saw the digit as a personal shot, a disrespectful prediction of awful proportions. A scarlet digit of historic futility that only one other NFL franchise has produced in a 16-game season.

Zero.

As in, zero wins this season, an 0-16 stretch that would mean the Browns would have gone from Dec. 14, 2015, until at least the 2017 preseason without a win. That would be 23 straight losses, including exhibition games. And that’s what some of the biggest Browns skeptics were predicting could happen this season, much to Jackson’s disgust.

“I’m not going to tell you that kind of talk [about going 0-16] didn’t sting me,” Jackson told Yahoo Sports in August. “It did. But if anything, it motivates me to get it right. More so than anything. We don’t want to be the laughingstock of anything. We want to be the best at what we do. I didn’t come here to lose. I came here to win.”

And yet, here the Browns are after losing 35-10 to Dallas, nine games into the season and sitting at zero. Still stuck in an NFL world where the last Cleveland quarterback to win a game was Johnny Manziel (on Dec. 13, 2015, against the San Francisco 49ers). And that was a seasonal bright spot, considering Cleveland also lost seven straight before Manziel managed that victory.

Considering all that futility, it’s worth looking at the remainder of the schedule and wondering two things:

1) If the Browns are going to get a win this season, when will it happen?

2) If the Browns go 0-16, who will be worth the resulting No. 1 draft pick?

Cleveland’s remaining schedule is neither pretty nor forgiving. Of the Browns’ remaining seven games, six come against teams that should still be fighting for a playoff berth: the Baltimore Ravens, Pittsburgh Steelers (twice), New York Giants, Cincinnati Bengals and Buffalo Bills. Three of those six games are also on the road in tough environments – against the Ravens, Steelers and Bills.

While anything can happen in those games – particularly with quarterback injuries always threatening to skew outcomes – the schedule essentially provides two realistic opportunities for a Cleveland win. Either against the San Diego Chargers on Christmas Eve or on the road against the Steelers on New Year’s Day in the season finale, with the caveat being that Pittsburgh has locked in postseason position and may be resting starters.

Yes, it’s that bleak.

It’s also getting to be reminiscent of the Detroit Lions’ awful 2008 campaign. Much like the Browns this season, the Lions played a few opponents close in the first half of their season, including a 12-10 loss to the Minnesota Vikings; a 28-21 loss to the Houston Texans; and a 27-23 loss to the Chicago Bears. But after failing to get a win in their first eight games, Detroit’s 0-16 season snowballed into awfulness. In the Lions’ final eight defeats, they lost by less than nine points only once. In all, that final eight-loss run to finish the season came by a defeat average of 18.3 points.

While Detroit’s futility can’t be compared meaningfully to what the Browns are going through now, at least one theme likely holds true: If Cleveland is going to win a game, it better come sooner than later because the storm cloud will get only bigger from this point on.

There is one potential silver lining that may tie the two franchises together. After going 0-16, the Lions found themselves in position to draft their current centerpiece quarterback, Matthew Stafford. While Stafford’s career has been a roller coaster, there’s little argument that he is Detroit’s best quarterback since Bobby Layne.

So what college player would be worth the epic 0-16 failure? There is still plenty of time to figure that out but there is a strong argument Cleveland should take a quarterback No. 1 overall regardless of how rookie Cody Kessler finishes the season. The more meaningful attempts the Browns make at fixing the problem under Jackson, the more likely they’ll eventually find the right player.

The Browns are hoping Kessler makes massive strides down the stretch, essentially building a résumé that convinces the team’s brain trust that he’s better than anyone in what is expected to be a weak quarterback crop in this offseason’s NFL draft. But if Kessler isn’t, a somewhat unexpected name may be ascending to the top of the next quarterback class. A handful of evaluators who spoke with Yahoo Sports this weekend said Notre Dame’s DeShone Kizer – who happens to be manning a bad 3-6 Fighting Irish team – is staking a claim to the top quarterback spot, not Clemson’s Deshaun Watson, the odds-on favorite in the class heading into the college season.

Two high-ranking personnel men whose teams are not in the market for a quarterback told Yahoo Sports that Kizer’s combination of skills and intangibles will elevate him should he leave Notre Dame after this season. This despite Kizer’s team winning only three games this season.

“I haven’t seen a ton of him – not even close – but I know enough to say that I think he’s a pretty good player who will get even better, and he has almost everything we’re looking for on this level,” one of the personnel men said. “I know some of the coaches who have crossed paths with him, too. They all say great things. I’d be surprised if he wasn’t the one guy who separated [from the other quarterbacks].”

Added a third evaluator: “Most people like him better than [Deshaun] Watson. … In an ideal world, another year in college would help [Kizer]. He needs to just be overall more consistent with mechanics, accuracy and decision-making. But that being said, he’s put some really good film out there and has all the tools. And it’s such a down year he’d be a lock to be one of the first, if not the first, quarterback taken.”

It’s too early to tell whether Kizer would be the Browns’ preferred quarterback – or if they will be in the market for another highly drafted player at the position. But Kizer has one thing going for him that Carson Wentz didn’t when Cleveland passed on him: plenty of NFL talent going against him on film.

The two personnel men also noted that Kizer has another thing that might be seen as a positive amongst the Cleveland brass: He is currently slugging his way through one of the roughest seasons in Notre Dame history. In other words, he’ll have already shown what he does in the face of adversity.

The Browns know plenty about that. Especially in this season, which very well may come and go without a single win. One way or another, the rest of this drought will be about searching for that elusive win – and that may not come before the next NFL draft or far beyond it.

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