GM tempers expectations for new Cleveland season

CLEVELAND — Fans are scrambling to get their hands on tickets, jerseys and make their first Odell Beckham Jr. sighting.

It’s only mid-March and Cleveland’s in a full-blown football frenzy. Expectations for the upcoming season, which were already enormous before the team traded for Beckham, have spun out of control.

Browns General Manager John Dorsey is trying to rein them in.

Super Bowl? Slow down, folks.

“Expectations, I hear a lot about that, but I know this — good football teams, they win in the fall,” Dorsey said Thursday, a day after the Browns officially landed Beckham in a franchise-changing trade from the New York Giants. “What we have done is we have added some talent. Now, the chemistry part has to take over with it.

“Teams win in the fall. They do not win in March, and that is good teams.”

He’s constructed a pretty good one as well — at least on paper.

Dorsey, who has transformed the Browns from winless to contenders in just more than a year, figured to make some moves during the offseason to upgrade his roster. However, when he recently said at the combine that he wasn’t prepared to “go for it,” it appeared he would wait until the draft to add talent.

That changed with his stunning acquisition of Beckham, one of the NFL’s biggest stars, along with Pro Bowl edge rusher Olivier Vernon in a trade from New York as well as signing defensive tackle Sheldon Richardson to a three-year, $36 million free agent contract. Dorsey also made several other moves designed to plug holes.