Browns release dates, times for preseason games

The Cleveland Browns released the dates and times for their four preseason games on Tuesday and there will not be much travel on the docket.

The exhibition slate of games is heavy on NFC North teams with the Detroit Lions being the only team from that division not on the schedule:

The Browns will open the preseason on August 15 at 1 p.m. when they head to Chicago to take on the Bears. Cleveland will stay on the road for the second preseason game when they play the Green Bay Packers on August 22 at 4 p.m.

The two home preseason games will take place on August 30 when the Browns host the Minnesota Vikings at 4 p.m. Cleveland will close out the preseason by hosting the Tampa Bay Buccaneers on September 3 at 7:30 p.m.

If the Browns and the Buccaneers feels like a familiar matchup, its because this will be the fifth time in the past six years the teams will play each other in the preseason, for some reason.

The game against the Vikings will be televised by FOX, while the remaining three games will be shown locally on WEWS Channel 5.

The Bears, Packers and Vikings will all be familiar to head coach Kevin Stefanski, who spent the past 14 seasons as an assistant coach with the Vikings. Stefanski is also looking forward to his first experience as a head coach, he told clevelandbrowns.com:

“Playing three NFC North teams, they’re teams that are really well-coached. I’m looking forward to the competition and looking forward to that piece of it. The preseason is such a huge part of our development, of our evaluation of our players when the young guys can get put under the lights. We’re excited about those four games in the preseason.”

Of course, this schedule assumes that the NFL will be able to resume games in August.