BEREA, Ohio — Nothing has changed as far as Browns left guard Joel Bitonio’s status for the future goes. He hasn’t made a decision on if 2024 will be his final season or if he’ll be back for at least one more ride. He’ll wait until there’s some distance from a disappointing season.

“Truthfully, I’ve been very frustrated the last few weeks,” Bitonio said. “I just didn’t expect us to be in this position. You come out here and you’re playing for pride, you’re playing for your own résumé, your own worth, and as a team, it’s tough to be in this situation.”

This was supposed to be a special year for Bitonio and the Browns, a season where all those other frustrating seasons were washed away. He’s endured losing and, even when the Browns won a playoff game, he was sidelined with COVID-19. Last year, when the Browns lost in Houston in the wild card round, he was just trying to hold his body together.

“I had a pretty bad high (ankle) sprain. I tore the UCL in my elbow in that game and I tried to finish the game,” Bitonio said. “But that was like eight-weeks off, and I was like, ‘Oh my god, I shouldn’t have played on my ankle. But it was the last game.”

This year it seemed like that was going to change, but it didn’t happen.

“I think the expectations this year, and then where we ended up, have made it the most frustrating,” Bitonio said.

When he arrived in the league in 2014, the Browns started 7-4 — they ultimately collapsed and finished 7-9 — but Bitonio has admitted he initially thought maybe winning in the NFL was easy. It didn’t take long for him to find out it isn’t.

The Browns went 3-13 the following season, leading into their 1-31 run in 2016 and 2017. The lack of expectations, however, eased the frustration, at least compared to what the Browns have been through in 2024.

“Early in my career, I didn’t really know any better my first couple years,” he said. “And then when we were in the real rebuild, we were such a young team that it wasn’t even like, there wasn’t expectations to make the playoffs or do anything like that. We thought we could — we were so young, you don’t know any better. But I think with what the expectations were this year, it’s probably been the most frustrating results-wise.”

Bitonio has tasted some success, being a part of two 11-win playoff teams in the last five years, which has only made this year more difficult. The losing can take its toll and it’s one of the things Bitonio will consider when it finally does come time to make a decision.

“There’s some games where you wake up Monday morning and I’m like, ‘Crap, why am I doing this?’ You lost, you feel terrible, your body hurts,” he said. “And then there’s other times where it’s like you play a game and you’re like I can still play at a high level and I want to see what our team can do in the future.”

Bitonio will get a chance to have his say in the future of the franchise this weekend after the Browns play the Ravens on Saturday. They will clean out their lockers and have exit meetings on Sunday.

He’ll meet with head coach Kevin Stefanski and GM Andrew Berry and possibly ownership to go over the season as part of the normal exit meeting process.

“I’ll have my chance to let them know what I think is going on and they actually listen very well,” Bitonio said. “They ask guys, they want to know the thought process and stuff like that.”

The good news is Bitonio doesn’t think the Browns are all that far off.

“We had injuries this year, but I think the rosters are similar (between last year and this year),” he said. “I know they’re going to have to rebuild some aspects of the roster, but I don’t think it’s far. I think Coach Stefanski is a good coach. I think we’re going to have a good system in place. It comes down to executing, it comes down to doing your one-eleventh, but I don’t think we’re that far off from being a contender.”

Bitonio admitted that, if part of the team’s plan to returning to contention involves him coming back, it would serve as one of the factors in his final decision.

“You want to hear the plans, you want to hear what’s going on, you want to know how you feel,” he said. “So it’s all just part of the big question.”

Bitonio, 33, has a lot to think about, from football to family considerations, once he does sit down and start thinking through things. Team success is always a part of it, especially after such a frustrating year, but that’s one thing that’s out of a left guard’s control.

“You think of John Elway going out and winning the Super Bowl, (former Bengals and Rams tackle) Andrew Whitworth, they got to play in their last game in the Super Bowl and ride off into the sunset,” Bitonio said. “That’d be the ultimate dream, and I bet if it had been two years ago and we won a Super Bowl, I probably would have been like, ‘all right, I’m good to go.’ And so it’s the thing that you fight for. So it’s all part of it. It’s all part of the process. The season, your teammates. Winning and losing. How you feel. All of that goes into every decision you make.”