Confessions of a Tired Fan

Okay, let’s get this out of the way right at the top – I am a Cleveland Browns fan.

I will wait for the snickering to stop.

Still waiting.

Done?

All right, that’s enough. Look, I had no choice in this matter. I was conceived in Akron and raised in Northeast Ohio. They are pretty rabid about their Beloved Brownies. And I embraced that rabid…, uh, ity, and proudly donned the seal brown and orange right about the time the team was in the last throes of yearly dominance while that team 125 miles away rose to prominence. That ushered in a reversal of fortunes for the two teams, as the Browns went into hibernation, occasionally coming out with seasons like the 1980 Kardiac Kids and the unfathomable teases of the late 1980s Bernie Kosar teams which always got slapped back in the AFC Championship by John Horseteeth. The 1990s brought us Bill Belichick before he was a genius followed by the unthinkable – the team was taken away.

A new team masquerading as the ‘Cleveland Browns’ resurfaced in 1999 pushing the envelope of putridity to depths never before experienced.

Meanwhile that team 125 miles away got six Lombardi trophies.

Oh, and the team that left Cleveland in 1995? They got two.

My God I’m tired.

Yes, training camp has just begun, and yes, I am reading every bit of information about how Paul Kruger is looking awesome, how Barkevious Mingo is ready to decapitate opposing quarterbacks and how Trent Richardson is ready to churn out twenty touchdowns this year. And I am really trying to get my ‘tude on and go toe to toe with fans of other teams, about how THIS year it is going to be different.

Here come those snickers again.

And they have every right to snicker. 1964. Nineteen-freekin-sixty-four. That was the last time the Browns were the champs of the NFL. Forty-nine years ago. Jim Brown. Frank Ryan. Gary Collins. Names I have read about, but since I was only six years old at the time, never got to see play. I have proof in black and white footage of Collins catching three TDs in the title game as the Browns laid the lumber on the Colts, 27-0. My dad said it was awesome.

But me? I got Earnest Byner’s fumble and Art Modell’s greed as my memories.

I give up. Y’all win. There is nothing left in the smack tank with me anymore. We suck. We have sucked for a long time. Point your fingers and laugh. You will get no retort from me. I got no room to talk. What, am I gonna say how good Derek Anderson looked for half a season in 2007? How I thought Lee Suggs was going to win the rushing title?

Laugh away.

But.

Just because that’s the way things were doesn’t mean that’s the way things will be.

Remember that when we hoist that motherfucking Lombardi Trophy one day.

Then it will be my turn to laugh.

The Only Way?

The NFL is a copycat league. This we know. When one team has success utilizing a certain play or system, other teams mock it. The Wildcat, for example.

This seems to have extended to how you build a successful team. Recent Super Bowl winners have featured homegrown Quarterbacks taken high in the first round of the draft – Eli Manning, Drew Brees, Peyton Manning, Aaron Rodgers and so on. So other teams, seeing this success, are copying it. This would explain the Redskins mortgaging their future for the shot at drafting Robert Griffin.

And it also explains why some Browns fans are screaming for the front office to take Ryan Tannehill, who does not even represent the QB consolation prize in this year’s draft – that was Griffin. Tannehill, by most accounts, is the distant-third-best QB in the draft. A project that will need time to develop. A guy who we will not even know for about three years whether he was worth the investment.

But hey, recent Super Bowl winners have first-round QBs. So we gotta have one too, right?

No. Recent success by other teams doing something a certain way does not mean it’s the only way to be successful. See, I could point out a 6th round pick by the name of Tom Brady, or going back ten years, Trent Dilfer. The supporters of ‘Draft a QB High’ blueprint don’t like it when Dilfer is invoked. But it is a valid point – there’s more than one way to win in this league. Baltimore’s plan was a dominating defense and a ball-control offense…and a QB that doesn’t have to go win games (and on the flip side doesn’t lose them).

I know our front office has a plan. And I am sure somewhere in that plan is upgrading the QB position should Colt McCoy not be the answer. McCoy was a third-round pick, so if you subscribe to the ‘Draft a QB High’ theory to success, that’s about two and a half rounds too late, thus his fate is sealed. I am hoping by the point some are starting to see the over-simplistic folly of equating success with where your QB was drafted.

What I would say about the QB position is, it the most visible position on the team. He handles the ball on every play. And we know the QB gets too much of the credit when the team wins and too much of the blame when they lose. Which, by the way, explains much of the criticism of McCoy. With a losing record as a starter, he hasn’t (yet) captured the lightning in a bottle and elevated the play of those around him; therefore he doesn’t represent the express elevator ride to the top that the ‘Draft a QB High’ theorists want to see.

Well, I would offer that Tannehill won’t give us that ride either.

So here it is, here’s my take. Ready?

There are many ways to build a winning NFL franchise. Recent success of other teams notwithstanding. What we have experienced recently are teams that, somewhere along the way, were in a position to upgrade their QB position. They were in a draft position where they could get their QB of the future, let him ferment on the bench for a while, then step in and carry an already good team to higher level of success.

Read that last sentence again. Teams that were already good is the key.

The Browns are not good. Yet.

So how do we get good? Well, this year’s draft is going to be critical. With (presently) three picks in the top 37, we have the opportunity to get three impact players. If Heckert parlays that #4 overall pick into multiple first & second round picks, we will have even more. But unfortunately (or in my opinion, fortunately), QB will not be one of those players chosen.

Unless, of course, Heckert ignores the plan and instead tries to shortcut the way to the top like the Redskins are trying, by ignoring obvious areas of the team in need of upgrading in favor of a project QB.

I have a theory. And I will admit I hope it proves true since the Browns have been living it for about a decade now. It goes like this: The longer it takes for a team to get good, the longer they will be good once they get there. In other words, teams that have a plan and patiently stick to it will be rewarded once the plan produces. Conversely, those that try to shortcut their way to the top will either never get there or, if they do get there, won’t be there long.

So for the 2012 draft, ignore QB. It didn’t work out for us this year and we are in no position to be drafting projects in the top ten. Let the Dolphins take Tannehill. I will gladly welcome Trent Richardson, Justin Blackmon or Morris Claiborne to the team and enjoy watching them improve the team immediately.

It Ain’t Easy Being Brown

It is October, and we are smack in the middle of the football season. I love October – the weather cools, Friday nights belong to High School football, Saturdays are the domain of the colleges, and Sunday belongs to the pros.

The pros. Ugh.

This is not an indictment of the professional game. Instead I just got that uncontrollable chill go up my spine. It happens when I think about my beloved team, the Cleveland Browns.

Ugh. It just happened again.

I grew up in northeast Ohio, about 35 miles south of Cleveland and about 15 miles from the pro football hall of fame in Canton. The roots of the professional game were planted there. The league was formed in 1921 in a car dealership in Akron, my hometown. As a child in the 1960’s, Sunday afternoons in the fall had the same ritual – my mom would cook a vat of spaghetti sauce and all the relatives would come over to watch the Browns lay waste to their opponent week after week. Like clockwork.

Because, this may be difficult for anyone under 40 to imagine, but the Browns used to be really good. Consistently good. Not catch lightning in a bottle for one season good, but year in and year out in the playoffs good. The saying back then was, there are two things you can count on in December – snow and the Cleveland Browns. They were called the New York Yankees of pro football.

So that was the environment I was raised in, and I fully expected my adult life to be one of glowing pride of celebration of multiple NFL championships. In 1970, when I was 12, the NFL and AFL merged, and three teams from the NFL moved to the AFL – the Colts, the Steelers and the Browns. The reconstituted AFC Central was formed consisting of the Browns and three shitball teams – the expansion Cincinnati Bengals, the AFL-doormat Houston Oilers, and our perennial whipping boys, the Pittsburgh Steelers. At that moment in time, the Browns’ all-time record against the Steelers was 52-9. I kid you not. This was not going to be pretty, I thought – we would own that division for years on end.

Then in 1972 Franco Harris scooped a ball off the turf and the Steeler dynasty was born.

Ugh. It just happened again.

The 70’s and early 80’s featured glimpses of glories past, such as the upstart Kardiac Kids of Sam Rutigliano and Brian Sipe, but hopes were dashed on a ridiculously cold January day in 1981 when the first chink in our psyche, Red Right 88, was planted. The late 80’s brought a string of dominating teams led by Bernie Kosar that could not get past one person – John Elway. The Drive and The Fumble got added to the list of acrid memories.

The 1990’s brought turmoil. We hired a coach you may have heard of. Bill Belichick. But this wasn’t the hoodie-wearing genius Bill Belichick. This was the arrogant young punk version who had the nerve to cut Bernie Kosar. In mid-season. With the team in first place and the starting Quarterback, Vinny Testaverde, injured. That day made Belichick a vilified assbag in the minds of the fans. A 11-5 record in 1994 did not matter – Bill Must Go was the chant.

Well, he did, but unfortunately, so did the rest of the team. After the 1995 season Art Modell moved the team to Baltimore. And all those previous disappointments paled in comparison to having the Cleveland Browns….are you effin’ kidding me? taken away. Three years later, through incessant demands from the fan base, the NFL gave us a new team.

I use the word ‘team’ very loosely in this instance.

It was a team in name only. What it was, was the most horrid collection of truck drivers in football uniforms ever assembled. Just God-awful. 2-14, 3-13…records that we never dreamed of happening to the Cleveland Browns became regular occurrences. We changed coaches and general managers the way people change their underwear. Bust draft picks, overpriced free agents and snake-oil salesman general managers all conspired to turn the New York Yankees of pro football into the Washington Generals – the patsy team that every other team circled on their schedule as an easy win.

The newest incarnation of the Browns appears to be heading in the right direction, but I just don’t know. Not that I do not trust the people in charge, it’s that I cannot believe this team can ever be consistent winners. Somewhere along the way we apparently pissed off the Football Gods and they are making us suffer. As a result, our fan base is probably the most neurotic in professional sport - the only other team/fans I can compare to are Chicago Cub fans. We always assume the worst is going to happen, and often it does. LeCharles Bentley, Brady Quinn, Derek Anderson, Butch Davis, Willie Green, Bottlegate...and that's just the new incarnation of this team - we already carried Red Right 88, The Drive, The Fumble & The Move in our psyche before we got the new team.

So we assume the worst. And until 'the worst' stops happening to us, we will continue to go there. Sucks, but that's just how it is. We are like a beaten, abused dog - whenever we hear a newspaper being rolled up, we cower...even though we still love our 'owner' unconditionally. He can beat us and we still love him. Even when he just may be rolling up that newspaper to swat a fly - we think it's coming for us.

This helps to explain our collective psyche. You think Steeler fans think like this? Hell no. They're dogs that have been fed Filet Mignon and sleep on a feather bed. They got 6 Lombardis to ogle at. We get a glimmer of hope, and we think, 'How are we gonna eff this up?'

Here comes another ugh.

Often I am asked, ‘Why are you a Browns fan?’ Great question, and one I have pondered often, usually on the heels of a blowout loss. And I have come to this conclusion:

I blame my parents. They could have conceived and raised me anywhere else but northeast Ohio, and I would have been none the wiser. I could have grown up a Dolphin fan and at least have had two Super Bowl victories in my youth to point to.

But no. Cleveland it is.

And you know what? One day when the Browns win that Super Bowl, which will hopefully happen before I lose my marbles and being fed through a straw and am wearing a diaper, it will be a wonderful day. It will make all those years of mind-numbing catastrophes all worth it.

Go Browns.

The Best Time of the Week

Quick question – what is your favorite time of the week? Friday at 5pm? Saturday night?

Mine is right now.

What is right now? 10:30am Sunday morning in the Fall. Got Sunday NFL Countdown on TV, a cup of coffee in front of me and a wad of nicotine gum in my mouth. I am going through websites trying to fine-tune the starting lineups of my four fantasy football teams, and am concerned about Beanie Wells’ ankle and Mario Manningham’s concussion. Will Mike Vick be productive with a bone bruise on his non-throwing hand at home against San Fran or should I take a flyer on Flacco Sunday night against the Jets?

And that’s just one of my fantasy teams. Got three more to cogitate over, and two hours in which to do it.

I will then don my autographed Bernie Kosar jersey and head over to Post Time Lounge in Longwood to join my fellow Orlando Browns Backers for this afternoon’s game against Tennessee. The TWO-AND-ONE Cleveland Browns. Tied for first place in the AFC North Cleveland Browns.

Life is good.

Now, by 4:00pm all this hopefulness may evaporate. The Browns may lose. Vick may be on the bench with a broken ankle, having amassed me three fantasy points as I face the prospect of heartbreaking losses.

But right now, it is sunny and hopeful.

For others, Sunday morning is shhh be quiet time due to over-imbibing on Saturday night. That’s fine; I am not about to pass judgment on other people’s favorite time of the week. I am just thankful that I woke up clear-headed and sober.

Hey, when you have to decide between Felix Jones’ dislocated shoulder and Jermichael Finley’s ankle, you better be lucid.

Weekend With Bernie

As we grow older we tend to become less awestruck with the heroes of our youth. This may be due to a number of reasons – missteps in their lives that get publicized or maybe we just lose the youthful exuberance of meeting a famous person. Who knows. But it happens.

This last Saturday night I had the pleasure, and I do mean that, of meeting my favorite Cleveland Browns player of all time – Bernie Kosar. To set the table, Bernie is certainly a fan favorite, as his playing days showed a combination of guts and smarts. He wasn’t the fastest guy or had the strongest arm. A contemporary of his named Elway had those traits. Bernie was not graceful on the football field. In fact, he looked amazingly awkward – he was all legs and gangly arms as he dropped back to pass, and his throwing motion was this sidearm, look one way throw another…thing. I can’t even describe it. When he ran he resembled a Giraffe on Ecstasy. But he got the job done. Very well. Pro-Bowl level well. And nobody outsmarted Bernie.

When his playing days ended his personal life fell apart. Bankruptcies, a broken down body, divorce. Which just endeared himself more to his fans. Just as we could identify with his grit as a player, we identified with his struggles in real life, because many of us have gone through the same things. But Bernie went through these events with grace and courage…just like he did when facing a safety blitz. He would get up, dust himself off, and think about the next thing to do.

He does color commentary for the Browns preseason games, which has been a real treat. To hear him talk, he has a sort of a speech impediment – he tends to slur his words, which would almost make you think he’s drunk or under the influence of something. Hey, given the amount of injuries he had and the concussions, a steady diet of painkillers would certainly be understandable.

But when you listen to what he is saying, it is amazingly detailed and usually pinpoint accurate, so you realize that the brain is sharp. For example, when the offense breaks the huddle, Bernie is already analyzing the defense with comments like “They’re in Cover-two with the Strong Safety cheating the line. Look for the slot receiver to be covered by the linebacker, so he should be open on the slant...”

And he was almost always right. I can honestly say I am educated every time I hear him call a play.

So anyway. Back to Saturday night. It was the 25th anniversary of the Palm Beach Browns Backers club, and they got Bernie to do a meet ‘n greet. I arrive, and there he was – taller than I thought he would be until I remembered that he is 6-foot 5. But that’s the thing with Bernie – I guess it’s that everyman quality about him. He was so approachable, very friendly, patient…genuine. Within five seconds of being with him (or whenever the awe wore off), you were just chatting with an old buddy. He made you feel very comfortable. While we talked, he reached over to his right hand and took off his Super Bowl ring he won with Dallas in 1993, hands it to me and says ‘Check this out.”

And then he walked away.

You read that right – he handed his Super Bowl ring to a total stranger then went over to talk to someone else. He was about 30 feet away and I yelled over to him, ‘Hey Bernie, I got your ring…’ His reply?

“I trust you.”

Those that know Bernie’s story since he retired know that many of his personal problems stemmed from this very trait. He trusts people. Sometimes too much so. He has lent money that was never returned, he lent his name (and money) to businesses that went belly-up, and he married a woman that ended up taking him to the cleaners in the divorce. A few years back he was broke and lost as a result of this trusting nature. So you would think, as a result of all that, that he wouldn’t hand a Super Bowl ring to a total stranger, wouldn’t you?

But that’s not Bernie.

The other totally lovable trait about this guy is the respect he gives to any and everyone. When he shakes your hand he looks you straight in the eye, and not with a ‘Ain’t I a big shot and you should be honored’ glare, but with a warm smile and a genuine ‘Nice to meet you’ attitude. When you ask him a question, he looks at you, ponders the answer, and then gives you an honest reply that gives total respect to the effort of the person that framed the question. In other words, he doesn’t blow you off. He is also amazingly earthy. Meaning, he swears. Which seems like a bit of a shock when you first hear it, but almost immediately you realize yep, he’s one of us. He was sharing the story of his first practice with the University of Miami football team. In his words, “I was standing there with Jim Kelly on one side of me and Vinny Testaverde of the other, and I realized that I was fucked.”

It bears noting that Bernie, like many famous athletes, arrived with an entourage. However, unlike those other famous athletes, Bernie’s entourage consisted of his three kids. And that was it. Now, to be fair, there was a representative of the Cleveland Browns with him too, but given she was the 25-year old Coordinator of Browns Backers Worldwide, she could hardly be categorized as part of his posse. His peeps are his kids.

Like I said, he’s everyman. And I am even more in awe of him than I was when he was sidearming passes and leading the Browns to playoff victories in the 1980’s. I may have gotten older, but my respect and admiration of him has not waned one iota.

He’s still my hero.

Swinging With The Enemy

Last month I wrote about how I was a last-minute replacement for a co-worker that netted me a trip to Memphis, where I discovered the soul of a city that burns brightly. The lesson learned was, essentially, never to look a gift horse in the mouth, and to enjoy what is given to you.

Well, the fun never ends.

Last week our Marketing Director came to my office and asked if my schedule was open for Friday. When I told her that I had a meeting in the morning, she asked if I could get out of it then handed me a brochure. Knowing I am a golfer, she wanted me to play in a charity golf outing, representing the company. My reply was, ‘Where’s the first tee and what’s the course record?’ She arranged to get me out of my meeting commitment, and I was in. Get the day off, play golf for free.

Nice, huh?

Well, a closer look uncovered a potentially uncomfortable situation. The event was being run by Max Starks, football player for the….Pittsburgh Steelers. And he had invited a bunch of his teammates to the outing. Now most people would say big deal - you get to rub shoulders with professional athletes. My conundrum was that I am a Cleveland Browns fan, and a rather rabid one at that - how do I play this? Do I even let on that I root for the archrivals of the guy putting on the event? Do I just set loyalties aside and enjoy the day? Seriously - this is the kind of stuff that keeps me up at night.

After bouncing it off of some people, including fellow Browns fans, I got my answer. I would show up wearing my Browns polo & my Browns golf bag tag proudly displayed. Screw ‘em. I arrived expecting much flak from, well, whomever. So off our foursome went, starting on the 13th hole. We were standing in the middle of the 14th fairway when a rather large dude pulls up in a golf cart & says “They told me I was playing with you.” One look told the story - we got a Steeler player joining our foursome.

I introduced myself & he responded in kind - Dorian Brooks, 24-year old backup center for the Stools. Activated the day before the Super Bowl to replace the injured Maurkice Pouncey. What was also evident was that Dorian had never played a round of golf in his life. To just make sure, I asked him and his response was “I’ve never even played Putt-Putt before.”

Lovely.

There's me & Dorian. Anyway, I told Dorian to drop a ball down in the fairway, take out a club & have at it. Four flailing attempts at the ball resulting in three whiffs & a divot a foot behind the ball told me this was going to be a long, hot day. I explained to Dorian that this is a scramble event, and that if he hits a bad shot he can just pick it up. He liked that. After a few more spastic attempts to get the ball in motion, we decided that we would exploit Dorian’s talents on the putting green…only.

About 7 or 8 holes into the round it became evident to Dorian that he was not going to be much help to the team’s cause - his body language screamed ‘Get me the hell off of this sauna disguised as a golf course and away from these white dudes that I have zero in common with.’ This was when I had a stroke of near-genius. We had a three-foot putt left for a par. Simple putt. Dorian was in the cart texting someone when I told our group, ‘Hey hold on - let’s get Dorian to putt this in.’ I then went into Coach-Mode & yelled “Brooks! Grab you putter & get up here! We need you!” Dorian, being the athlete that he is and conditioned to coaches screaming at him, dutifully ran up to the green with a look on his face that would make Ray Lewis require a diaper. Dude was ready. I said “We need you here. You have to make this putt for us.”

Now, the truth of the matter was, we didn’t need him. We had four cracks at making a three-foot putt. But I wasn’t about to tell him that. I wanted him to think that it was all on him - it’s fourth-and-a-foot, and I need YOU to get me that foot. I felt like Al Pacino on Any Given Sunday, giving his halftime speech to the team.

Dorian, after a “Oh Lord” came out of his mouth, nervously address the putt, took the putter back shakily & then gently eased it into the ball…

And rolled it right into the center of the cup.

A relieved “YEAH!’ came from his mouth, high-fives all around. Dorian saved us. And from then on, he was engaged with the team, helping us read greens, trying to understand this crazy game we play. We had a blast. And totally gone was the fact that I was a Browns fan & he was a Steeler player. We were teammates, and that was all that mattered.

After the round, I met Max Starks. He’s not big - he’s mammoth. Six-foot-eight, 350 pounds. I swear the guy is so big he generates his own gravity. I half-expected to see moons orbiting him. I asked for a picture and he obliged, but there was a condition. As he put it, “We gotta do something about that logo on your shirt.” It was at that point that I had forgotten that I was wearing the Browns polo, fresh off the bonding experience with Dorian. And when a man-mountain says ‘We gotta do something’ about it, I was expecting him to rip it off, give me a swirlie or something.

No, he just had a simple condition. He had to put his hand over the logo. Which he did, and here we are:

My Gawd, I look like I'm 12 years old. Anyway, we sat down to eat, when the other 'gift' for the day awaited. A Terrible Towel. Double lovely. Well, as I said, I do not look gift horses in the mouth, but that does not mean I have to accept them either.

I left after I ate. The Terrible Towel stayed there.