Before I go any farther, I just have to open and honest … I really can’t stand anything about the Browns. When we moved into Cleveland many moons ago I was without a pro football team. I had followed and cheered for the Lions as a kid but the lack of performance and the lack of any bonafide star players to connect with since Barry retired has made that an impossible option. I’ve also always been a college football fan much moreso than a fan of the NFL game. So, thinking it wouldn’t be bad to adopt an NFL team and having just moved to this supposed football Mecca of Cleveland, why not adopt the browns?
I’ve covered this before on many a blog post and forum thread so I don’t want to go into the lengthy topic that this can be, but let me just say that the Browns as a team, fanbase and organization have easily been as disappointing as any that I’ve heard of in a world that loves to bitch about any company at any time. Performance on the field can’t significantly outshine even the Lions, the organization can’t figure out how lead themselves let alone pick a leader for the team, and watching or following the browns is just flat out a miserable experience. The game environment is so boring and the stadium is just filled with anticipation … of failure. The uniforms are as dull and uninspiring as you can get and the color scheme is just awful – Jesus Christ is that really BROWN and white that dominates your uniform? But by far the worst part of the gig is the fans. By themselves they crush any possible hope of enjoying watching or following the team.
If you go to a game, Be prepared to sit by ‘fans’ dressed in gear from head to toe who show their love for their team by booing them at the top of their lungs when the opening possession for the Browns’ offense doesn’t prove successful. “Successful, by the way, can only mean scoring points according to those dressed like muddy pumpkins. These ‘fans’ will then proceed to try to predict when the coaches will call running plays, and they do this all game long. Because, you see, running the ball is dumb. No, it doesn’t matter that the situation at hand dictated that a running play be called upon… no no. “That’s dumb!”. Perhaps my two favorite Cleveland Brown fan features, though, are (1) the eternal inbred belief that, no matter what, the Browns are still better than you and (2) the incorrect assignment of blame upon any “unsuccessful” play attempt, game or team situation.
A very loudly spoken conversation I got the privilege of sitting next to during lunch today illustrates both of these faults perfectly. The opening statement, made before the two guys even sat down was, “Hey did you see that game yesterday… the 49ers game?” (the Atlanta Falcons played at the 49ers yesterday). “Oh my god … I thought the Browns were bad, the 49ers … oh they are worse!” You see, it’s not how bad the Browns are that matters to the fan it’s the ability to manufacture the opportunity to call out someone else as being worse. It’s an endearing quality, really, especially when you consider that entering play on Sunday the Browns were 0-4 and still looking to understand what exactly it means to score touchdowns or to get more than 4 first downs in a quarter. Nevermind that the 49ers were playing well and held a 3-1 record and heading into a really difficult stretch of their schedule. The only point that matters is, to the Cleveland Brown’s fan, San Francisco played poorly on Sunday and that gave him just enough room to argue that the 49ers are worse than the Browns. On a personal note, I think I’ll take the team averaging 22.4 points a game over the team averaging 11 points a game just about any day of the week. Alas, this point is moot as the two teams don’t play this year. I wonder if the Cleveland fan knew either of those points?
Now, if that were the only fault, I could live with “fan speak”. Any fan has license to at least try to play the “My team’s better than yours!” card, but you simply have to know what you’re talking about when you emphatically put “facts” out there or give accounts of a game. I’m not saying you have to be perfect or have some matching singular notion of what you believe happened during a period of time, but I am saying that facts are facts, left is left, and scores are scores. For example, when you say things like, “They wore orange helmets again and they always seem to lose when they wear those orange helmets…” I can live with that. The helmets, after all, are orange and when you qualify your statement with “they always seem to…” now we can agree there’s some wiggle room to the statement. The problem is most Browns fans don’t qualify their statements like that, and this lunch time conversation was yet another classic example of this endless spew. Today’s topics were oldies but goodies… how the Browns “always run up the middle” and “never pass”.
There was only one NFL game on TV in the Cleveland market, on Sunday, and so I had the misfortune of sitting and watching one of the worst played football games I can ever remember taking in. In the game against the Buffalo Bills – easily an equal in the dredges of NFL quality teams this season, mostly because of a putrid offense – the Browns clearly felt the way to make hay against the Bills was to run the football. This could possibly have been because they had just reorganized their passing attack by trading away Braylon Edwards and were now having to rely on a rookie, a new-this-week guy, and an undersized possession receiver, but it could also have something to do with the fact that the Buffalo Bills have one of the better pass defenses in the league. Neither of those points were brought up by the fan as he bitched to his fellow fan, nor were those points brought up in response. Instead, it was teamwork reinforcement of the belief that all the Browns did on Sunday was run up the middle and that they never threw the ball. One look at the game stats would tell a different story AND, if they had actually watched the game and have been interested in absorbing what was happening, rather than just harvesting vitriol in their minds, they would have seen that there was a passing game present that was absolutely ineffective (Cleveland and Derrick Anderson were 2-17… that’s TWO of 17, for 23 yards. 23 yards passing. In a game; a full game. Two completions. On the flip side, that running game that “always goes up the middle” produced 171 yards. And the amazing thing is it did so because it attacked the weak spots on the Buffalo defensive line – the ends. Yet, all of this somehow goes completely unnoticed because the fans don’t see what they want to see.
You see, what constitutes success is largely determined by the fans of any sports program; I get that. But you are really asking for it when the uninformed, ignorant and depressed are the ones setting the standard. When every run that doesn’t get 4 or more yards is seen as “running it up the middle” or when passing attempts that are not completed are not counted as passing plays, you’re talking about fans who just don’t understand the game. If those that don’t understand are setting the standard, it makes for a nightmare. And that’s exactly what Cleveland has on it’s hands in the Browns. Where are the good fans? If you’re out there, let your voices be heard! Drown out these buffoons who make a trip to Cleveland Browns Stadium such a predictable and unsatisfying venture.
My last item, here: Supposedly, only Braylon Edwards dropped passes while he was on the Browns’ roster. And, to be clear, he supposedly dropped everything thrown to him and all of the footballs thrown at him were perfect passes. Yet, on Sunday, different Browns receivers dropped at least 5 balls that I remember – interesting. I also seem to remember all but 1 of those passes from Derrick Anderson being in a terrible position for the receiver to make a play on the ball – provacative. Learn the game, Cleveland Browns fans. Start with the rules of the game and the penalties/infractions that are often called during it (focus on the illegal contact and pass interference penalties, since they get you so upset all the time). There’s enough research to get done there that it should keep you guys quiet for a few games.
Enough! Fed-up Browns fans planning protest
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Posted on 29th October 2009 by Ben Krasner in Sports Commentary
cleveland browns, Detroit Lions, football fans
Enough! Fed-up Browns fans planning protest
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I pick on Cleveland Browns fans a lot – and for justifiable reasons – but one thing you have to give them credit for is a true passion and the willingness to get the lead out when it makes sense to. This is one of the coolest things I’ve seen from a fan base, in recent memory. And, while I think they could do better, I applaud them for doing something. Fans spend a lot of money (seriously, often a stupid amount of money) on this type of entertainment… get mobile and take action when your money is being wasted; make the organization hear you any way you can that is constructive.
The way the NFL franchises have weaseled into our hearts and structured everything, it is extremely difficult to talk to an organization in the language they understand the best – with your money. Sure you can avoid buying a shirt or some of the food that you normally would at the game, but as long as the PSL (license to buy the ticket) and the tickets are sold the organization has nothing in front of them that demands attention. Rich NFL owners, unfortunately, often like to play with their money in this environment and, when things don’t work out, throw their hands up in the air saying, “Look, I tried!” as if that is enough. Financially, If they lose a little, break even or make a small amount of money, then the prestige of owning an NFL franchise and truly being the ultimate “fan” balances out the equation in their favor – in their minds. But if an NFL owner were to only make money when their team did well, and more importantly lost a good deal of money when the team was not good, NFL owners would take immediate notice and would quickly do whatever it took to ensure the gain and prevent the loss. (Yes, that’s a tough argument with many angles one could play, I know… but this is coming from a fan’s point of view, here).
With the way the NFL shares revenue and TV money, a franchise can post a marginal loss and still come out ahead when all the checks are passed out. This makes it even hard to get the message across to the NFL owner who is at the wheel of a floundering NFL franchise. What it means is that, in order to “hit ‘em between the eyes”, the fans have to stoop to a level most would frown upon in other situations – belittling and embarrassing the organization publicly. That way the guys holding the purse strings no longer get to sit back and be looked at as prestigious as they once were, which eliminates that aspect of the balanced equation.
In reality, this works out pretty well for the NFL fan. After all, not too many fans are going to want to give up their seats on a long term basis to get short term improvements in the quality of the team – I think most fans would agree that’s a bit much to be expected. But if there’s one thing fans like it is to be heard and seen, and with the internet age it is so easy to be heard and seen that this just encourages even more along that line of thought.
Now the Cleveland Browns fans are getting creative. They have a home game, next Monday (how the hell do the Browns keep getting onto Monday Night Football anyway?), against Baltimore (a.k.a. the organization that ran off with their team years ago) and some of the fans are planning this protest where they will leave the seats empty at the beginning of the game for all the TV cameras to see. This is great and will be talked about throughout the NFL and the media, putting Browns owner Randy Lerner in a plainly uncomfortable position that he cannot himself counterfeit by waiting to evaluate the season until that time when he looks at a year-end balance sheet.
The last time anyone saw this type of action it was not caught on camera as vividly as what might happen on next Monday night. You might recall this: Detroit Lions fans running through sections during a game holding up “Fire Millen” signs in voicing their displeasure with then GM, Matt Millen. Thus, even though the fans getting exercise while running away from security was highly entertaining, it was not made into a national spectacle and, in fact, only made the news because the Lions and Ford Field felt the need to publicize it by releasing a notice that all signs of similar ilk would be confiscated by security. Even people in Detroit didn’t know about it until they heard of the release or if fans at the game had mentioned it. On Monday, assuming the fans follow through with their threat of protest AND if the producers of the CBS TV coverage at the game allow all the bright orange empty seats in the stadium to be included in what viewers see, this protest will carry a bit more visibility.
What this threat of protest lacks, though, is teeth – the teeth being the money issue again. If all goes “well” with the protest it will serve as embarrassing to Randy Lerner and the Browns, but unless ownership and leadership can connect that with some kind of threat of loss of income it will be only that. If the Browns fans want something immediate to happen, they need to figure out how to add some teeth to this – so that, when Randy Lerner looks at his balance sheet at the end of the year and sees that he’s doing “okay”, he’ll remember that he’s far from doing okay. And the clearest reminder of that would be if he looks at that balance sheet and sees something ugly starring back.