Congratulations to the Cleveland Browns: No football team nor its fans deserved this win more than they did

Browns recover fumble for first TD just seconds into playoff game


… “Daddy, why can’t we be like the Browns?”


As a youngster maybe 6, 7, or 8-years-old, I lamented having to root for the Pittsburgh Steelers because they were the losingest franchise in professional football. I even asked if I could root for another team. 


My dad forbid that, telling me that they were our team, win or lose. And, for the first 25 years of my life, though I only rooted for them for 27 of them before they finally made the playoffs, they continued their walk through irrelevance. 


Until Chuck Noll arrived in 1969 and finally won a Super Bowl, their first championship, in 1974, when I was 27-years-old.


And, I disliked the Cleveland Browns for one reason: They were so good, with that fabulous running back Jim Brown and their fabulous Coach Paul Brown. 


In the 1950s, they became a wonderful franchise in the NFL, which they joined in 1950. They won three titles, and while I did not like them because the Steelers always lost to them, often by terrible scores. 


However, I always respected them, and when Art Modell pulled his trucks up to Cleveland Stadium in 1995 and moved them to Baltimore and became the Ravens, I really felt sorry for them. 


Three years later, they finally had their Browns back, but they were a far cry from the original team of the 1950s. 


No team has gone through what the Cleveland fans have for the past 22 years, and so the fact that they won their first playoff game — even if was against my Steelers — was a wonderful time for the team and the long-suffering fans. 


So, congratulations to the Browns. They have built a wonderful base for success, and despite winning no games at all in 2017, finally have a good coach and a future. 


I was not happy with the play of the Steelers, but much of that had to do with the intensity level and play of the Browns. If they play like that against the Chiefs, they could make a good effort at taking down the defending NFL champs. 


Congrats to all of those Browns fans out there!


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