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!


Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Remembering the toughest loss I ever experienced in approximately a quarter-century of coaching football. George Pasierb was a great coaching adversary.

Image
R.I.P. George Pasierb, 1946-2020 Shade-Central City High School football coach Photo: Tribune-Democrat No high school football fan could ask for anything better than this. On a beautiful sunny, warm afternoon on Saturday, October 30, 1982, in Nanty Glory, Pa., the battle featured a clash of two undefeated titans of the Appalachian Conference.  One was the preseason unanimous favorite to win the title, the other a veritable surprise that season, one that had built an 8-0 record entering that game.  This battle lived up to the pre-game hype, ending in a one-point decision that was not certain until the final play of the game.  I thought of this because the coach of the powerful Shade-Central City High School Panthers, George Pasierb, passed away earlier this week. He coached the Panthers for 20 years, but his best team was arguably that 1982 team that battled the Blacklick Valley Vikings on that Saturday afternoon before more than 3,000 ebullient fans.  And, the one-po...
Read more

Why did Tennessee-Chattanooga hire trainer Tim Bream despite his role in the alcohol-induced death of Tim Piazza at a Penn State frat?

Image
… was a live-in advisor at the fraternity On paper, Tim Bream has an impressive resume. Actually, very impressive — up to a point. That seems to be when Bream’s life appears to careen out of control. Bream, who resigned as Penn State trainer in Feb.,  was a graduate of Penn State with a bachelor’s degree in physical education, specializing in athletic training. He then attended West Virginia as a grad assistant trainer, where he received a master’s degree in Physical Education with an emphasis on Sports Science. All of this information is from his bio on the Penn State athletic site. He then worked his way up the ladder impressively, working at Syracuse, Vanderbilt, and finally at the University of Richmond, where he was the Director of Sports Medicine and Head Athletic Trainer. Then he received his big break, being name as Assistant Athletic Trainer for the Chicago Bears in 1993, and four years later, Head Athletic Trainer. He was with the Bears for 19 years when inexplicably,...
Read more

Why did Mike Tomlin start hiring black coaches after 15 years?

Image
Brian Flores … hiring Flores probably rankled Goodell To place this into context, understand that the only reason that the Steelers hired Mike Tomlin 15 years ago is because he was black.  Why? He had never even been a coordinator anywhere, never in the NFL. The only reason that he was interviewed was because of the “Rooney Rule.” That rule is one named after the late Dan Rooney who led the effort to force every NFL team to interview at least one black coach when it had head coaching openings.  The Steelers had focused their coaching search after Bill Cowher left on Ron Rivera, then a defensive coordinator for the Chicago Bears. Their interview with Tomlin was a peremptory one, something to satisfy the smell test.  After all, why interview a guy who was just a defensive coach? Coordinators are the people who are hired for the big gig.  Tomlin, though, is a great talker, and he wooed Dan Rooney so much that he was hired for the position.  Which begs the q...
Read more