Misery march: Browns fans facing cold truth
CLEVELAND — The weather conditions will be suitably brutal. Like the Cleveland Browns’ National Football League season.
Despite minus double-digit Celsius temperatures in the forecast, thousands of disillusioned fans are expected to attend a parade on Saturday to commemorate — and protest — the historically inept 0-16 season.
Nothing like some floats and frostbite.
The “Perfect Season Parade” organizer Chris McNeil’s tonguein-cheek tweet more than a year ago spawned a small uprising within Cleveland’s passionate fan base. He’s spent the past few days finalizing preparation for the parade. There will be a bus, RVs, an ambulance and hearse — to symbolically bury the season.
A season-ticket holder, McNeil never wanted the parade to happen. The Browns, though, turned an intended joke into reality by becoming the second team in National Football League history to lose 16 games in a season. In joining the 2008 Detroit Lions, Cleveland’s team has found a new low in nearly two decades of disgrace since returning as an expansion franchise in 1999.
The Browns were stumbling toward a 1-15 record in 2016 under first-year coach Hue Jackson. McNeil, who like other fans was basking in the aftermath of the Cavaliers winning the NBA title to end the city’s 52-year championship drought, posted a sarcastic message on Twitter about the Browns: “This team deserves a parade.”
The sentiment created a stir on social media. Soon McNeil was obtaining a permit from the city to hold a parade. But it was cancelled when the Browns finally won on Christmas Eve after 14 straight losses. McNeil gave money raised to hold the event to the Cleveland Food Bank, a gift that reached nearly $50,000 after Browns owners Dee and Jimmy Haslam doubled the donation.
McNeil never considered another parade, but when the Browns lost in Pittsburgh last Sunday, it became official.
As of Friday morning, the event’s Facebook page says 6,300 people have committed to attend and 20,000 more are interested.
McNeil knows of fans flying from California. Hotels have told him guests intend to attend despite a weather forecast better suited for polar bears.