A long-suffering Browns fan’s lament
Today marks the 50th anniversary of the Super Bowl. Denver will play Carolina this afternoon in Santa Clara, Calif., for the NFL championship.
I will now convert this anniversary into Browns years:
It is 29 years since The Drive.
It is 28 years since The Fumble.
It is 35 years since Red Right 88.
It is 20 years since The Betrayal.
It is 51 years since The Title.
If you’re from Cleveland, you know exactly what I mean. For those of you sane enough not to follow the Browns, let me explain.
THE DRIVE. The Browns faced the Broncos in the American Football
Conference title game in 1987. The winner would go to the Super Bowl. Cleveland was leading with 5½ minutes left in the game. John Elway drove the Broncos 98 yards to tie the game. Denver won in overtime.
THE FUMBLE. The Browns again played Denver for the AFC title the next year. Late in the fourth quarter, the Browns were trailing by a touchdown. Bernie Kosar handed the ball off to Earnest Byner, who had a clear path to the end zone and a certain touchdown. Byner fumbled.
RED RIGHT 88. The Browns were losing to Oakland by two points at the end of a divisional playoff game. Instead of kicking a field goal to win, the Browns called a pass play, red right 88. Brian Sipe threw an interception in the end zone.
THE BETRAYAL. Rather than wait for the city of Cleveland to approve his request for a $175 million taxpayer-funded refurbishment of Browns stadium, owner Art Modell moved the team to Baltimore and renamed it the Ravens. The Ravens won the Super Bowl four years later. Cleveland got an expansion team, also called the Browns, in 1999. Their record since returning to the NFL is 87 wins and 185 losses.
THE TITLE. The last time the Browns won an NFL title was in 1964, before there was a Super Bowl. Only three other teams in the 32-team league have never played in a Super Bowl.
The Browns have had five different head coaches in the past six years. The Pittsburgh Steelers have had two since 1992.
Since Cleveland’s return to the NFL, 23 different players have started games at quarterback. Our second draft pick two years ago, Johnny Manziel, who spent a couple of months in a drug and alcohol treatment center after his rookie year, has become a national joke for his endless partying and a disgrace for violence against an ex-girlfriend. Our best receiver was suspended for the third time last season for using illegal drugs.
When it comes to sporting futility, the Chicago Cubs have nothing on the Browns. The Cubs last won the World Series in 1908. But it is not the same thing. The Cubs are lovable losers. Even people who don’t follow baseball pull for the Cubs. No one pulls for the Browns except for us delusional, masochistic fans. Rooting for the Browns is truly the triumph of hope over experience. So why do I bother? I blame evolution. The survival of Homo sapiens as a species has always depended upon cooperation among people, so our brains are wired to have a strong sense of loyalty to family and tribe, in this case, the tribe of Cleveland.
In the middle of the 20th century, Cleveland was a thriving industrial center, rather like Chicago, another Midwestern industrial city on the Great Lakes. Downtown office buildings were cathedrals of commerce, featuring vaulted lobbies and marble pillars and glass worthy of Chartres. Rail yards were jammed with cars carrying our production to the world. People took pride in the factory smokestacks that belched pollutants into the sky 24 hours a day.
In winter, everyone wore a Browns jacket. In summer, we wore Indians gear. Every schoolkid was bused to the art museum to marvel at Rodin’s “The Thinker” outside the front door. Every schoolkid wanted to play both for the sports teams and for the Cleveland Orchestra.
When the world stopped buying our steel, wire and car parts, Clevelanders developed a pride in their own survival amid the industrial ruins and in their teams and orchestra. The tribe would prevail.
The actor, comedian and game show host Drew Carey, one of Cleveland’s more famous sons, said last year that he wouldn’t buy a crappy sandwich just because it was made in Cleveland. He won’t buy a ticket for a crappy football team just because it’s from Cleveland, either. The man owns a professional soccer team, so you can’t take him seriously.
Today, this Super Bowl Sunday, I will, as I have for much of my life, look to the future with hope, despite decades of experience. The Browns have yet another new coach, another new front-office staff and the second pick in the 2016 draft.
What could go wrong?