Browns leave Factory of Sadness behind
The early Cleveland Browns were among the greatest teams in football history. Most Browns fans who knew this in their bones are either worm food or ash.
The history — 13 title game appearances and eight championships between 1946 and 1964 — remains. It is in grainy film and and sepia-tinted newspaper clippings. It can be seen but not felt.
The current Browns are good enough to aspire to greatness. Most Browns fans are reticent to believe this. They want to, but they can't. To marry the words “Browns” and “greatness” in one sentence is to be divorced from reality.
The Browns are 533-509-14 all time through 73 seasons. Over the past 28 seasons they have lost 296 games, or
58% of all the games they've ever lost.
They have transited from the Mistake on the Lake to the Factory of Sadness. Over the past 22 seasons, or since they were reborn in 1999, they have lost 239 games, or 47% of all the games they've ever lost.
Think about that.
Browns fans who are not yet worm food, or ash, are a Loss Generation. Or they're Lost Generations. Winning to them is like Gertrude Stein. Gertrude who?
In a span of a little more than two decades, they have been witness to nearly half the losses — including the (temporary) loss of the entire franchise — in the eight-plus decades of Browns football.
Otto who? Graham? Barely rings a bell. (Graham Bell?)
The Browns will play their 74th season-opener Sunday when they meet the Chiefs at Arrowhead Stadium in Kansas City. Tough opponent, the Chiefs. Patrick Mahomes has led them to two Super Bowl appearances, and one championship, in the past two seasons.
The Browns haven't won a championship since 1964, the year designs for the World Trade Center were revealed.
The Browns are 1-20-1 in season openers since 1999.
Last year in Week 1, they lost 38-6 to the Baltimore Ravens.
This year, after they lose to the Chiefs, which they probably will, Browns fans ought not have flashbacks to 2019, 2018, 2017 or any year going back to 1990. No.
Go back even farther, to 1989 or '88, the last time they had back-to-back winning seasons. Go back to a happier place, where Bernie Kosar and Kevin Mack live. Go back at least that far. At least.
Last season the Browns went 11-5 and won a playoff game (beat the Steelers!) for the first time since 1994. If the season were a line, it was a steady rise.
All signs point to continuing improvement. Indeed, the 2021 Browns look great on paper. Maybe even terrific.
History shows that the best coaches thrive in difficult circumstances (see: Joe Gibbs winning Super Bowls in strike seasons). Kevin Stefanski flipped the Browns' record amid unprecedented (pandemic) conditions, a testament to his coaching chops and his cool countenance.
Quarterback Baker Mayfield got better and better and better. This season, for the first time in his short career, he is working with the same coach and system that was in place the year before.
The Browns might have the best offensive line in the league. They might have the most balanced and efficient offense. They definitely have the best running-back combination (Nick Chubb/ Kareem Hunt).
The Browns are going to have seven or eight new starters on defense, which is an incredible turnover. But among the returning starters are Denzel Ward and Myles Garrett. Prime pieces. Is Garrett the best edge rusher in the game? He's in the brief conversation.
As for the rest of it, general manager Andrew Berry moved adroitly through the signing season, took care of the depth problem in the secondary and upgraded at every level of the defense. He invested heavily in shoring up the Browns' primary weaknesses, in other words.
That the Browns finished third in the AFC North is a blessing this year. It drew them a third-place team's schedule. It includes a rotation with teams from the NFC North and AFC West, two thinner divisions. In sum, a Browns team on the come has been blessed with few obstacles.
They are six-point underdogs in their rematch with the Chiefs. After that, and I'm thumbnailing here, they may be the betting favorite in 13 or 14 of their last 16 games. Something like that is entirely within the realm of possibility. Think about that.
In most any other city, fans might be whispering about a Super Bowl, or even saying the words out loud. In Cleveland, it's difficult. It's a flight of fancy that has been grounded for generations. Take off ? All they know is crashes.
To take this flight requires belief in a system that has not existed since the advent of television, or at least since Apple introduced the Macintosh.
It requires one to believe that owner Jimmy Haslam has indeed ceded power to intelligent football people, that Berry might just be brilliant, that Stefanski is a cut above the 10 coaches (not counting interims) who've run the Factory of Sadness since 1999, that Mayfield is something akin to a franchise quarterback, that a reconstituted defense can constitute itself over the coming months ... and, ultimately, that these Browns can win more than one playoff game.
This year, all of these things are possible.
marace@dispatch.com