As we struggle to survive another season with the new-era Browns, one way we can try to get through it (besides alcohol or heavy medication) is to look back at the best individual weeks of the Browns’ new era to remember times in recent memory when this particular week didn’t suck.
At a certain point in your life, Christmases begin to run together and it’s difficult to distinguish one from another. They become an amalgamation of unnecessary new interpretations of A Christmas Carol, obnoxious jewelry commercials, and awkward potluck lunches at work. Only on the rare occasion does a Christmas genuinely stand out.
Similarly, of the Browns’ 14 campaigns since their reboot, 12 of those have cruised into the yuletide season adding absolutely nothing meaningful to the holiday atmosphere. We watch at Christmas parties as fans of other teams sweat out playoff scenarios and discuss the implications of the upcoming games with that little glimmer of jealousy that also seems to permeate the holiday season.
Only twice since 1999 have the Browns paralleled our spring toward Christmas with a run to the playoffs. One (2007) wound up as an epic fail. But the other did not, even though it probably should have.
My most basic reason for following sports is for the enjoyment of an entertaining diversion. I do not delude myself: I know that none of my Cleveland teams are very good; my pet saying continues to be, “it’s a process”.
The world has to turn, I get that. And when the world has to turn, the NFL has to play, I get that too. No one, least of all me, expected anything as important as football to really stop so that we can all pause and ponder the violent country we live in, a country where mass murder occurs with such frequency anymore that we've become as numb to it as another Cleveland Browns loss. We didn't stop for 9/11. We aren't going to stop for innocent children massacred by a mad man in an idyllic Connecticut town. The Cleveland Browns played on Sunday and lost in spectacular fashion. I'm pretty sure it doesn't matter. The outcome of the game will set the stage for another housecleaning in a facility that knows nothing but housecleaning and I'm still pretty sure it doesn't matter. So numbed am I by the events on Friday that it was hard enough to muster up enthusiasm for the game, let alone for figuring out once again what went wrong with the Browns.
Useless nuggets of information from Sunday’s Browns game that you can certainly live without…
The new, updated NFL Playoff scenarios are in! The way I read it, if the Bengals team plane crashes into the Steelers team plane, and the ensuing debris field wipes out the Ravens training facility in Owings Mills, MD, well, Roger Goodell would have almost no choice but to put the Browns in as the AFC Central champs!! There’s still a chance!! Sure, it depends a lot on the whimsy of air traffic controllers, but still!!!