Let Me Respectfully Explain Why Your Team Stinks: Ty is Sick of Hearing about the Mediocre Cleveland Browns
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The football uniforms are the ugliest part of the city
I'm going to get back to some sports hatred today. I haven't visited my irrational hatred blogs in awhile, and I figured now would be a great time for that.
We are almost halfway through the NFL season, and while I was watching the Red Zone Network this past Sunday, I couldn't help but notice how much they kept showing the god damned Cleveland Browns. Never mind the fact that the Patriots and Jets were playing an important conference game, or the fact that the Dolphins were throttling the Texans or the Saints were surprisingly beating down the Colts, in Indy, they kept showing the Browns, who were losing by 18 against the Rams. This made my blood boil, and I realized at that moment that I hated the Cleveland Browns. Not rational, had never thought that much about them, but the constant cut away to Johnny Manziel on the bench and their douchebag of a coach Mike Pettine with his snarky face on the sideline had me very irritated. So, I'm going to try and explain for new found hatred for the Cleveland Browns.
Let's start with the name of the team and their former owner. Paul Brown owned the Browns in their first go around in the NFL. Let's put aside the fact that he was a terrible owner and look at the name of the team and the colors in their uniform. They do have brown jerseys, their away jerseys by the way, but their pants and jerseys, and most importantly, their helmets are bright, bright orange. Why aren't they called the Cleveland Oranges, or the Cleveland Bull Dogs since their fans are called the "Dog Pound"? I'll tell you why, Paul Brown wanted the team to be named after him, so he called them the Cleveland Browns. How egomaniacal and arrogant is that? You own a team and you name them after you. This isn't a child, or a pet, this is a professional football team. This is what a child would do if they owned a team. They'd name them after themselves. It's so stupid and very annoying. I was informed by RD that the Paul Brown family now owns the Bengals and the Bengals stadium is called Paul Brown Stadium. Apparently this guy and his family can't get enough of hearing their own name. It's pretty appalling. Their uniforms are also pretty dreadful. When they do wear the brown away jersey, the brown looks like poop. Sometimes brown can look good on a uniform, like the old school Sonics uniforms when the space needle was brown amidst the green and yellow. It worked for the Sonics, the brown that the Browns use is terrible. It's the worst kind of chocolate pudding color. Then the helmets are an almost highlighter orange. It's so bright. It's more orange than a basketball. This is a terrible, terrible choice. The people who designed and created these uniforms have worse taste than I do, and I wear t shirts and shorts everyday. Basically, I have no taste for fashion, but I feel like I could come up with a better uniform.
Now, lets look at some of the coaches they've had that have sailed ship almost immediately, or they fired without giving them a chance. Guys like Eric Mangini, who everyone thought was a genius, but now he struggles to find work as a coordinator. They thought he could turn this team around and gave him a big contract. He did not last that whole contract. Bill Belichek got out of there as fast as he could. He took the job, realized the shit show that was the front office and bounced. Now, although a lot of people will call him a cheater, he's one of the best winners in all of the NFL. Mike Holmgren tried the whole GM/coach thing, and the coaching part worked for less than two years. This team has never really had real NFL caliber talent, and Holmgren realized that and just stayed on as GM. He left as the GM a couple of years ago when he realized that they wouldn't let him take the players he wanted in the draft, or trade and sign players they needed. The front office wanted to sign and trade and draft players that would sell jerseys, they don't seem to care about winning all that much.
Speaking of the front office and decisions they've made with players, let's look at two recent picks, Trent Richardson and Johnny Manziel. To Richardson's credit, he had one good season, his rookie year, but he could not produce after that. They should've seen this coming. When he was at Alabama, he wasn't even the primary back. Alabama doesn't feature one running back, they play multiple. This works for them in college, but when these guys get to the pros and are expected to be the "man", they can't live up to the hype. Mark Ingram and Eddie Lacy are realizing this now. Lacy can't stay healthy and Ingram is the starter in New Orleans, but they barely run the ball. Richardson just recently was cut by the Raiders, so his NFL career is all but over and he will be considered one of the biggest busts of all time.
Now, god damned Johnny Manziel. Johnny freaking Football. What a waste of talent and a roster spot in the NFL. He's a spoiled rotten rich white boy that hasn't had to work for anything in his life and feels entitled. Sure, he won a Heisman, but so did Matt Leinart and Chris Weinke. He also clearly has a problem with alcohol and possibly drugs. He checked himself into rehab for "unspecified reasons" this summer and he seemed to be back on track, according to ESPN, but he was recently pulled over for speeding, allegedly pushing his girlfriends face into the window of the passenger seat and having alcohol on his breath. He has a problem. He's also not that good of an NFL player. He abandons plays too early, he throws passes way too short or way too long, gets destroyed by linebackers and safeties when he scrambles and can't read defenses. He's a smaller, worse version of Colin Kaepernick, and Kaepernick is truly terrible.
Which brings me to my final and most important part of why I hate the Browns, the continuous coverage of this mediocre franchise on ESPN. They talk about the Browns almost every single day, as if they're relevant. They are a perennial 4-12 or 5-11 team at best. But, watch ESPN and you'd think that they were competing for playoff contention and Super Bowls. They talk about the Browns as much as they do the Patriots, but it's all love for Cleveland and all hate for New England. Why is that? Are the people at ESPN in bed with the people running the Browns? Sure seems like it to me. To put in even more of a perspective, they cover the Browns more than the Packers and the Broncos combined. That's insane. Those two teams have been to Super Bowls recently and in the Packers case, won their Super Bowl appearance. And the Broncos have Peyton Manning and one of the top defenses in pro football. They're relevant. They talk about Josh McCown and Johnny Manziel more than Tom Brady these days and I thought that was impossible. The Browns are irrelevant and have been for more than a decade now. Johnny Manziel will never be the star that ESPN wants him to be, the front office will always screw something up, they'll continue to make stupid hires for head coaches and continue to lose. They're a down trodden franchise and people need to quit talking about them like they matter. These are the many reasons I hate the Browns.
Now please Cleveland Browns fade into obscurity. It's your destiny.
Ty
Ty is the Pop Culture editor for SeedSing and the other host of the X Millennial Man podcast. He is in the market for a Johnny Clipboard shirt, help him out. Follow Ty on twitter @tykulik.
