CLEVELAND — As you know, all season long I’ve been giving you my reaction to each week’s Browns game. But it’s a bit of an unusual situation this time because I have not actually seen yesterday’s Browns game yet. So currently I’m flying kind of blind.
It’s actually a funny story. You see, before the game yesterday I was doing my usual pre-game ritual of roller skating through my neighborhood to get everyone pumped up for the game. Well, I must have hit a little patch of ice or something, because I took a bit of a tumble and conked may head, as you can see. What a goof! That’s why you should always wear a helmet, kids. Don’t learn it the hard way.
Long story short, everything went black and I just now woke up. So as of right now, I still have no idea what happened in yesterday’s game. I have it DVR'd, of course, and I’m about to watch it right now. And I’m very excited. Why wouldn’t I be? My Brownies are on a roll! You all saw that dominating win against Cincinnati last week. Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m gonna go enjoy watching some football. I’ll check back in with you guys afterwards to tell ya what I thought.
Ten Minutes Later...
Sorry to jump back in early like this, but I couldn’t contain myself because I just watched my Browns march down the field on eleven plays in the opening possession to take an early seven-nothing lead, and boy does it look like they came to play today! This is great. Okay, gonna go watch the rest of it now, then I’ll be back. Here we go Brownies...here we go!
One Hour Later...
Okay. Just watched the whole game. And heavens, that certainly took an abrupt turn, didn’t it? Um…yeah. I’m really not even sure exactly what happened there. Um. Still kind of processing everything. I did manage to jot down some notes….First, a few negatives:
-“Only completing one pass to a wide receiver during entire game seemed to hinder the potency of our offense”. That’s true.
-Defensively, Giving up 45 consecutive points limits options as far as realistic paths to victory….
Okay, you know what, I feel like these are all kind of common sense. Probably no need to even really continue with all these negatives. Let’s move onto the positives...let’s see, what do I have here? Opening drive. Very good….already kind of touched on that earlier. Ah! Here. I wrote: “Love when they wear the orange pants. They look cool.” And….that’s all I have in that category.
So, this was obviously a pretty demoralizing loss for the team, and the fanbase. But in my ongoing effort this season to try to find silver linings rather than dwelling in cynicism, here’s are the best two things I can some up with:
- This team is schizophrenic. And by that I mean, one week they look totally dominant, the next week they look like whatever that just was. And that’s obviously bad but it can also be hopeful, because it proves that the Browns are CAPABLE of playing good football. Sometimes. Is it infuriating that they can’t do it consistently? Of course. But as a Browns fan who endured many seasons where we knew there wasn’t even any hope of them looking good on any given Sunday, I’ll still take this frustrating madness over where we were in the past.
- All the other teams in our division seem to be having an identity crisis simultaneously so at least we’re not alone. We spanked Cincy last week, Baltimore just got beat soundly by Miami and Pittsburgh got Goffed (GOFFED!) yesterday by somehow tying with the winless Lions. And if there is justice in the universe they will miss the playoffs by a half a game at the end of this season. Please, universe. I don’t ask for much.
- The point is, The AFC North is total chaos right now and anything’s still possible because in chaos resides opportunity. Despite that abomination yesterday, this division is still up for grabs. Can the Browns take advantage of that? That depends. Are we talking about Yesterday’s Browns or Last week’s Browns? We’ll see who shows up for the rest of the season. But at least we know they’re capable of it. But we shall see.
Now if you’ll excuse me, I believe I’ll strap these old roller skates back on, head outside and try to find that patch of ice again so I can maybe try to forget about that game I just watched. Wish me luck folks, and Go Browns!
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