CLEVELAND — Well, we all just experienced another fairly dismal loss by our Cleveland football team yesterday. It was a game we were favored to win against a bad team missing their two best players and led by a journeyman quarterback who's really starting to resemble Weird Al Yankovich — let's just say it. So that's not great.
It was also another game where the universe offered Cleveland multiple opportunities to secure an ugly victory, in SPITE of their performance, with the Browns politely declining that offer repeatedly.
In other words, it was what should have been for lifelong Browns fans like myself: yet another demoralizing loss that causes despondence while watching it in real time, with a persistent sense of post-loss gloom carrying over and lingering with me today.
But what's kind of unique about this latest Browns loss is that I wasn't particularly upset during the game, and I'm not feeling very bummed right now. To be honest, I'm not feeling too much of anything about yesterday's game, and that's not good.
There's an old saying: "Hate is not the opposite of love; apathy is."
It might sound counterintuitive, but it's actually healthy to hate your football team sometimes, because in order to get angry with them, you have to first be invested. You have to care enough about them and expect enough from them to become disappointed. Having an angry fanbase is not ideal but it’s much better than having an indifferent fan base, which is just a step away from not having one at all.
To be clear, I'm not claiming that Browns fans becoming frustrated and eventually disengaged with their team during the season is anything new. It certainly isn't. After all, we've had a lot of terrible years to endure, and at some point during any abysmal Browns season, even the most pollyannish of fans tend to stop dreaming of a remarkable turnaround and relent.
But historically speaking, that collective sense of resignation by the fans typically occurs much further into the season. In other words, it seems like it usually takes way longer for the Browns to break our spirits than this, and that's what makes this feel kind of unprecedented.
I mean, it's not even October. It's 70 degrees and I'm wearing a t-shirt. Even during some of the worst seasons in the past, the fan base at least hung in there until sweater weather before reaching this level of detachment.
But here we are, just four games in, and the vibe already feels like we're 2-10.
So why are we throwing in the emotional towel so early this year? After all, it's not like the fan base is in any way unaccustomed to slow starts to the season. It's pretty much all we're ever known.
If you look at how the Browns have fared in their first four games since returning in 1999, you can see it's not great, but it's never been particularly good: We've never started 4-0, we've started 3-1 twice, and 0-4 five times, with the remainder being other forms of bad.
So it's not like we're not used to this!
But throughout of all of those trying and tedious starts, this fan base managed to remain remarkably resilient in their hope and their support for much longer. It took much longer to become numb.
And I know for a fact I'm not alone here, because I witnessed it firsthand yesterday while taking in the game with some friends who expressed a comparable level of disengagement and a notable lack of rage, despite witnessing the frustrating loss ion real time.
And to be clear, we're not talking casual Browns fans here; we're talking lifers with legit Browns fan pedigree and experience, including these three gentlemen: longtime season ticket holders Mike Polk Sr. and Mikey "Mac" McIntyre; and Bud Shaw, who covered the Browns for The Plain Dealer for nearly 30 years.
These are all men who were at one point so invested in their football team that their performance on a Sunday would dictate their respective moods for at least the earlier portion of their work week. But yesterday, the lousy game was nearly an afterthought, a good excuse to get together but certainly nothing to let slow down the conversation or mess up a good time.
Now, you could certainly argue that it's a healthier place for all of us to be emotionally to not have a large portion of our personal happiness be dependent upon the weekly outcome of a sporting match, and of course, you'd be 100% correct. But I've gotta tell ya: A part of me misses the hurt. Hurting means you care, and I'll take it over nothing any day.
My hope is that this team can figure out how to make me care enough to hurt again. Luckily, they do have time. The only Halloween decorations up on my street right now are on the trashy houses that leave them up all year long, which means the season is still very young.
Keep the faith, Cleveland, and Go Guardians!