"What a night for Browns fans everywhere"
Pretty much anyone who knows me could tell you that I'm a faithful Cleveland Browns fan. I have been my entire life. My dad being from northeast Ohio, I was essentially born into it (for better or for worse). My younger years were spent watching Browns games on TV every Sunday, where my dad and I would spend the commercial breaks passing a football to each other and pretending we were the Browns driving down the field toward the end zone. Back in those days I was too young to understand, let alone care about, the decades of disappointment that were weighing on Browns fans' shoulders. As I grew older, I started to feel that weight more and more with every unsuccesful season. By the time I got to middle school, I had decided it was time to take a break from Cleveland sports all together. LeBron was no longer a Cavalier, the Indians were in the middle of another rebuild, and the Browns were...well, the Browns.
A few years later I returned to regularly following the Browns, this time with a clear head, tempered expectations, and John Siracusa's "infinite timescale" argument fresh in my mind. It's a good thing I had tempered expectations, too, because those years were rough. Plagued by constant coaching and front-office turnover, draft bust after draft bust, and strong division rivals, there was not a lot to look forward too. At times, it felt as though we would never be able to bounce back. The obstacles were just too big to overcome. But after the winless 2017 season, I knew that we had to start winning again soon; it had simply been too long.
2020 was an objectively horrible year, but the one shining light I had were the Cleveland-Freaking-Browns. For the first time in decades, the Browns put together a system that worked. It wasn't always pretty, but it worked. We lost our first game of the season, but after that we started winning. And once we started winning, it was hard to stop. That brings us to this past Sunday night. A mere three years after going 0-16, the Browns managed to put one of the most amazing performances I have ever seen in football. We marched into Pittsburgh, the home of our long overachieving rivals, and simply stole their lunch money. The best part: we did it with no head coach, four benched starters due to COVID, and only having had two practices in the last two weeks. But we played bully-ball, fought hard, and simply wanted it more. Fresh off a certified butt-kicking at Pittsburgh, the Cleveland Browns are officially BACK! Happy days are here again in Cleveland, and it truly feels like the best is yet to come. This season has meant so much to me as fan. The best part of the whole ordeal has been getting the chance to watch the Browns make and win a playoff game with my dad, which is something that for a while I genuinely thought I would never get the chance to do. 2020 has, for all of its dark days, reminded me that: "once a member of the Dawg Pound, always a member of the Dawg Pound".
Here we come, Kansas City! 🐶
Relevant Links:
Jim Donovan's Postgame Reaction
Browns vs. Steelers Super Wild Card Weekend Highlights | NFL 2020 Playoffs - YouTube
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