One lonely December 2009 post

Post #601.

Been a while, eh? You still come around here? You still on the edge of your seat waiting for an update? Or have you given up? I wouldn't blame you. Why keep coming back when I don't update anything for over a month. This being said, the muse to type something relevant or witty or newsworthy on these very pages has seemingly disappeared. The urge and wanting to do so is gone. Those who follow my oh-so-interesting (sarcasm) adventures already do so on the interwebs via The Facebook or The Twitter. Here on The Blogger?....I just don't "feel it" at the moment.

So maybe in 2010, there will be an update on a brewday or a movie or something interesting I've done. But for the most part, the urge to share these types of things on this medium has subsided greatly. I guess I'll be around, just not so often. Try not to wait up.

So to recap December 2009 in one fell swoop:

The Fantastic Mr. Fox / Chargers game / Great Lakes beer school / Steelers game / Dave Matthews Band concert film in 3-D / nasty snowstorm that canceled my yearly A Christmas Carol theater excursion / wicked bronchitis.

Here's to an improved 2010. Finally, a vigorous and hearty FUCK YOU to 2009 and the events that threaten to ruin me as the entity you previously knew.

My first trip to Cleveland Browns Stadium!

Saturday. Preseason NFL football. The Tennessee Titans travel to play my beloved Cleveland Browns. One of my cohorts in our little "North Carolina roving Browns party" on Sundays has had season tickets with 3 other guys for the Browns. One of them mentioned wanting to get out of it due to his sadness and frustration with the Browns' lack of success. I chewed it over, asked Art if it were to occur if he might be game, then proceeded to buy out the disenchanted owner.

Art and I own 1/4 of a set of Cleveland Browns season tickets.

Giddy.

So, our first game was Saturday. I used to go to quite a few Browns games pre-1996 when the "original Browns" were still around and not the Baltimore Ravens. But since 1999 when the "new Browns" returned, I had not been to new Cleveland Browns Stadium yet. Impossible to buy tickets online. Sure, I could probably buy some in person from a scalper in the Muni Lot, but that's difficult to pull off from down here.

Flash? Meet Section 504, Row 23, Seats 15-16.


Sure, they're high up. Sure, it's August 29th we began to get COLD. Sure, the players look like ants. But it doesn't matter. We have guaranteed tickets to BROWNS GAMES for the foreseeable future. And that can't be measured empirically.

Opening kickoff:

And I kept recording Joshua Cribbs and his kickoff/punt returns just in case something BIG happened, but this one was the best that would occur:

This was just too, too cool. I LOVE IT!!!!!

Browns humor

Got this in an email today.

Apparently with the awful Ravens/Steelers championship game this weekend, there was some chatter on cleveland.com about what in the world a Browns fan is to do concerning this terrible matchup. This was posted in some "Comments" section:

Adolf Hitler, Osama Bin Laden and Art Modell are in a room with a Browns fan. The Browns fan has a gun with just two bullets left. What does a true Browns fan do?

Simple: He shoots Modell twice.

Classic.

Go to hell, Art. (Asshole.)

Thankful for Browns football

I love the Browns. It is a blessing and a curse. The amount of character-building occurring just by being a Browns fan is immense. Sure I bitch about their shoddy play, their inept skills, their ability to rankle me on a gorgeous Sunday afternoon, but they're MY team. MY heroes. MY gaggle of plain-helmeted warriors.

Be that as it may, it gives me permission to scream and bemoan their recent (well, not so recent) stretch of ineptitude. The latest gem? Hometown (well, a town a smidge under 2 hours south of Cleveland) boy Brady Quinn gets to play quarterback for his beloved Cleveland Browns. Every young boy's dream. Played through a broken fingertip on his throwing hand and ended up damaging a tendon. Giving rise to possible surgery and a definite end to his season. Sigh....

At least he's already been named the starter for 2009!

Today, and every day, I am truly thankful for the Cleveland Browns, but am frankly tiring of the bad tidings that accompany my team.

2008: The Year of the Brown

A 10-6 season with a high-scoring offense in 2007 has resulted in the NFL rewarding our beloved Brownies with 5 prime time appearances in 2008.

Five.

Unheard of. The previous high for primetime games for the Browns was three. Granted, in the glory days of the late 1980s there was only Monday Night Football whereas now we have Thursday, Sunday, AND Monday night telecasts to contend with. But still, 5 games in primetime means that the NFL brass (and not just The House of Gordon) expects big things from this team.

Dare we say they are the team to beat in the AFC North?

Sports Illustrated article.
Browns beat writer Tony Grossi article.

The schedule:

Preseason
Thur., Aug. 7 New York Jets 7:30 p.m. (WKYC TV-3)
Mon., Aug. 18 at New York Giants 8:00 p.m. (ESPN)
Sat., Aug. 23 at Detroit Lions 4:00 p.m. (WKYC TV-3)
Thur., Aug. 28 Chicago Bears 7:30 p.m. (WKYC TV-3)

Regular Season
Sun., Sept. 7 Dallas Cowboys 4:15 p.m. (FOX)
Sun., Sept. 14 Pittsburgh Steelers 8:15 p.m. (NBC)
Sun., Sept. 21 at Baltimore Ravens 4:15 p.m. (CBS)
Sun., Sept. 28 at Cincinnati Bengals 1:00 p.m. (CBS)
Sun., Oct. 5 Bye Week
Mon., Oct. 13 New York Giants 8:30 p.m. (ESPN)
Sun., Oct. 19 at Washington Redskins 4:15 p.m. (CBS)
Sun., Oct. 26 at Jacksonville Jaguars 4:05 p.m. (CBS)
Sun., Nov. 2 Baltimore Ravens 1:00 p.m. (CBS)
Thur., Nov. 6 Denver Broncos 8:15 p.m. (NFL Network)
Mon., Nov. 17 at Buffalo Bills 8:30 p.m. (ESPN)
Sun., Nov. 23 Houston Texans 1:00 p.m. (CBS)
Sun., Nov. 30 Indianapolis Colts 1:00 p.m. (CBS)
Sun., Dec. 7 at Tennessee Titans 1:00 p.m. (CBS)
Mon., Dec. 15 at Philadelphia Eagles 8:30 p.m. (ESPN)
Sun., Dec. 21 Cincinnati Bengals 1:00 p.m. (CBS)
Sun., Dec. 28 at Pittsburgh Steelers 1:00 p.m. (CBS)

Hawaii-bound!

For years the House of Gordon has rallied for the cause of acquiring good offensive linemen in football. (And also for quality starting pitching in baseball, but that's for another season.) Statements like "Joe Montana would SUCK as a Cleveland Brown with our offensive line." were commonplace around here. The Browns drafted left tackle Joe Thomas from Wisconsin with the #3 pick in last year's draft, and the House of Gordon celebrated. Maybe, after a quarter of a century, the Browns brass may again "get it". Finally, after the smallest number of quarterback sacks allowed in recent memory, plus a 1,300-yard rusher in the mix, a *gasp* Cleveland Brown offensive lineman has made the NFL's all-star game: the Pro Bowl in Hawaii.

And there was much rejoicing.

To truly understand the futility of Cleveland Brown offensive lines past, look at the sparse recent history of league-identified lineman all-stars from northeast Ohio:

Thomas becomes the first Browns' offensive lineman to make the Pro Bowl since Cody Risien 20 years ago, following the 1987 season. He's the first Browns' left tackle to be named to the game since Doug Dieken following the 1980 season, and the first Browns rookie to go since Chip Banks following the 1982 season.

Quite a drought: 20 years for any lineman, and 27 years for a left tackle. The times, they maybe are a-changin'. Good for you, Brownies!

Damn Browns.

Another year of dangling hope in front of us only to just tear it away in a brutal manner. 10-6 is still a helluva lot better than last year, but still..."what could have been"? Just had to split the two games against the Steelers instead of losing both, or win that most recent game against Cincinnati, or beat a lowly Raiders team, or Arizona even. But no. Not to be. The Browns will watch the playoffs like the rest of us peons do: on television.

I'd like to give the Indianapolis Colt backups a big F.U. for laying such a stinker against the Titans on Sunday night. Get a goddamn first down, Jim Sorgi. But it's not all Indy's fault. If we can't get in on our own accord, we don't deserve to get in at all.

Dammit.

(Go Packers!)

The Gordons are HUGE Colts fans.

So, the Browns again turned the Gordon switch from rapturously exciting to deliriously frustrating Sunday by losing to the Cincinnitucky Bungholes. Beat them and a spot in the playoffs is ours. What'd we do?

Lose 19-14.

Infuriating.

So now, the Brownies and the Tennessee Titans are both 9-6. The Browns play the NFC's 49ers next week, and the Titans play their AFC rival Colts. The Browns losing to the Bungholes (an AFC team) has resulted in the scenario that if the Titans beat the Colts (an AFC team), the Titans would have a better conference record and thereby make the playoffs...even if the Browns win and they end up with identical 10-6 records.

Tennessee wins and Tennessee's in. Tennessee loses and Tennessee's out. The Browns can just sit and watch, they don't even need to beat the 49ers. By virtue of a Titan AFC loss dropping them to 9-7, the Browns gain the edge in the tiebreaker if they too end up 9-7.

Confused yet?

Basically, the House of Gordon is banking on this man to take it to the Titans and drop them to 9-7 this Sunday:

But of course, the Colts have the #2 seed locked up for the AFC playoffs no matter the outcome, so the above-pictured hero will most probably sit on the bench for most of the game, making a Titan victory all the more possible, leaving the Browns to yet again watch January football on TV like the rest of us.

It's so painful to be a Browns fan sometimes....

---

edit: per the Browns email newsletter, they state it much more succinctly:

The Browns and Titans are both 9-6 heading into the season's final week. The Titans play at Indianapolis in a game that means nothing to the Colts, who have clinched a first-round bye. If the Colts win, the Browns are in. If the Titans win, the Browns are out. Here's why...

**The Titans are 6-5 in AFC play; the Browns are 7-5. If the Titans win next week and finish 7-5, it goes to the third tiebreaker, common opponents, and the Titans win that based on the Browns' losses to Oakland and Cincinnati. The Titans lost to Cincinnati but beat Oakland, the Jets and Houston twice.

**The only way the Browns' result next week against San Francisco means anything in regards to the playoff race is if the Titans and Colts would tie. In that case, the Browns would be in with a win.

**Assuming the Titans and Colts don't tie, here's what lies ahead for the Browns: A win, and they're 10-6 and looking at the tiebreakers. A loss, and they'd still be in if Tennessee loses at Indy based on their 7-5 conference record.

December Football

Wow. Sunday the beloved Cleveland Browns defeat the Buffalo Bills at home 8-0. That's right. 8-0. Two field goals and a safety.

Cleveland.com had a great photo gallery from the game. Here are some favorites. Now THIS is how December football should be played. What a fun game....

An Obituary Barely Mentioned in the News

Yesterday on Tuesday, pro football hall of famer Bill Willis passed away at the age of 86. A passing is sad no matter who is involved, but this one hits hard because Bill Willis was an historic man in an historic time. You see, Bill Willis was the first black collegiate All-American player for THE Ohio State University, and was also the "first" black professional football player to cross the color line and keep it integrated.

And this barely made the national news outlets.

Granted he wasn't the "first", but according to this post on the Pro Football Hall of fame's website back in September 2006,

In its earliest days, American pro football was technically an integrated sport. Four African Americans played pro football prior to the founding of the National Football League in 1920. During the NFL's first 14 seasons, 13 African Americans played, but most managed only brief careers. However, from 1934 through 1945, there were no African Americans playing pro football. Then in 1946, a full year before baseball great Jackie Robinson joined the Brooklyn Dodgers, Paul Brown signed two African American players he knew from earlier coaching days, a bruising lineman named Bill Willis, and a powerful fullback Marion Motley. Brown and his two players went on to Hall of Fame careers, but more importantly; Motley and Willis' appearance in Browns uniforms and their eventual successes were the first steps in the permanent integration of professional football.

The Associated Press released a modest obituary:

COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) — Bill Willis, a Hall of Fame guard with the Cleveland Browns who also was Ohio State's first black football All-American, has died. He was 86.

Willis, who had been battling a short illness, died Tuesday evening, said school spokesman Steve Snapp, who was notified of the death by one of Willis' sons. No other details were released.

Willis, an All-American in 1943 and 1944, had his No. 99 jersey retired at halftime of the Wisconsin-Ohio State game on Nov. 3 at Ohio Stadium. He had a distinguished career with the Browns (1946-53), helping to break the color barrier in professional football.

Willis was inducted into both the college and pro football Halls of Fame. Willis played both offense and defense for the Browns but won acclaim as a defensive middle guard on a five-man front. He made a touchdown-saving tackle in a playoff game against the New York Giants that allowed the Browns to advance and eventually win the 1950 championship game in their first year in the NFL.

With the Buckeyes, Willis was a devastating blocker on offense and a punishing, relentless tackler on defense, despite his 6-foot-2, 215-pound frame. The Columbus native was a key part of the Buckeyes' 1942 national championship squad.

The Cleveland Plain Dealer had the following stories in the newspaper:
Bill Willis Dies and Browns Reaction to the Death of Bill Willis

Baseball's Jackie Robinson is canonized and virtually made into an outright deity. Rightly so. The contributions of Marion Motley and Bill Willis in football follow a parallel path. The passing of Bill Willis should have garnered more national notoriety than it did. Here's hoping this modest blog post gave you pause to consider what he had to go through in his professional sporting life. Rest in peace.

7 - 4 ????

Seriously? 7-4?

Are you kidding me? The mighty Cleveland Browns are 7-4? Their first 5-game home winning streak since 1994? Had you told me before this season started that after 11 games...

1. The Browns would have a winning record
2. Romeo Crennel would still be the head coach
3. QB Brady Quinn would have not yet taken a snap
4. The Browns would be in the driver's seat for a wildcard playoff spot
5. The House of Gordon would not be physically nauseous week in and week out

I would have eaten my hat.

Sometimes it feels so good to be so wrong. Go Browns! Woof, woof!