Brown out

It’s been a long time since I’ve had a rant and I do very much so need to vent this morning.

I went to the Cleveland Browns game against the Denver Broncos Sunday afternoon. I am friggin’ fed up. I pay $450 dollars a year for my season tickets which for an average Joe like me is a chunk of change. Then I take a vacation day from work, drive 2 hours from Findlay to Cleveland, pay $20 to park, maybe buy a beer or two for $6.50 a pop and then when I get there I have to sit through as bad of football that you are going to see at any level week after week after week after week.

I can’t take it anymore. I was crushed when Art Modell moved the Browns to Baltimore and I was ecstatic when the NFL announced the Browns got a team back and would be back in 1999. My brother talked me into getting season tickets. In spite of the $950 we had to pay for our personal seat license. Here’s what we’ve got for our money: bad football. I don’t just mean bad football, I mean BAAAAADDD football.

Terrible coaching, injured players, an offense line year in and year out that’s even too porous to strain spaghetti and most importantly empty promises from Browns staff that things are getting better and the team is becoming more competitive. They are liars. It’s the same old, same old and this is one horrible football team, especially on offense. And I mean horrible with a capital HORR.

Sure the Broncos defense had been good, very good. But the Browns offense had 2 weeks to prepare for them and this was the result season lows in points (seven), first downs (10), third-down efficiency (1 of 11), total yards (165) and rushing yards (34).


I rarely leave a Browns game early. One exception was last year’s Christmas Eve debacle when the Steelers came to Cleveland and pummeled the Browns. I was at the game dressed as Santa Claus but believe me I was no jolly old elf, I left at the end of the third quarter. Yesterday we left with about 4 minutes left as I wanted to make sure I got my brother home in time to watch his beloved Detroit Tigers win Game 2 of the World Series last night.

After listening to Coach Crennel’s postgame comments, I’m not very confident. He offered no criticisms of his team’s play and no solutions either. I would have rather seen a repeat of Dennis Green’s meltdown after the Cardinals lost to the Bears last Monday night. Damn, Romeo give me something, anything to hang on to as a life preserver as the Browns ship keeps sinking. Instead he tossed the fans bobbing in the cold water with the Browns an anchor and said hold on tight.

Well, I will go to the Steelers-Browns game I have tickets for. But seriously, if anyone wants to buy my 3 tickets for the Browns-Bengals game they are for sale. Perfect for a Bengals fan, they are in Row 4, Section 149 right on the visitors tunnel.; Last year I caught Jon Kitna’s ball cap he tossed into the stands. If interested shoot me an email at jamiebaker@thecourier.com and we’ll arrange a transfer.

Some other random thoughts on the game:

-- Ralph Brown has to be one of the worst corners in the NFL. He dropped two possible interceptions yesterday and I watched as he trashed talked a Denver receiver after he was able to keep the receiver from catching a touchdown pass in the corner of the endzone right in front of us. The very next play the receiver was wide open for a touchdown and Brown was on the coverage. SPEND MORE TIME COVERING THE RECIEVER AND LESS TIME JAWING RALPH!!! I was livid.

-- When Gary Baxter, who signed a $30 million contract with the club last year and has since played in just 8 of 22 games, went down with what appeared to be a serious knee injury I have to tell you I saw something that was the epitome of class. Baxter got tangled up with Broncos receiver Javon Walker on a play and when he came down in front of us near the goalline you could tell he was hurt pretty bad. Walker got up and immediately signaled for medical personnel to come to Baxter’s aid. No trash talking, you could tell by the way Walker was acting that he was very upset that Baxter was hurt on the play. He is a class act.

-- Romeo, Romero why didn’t you use that time out Romeo. The Broncos failed to convert a 3rd down with 40 seconds left before halftime, the Browns had one time out. Instead of using it to force Denver to punt the ball away, they let the clock run down to 4 seconds before Denver called a time out of their own. Uggghhhh! Then when they found out Denver was going to run a play to run the final ticks off the clock, the Browns used their last time out to get their defense on the field. If they called time out when they should have with 40 seconds left, the Browns would have at least had a chance to block the punt or set up a return, who knows what could have happened. I bitched about it the entire halftime.

NOTEWORTHY:
SHOCKING UPSETS: There were two notable prep upsets over the weekend and both involved the Patrick Henry Patriots.
The first happened Saturday afternoon when Patrick Henry knocked off New Riegel in a Division IV sectional volleyball match at McComb. The Patriots were like 4-14 and New Riegel had a terrific season beating state-ranked Hopewell-Loudon among the many matches they won during the season. I was shocked when we got that score.
The second shocking upset was the Patriots losing their Saturday Night Special football game at Sidney Lehman in overtime. Knowing that Lehman lost to Carey earlier in the season, I would have bet the house that Patrick Henry would win that game. Thank goodness, I’m not handicapping games.

WHAT”S AHEAD: Girls volleyball teams resume their paths on the tournament trail this week. Sectional finals are slated for Tuesday, district semifinals are Thursday and district title games are slated for Saturday. Sectional and district soccer matches also take place this week with regional cross country slated for Saturday at Tiffin’s Hedges Boyer Park.

TOMORROW: A look at the playoff chances for area teams.

NEWSWORTHY:
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