Wednesday, December 14, 2011

It's Christmas in Berea Again

 "Yes, somewhere in Hell, Art Modell is still smiling."


"I'm not much for beating a dead horse, except of course for the pure pleasure of it." - Groucho Marx


In one week I've gone from a staunch defender (or, at least, a guy who has been preaching patience and the need for more time to fairly evaluate) to a guy who could care less if this whole new Browns organization goes out the door yet again.

Merry Fucking Christmas.

My God    deep down in the cockles of my soul (or even in that sub-cockle area Dennis Leary sings about), I do know that if we don't stick with someone for a number of years, then we will never be good again.

Or good for the first time, depending on your perspective.  

I know this fact in my bones, the way that I know that the sun will come up tomorrow everywhere in this wide world except, of course, in Berea.  I know this is a fact of football, and that starting over will just mean more running in place, but...

But...

That's a big but.  That's the biggest, heaviest, sloppiest "but" you are ever going to see this side of Kim Kardashian's sex tape.

But the way this whole concussion thing has been handled    on top of a few other "little things" that have been bugging the ever loving shit out of me as this football season has progressed    now has me completely lost, and has also lost me completely.  I am now back into the "show me" mode that each and every Browns organization has prompted in me since 2001.  Only this time it happened in record time, and in an unprecedented fashion.  Because if you had told me a week ago that I'd want to metaphorically punch Mike Holmgren and Pat Shurmur in the face, I'd have called you crazy. 

Well, I'd have called you crazier than normal.

DO NOT LIE TO ME.

That is Rule #1 for all sports execs and coaches.  Sports really, really, really are not brain surgery, and so therefore lying is easily spotted.  We all can see with our own eyes what happens in sports, and it doesn't take playing or coaching for 20 years to be a fair evaluator of competency in sports management.  And even it did take that, it all just happens to be on video in case we missed it.

This goes for pretty much everything in sports, but it especially goes for what happened with Colt McCoy and his concussion non-exam against the Steelers.  So given that fact of life-on-video, lying is the not only the worst thing you could do when you are a sports exec or coach, it's also the dumbest thing you could do.  Everyone can see that you are lying as if there were a giant sign about your head flashing "FUCKING LIAR---THINKS YOU ARE STUPID!!!"  in bright orange and brown neon.

When sports execs and coaches lie to me, that's a sign that they are not the brightest bulbs on the tree, which is an especially apt analogy this time of the year.  That is a sign that it's time to jump off the bandwagon, even if it's going so fast you are sure to break a leg.  That's a sign that the people running the team don't really know what they are doing to at least one extent or another.

That's a sign that it is time to stop caring    yet again!  That's a sign that it is time to go back to being from Missouri.

I haven't cared about the Browns since sometime during the Butch Davis regime.  All the hopes and dreams that an Art Modell-less expansion franchise engendered in me were stretched thin by Carmen Policy and Dwight Clark, then beaten into a teeny-tiny fractured pulp by Butch Davis and Pete Garcia.  And from that moment on, I have not cared one whit about the Browns up until the day that Mike Holmgren hired Tom Heckert and then, more importantly, finally fired Eric Mangini.

And then---I cannot express this plainly enough---for a brief, shining moment, I had more optimism about this Browns organization than at any point in my entire four decades on this Earth.  I really thought, "My God, for the first time in my lifetime football men are running the team, picking the players, and coaching them."

And now, less than two years later, and less than one year after they hired the coach, I now look at the Browns like Dwight and Carmen and Art and Butch and Eric never left.  Forget the product on the field for a moment, we again have people so clueless that they believe we cannot see past the simplest of base lies.  We again have people who want to shit in our hands and tell us Merry Christmas.

And all of this is taking place while the one guy I respect, Tom Heckert, has so far produced the two finest Browns drafts in my memory.  So even though I think Heckert, whatever faults he may have, is the finest GM we have ever had, I am still no longer interested in giving anyone any benefits of any doubts whatsoever.

When it comes to the Browns, I am back to being from Missouri. 

Show me.