After all Cleveland has endured — owner Art Modell taking its team to Baltimore; the Johnny Manziel Error; the 0-16, 1-31 Hue Jackson laughingstock — it deserves this moment in the Opening Day sun, when the rest of the NFL world cannot wait to tune in to find out whether what is unleashed from the laboratory is a raucous, rollicking band of brothers that might compel the great Jim Brown to sit in the Alpha-Dawg Pound … or Frankenstein’ s Monster, clad in brown and orange…
The hype machine hasn’t thundered along Lake Erie like this since:
- The Jim Brown Browns upset the Johnny Unitas Colts to win the 1964 NFL Championship.
- The Browns returned following their three-year absence and Cleveland had a football team again.
- LeBron James first arrived.
- LeBron returned, and turned the place into Believeland.
- The Indians took a 3-1 lead in the 2016 World Series before allowing the Cubs, of all teams, to stage a miracle comeback and end their 108-year curse.
The hype is exceeded only by a nuclear mushroom cloud of hope and excitement and expectation.
The Browns have never won a Super Bowl — and remember, the young Bill Belichick tried in vain for five seasons to get to one.
So much of it has been bad management and bad coaching and, of course, bad quarterbacking.
The Browns have trotted out 30 starting quarterbacks since 1999.
And oh, all those derogatory Cleveland jokes over the years:
- Cleveland is the armpit of the nation.
- What other city has a river catch on fire?
On and on it went.
Odell Beckham Jr.’s first reaction when Giants GM Dave Gettleman didn’t sign him to trade him but traded him? “They thought they’d send me here to die.”
Against that background, here come the 2019 Cleveland Browns.
The swaggerlicious Cleveland Browns.
The Super Bowl contender Cleveland Browns.
Who will be featured on four prime-time television games, starting with Week 2 on Monday night against the Jets at MetLife Stadium.
“I think everybody absolutely thinks it’s very possible for the Browns to take it all,” said Patrick Burke, owner of the West Park Barber Shop Premier Lounge.
The Browns being the Browns, the potential for calamity is always lurking and can never be discounted:
There’s Baker Mayfield on the cover of ESPN the Magazine.
There’s Beckham on the cover of GQ.
There’s Beckham and pal Jarvis Landry on the cover of Sports Illustrated’s NFL preview entitled “The Browns are Back.”
There’s Mayfield making waves volunteering that the Giants making Daniel Jones the sixth pick of the draft blew his mind.
There’s Beckham lashing out at Gettleman.
I cringe at the thought of how Bill Parcells and Belichick would have cringed at this “As The Browns Turn” soap opera.
It was gum-chomping GM John Dorsey who traded for Landry, who drafted Mayfield over Sam Darnold with the first-overall pick of the 2018 draft, who signed Sheldon Richardson, who traded for Olivier Vernon as a bookend for Myles Garrett, who only surrendered Jabrill Peppers and the 17th and 95th picks in the blockbuster Beckham trade … who has entrusted a rookie head coach named Freddie Kitchens — who worked under Parcells for one season in Dallas, who bonded with Mayfield — with keeping a lid on this simmering cauldron.
“If anything bad happens,” Kitchens said, “it’s my fault.”
Tony Grossi grew up in Cleveland, began covering the Browns in 1984 for the Plain Dealer and will be there at FirstEnergy Stadium for Titans-Browns for ESPNCleveland.com.
“Freddie’s very likeable,” Grossi said. “He put them through a tough, physical camp, and no one’s complained. They’ve all bought in, and you can see that, and hear that, in the way they talk. As far as handling all the egos and all that, I’ve likened him to that quality Parcells had … connect with any player from any social background, and to earn their trust and respect. It just seems that Parcells’ ability to press the right buttons with every player is the one thing that Kitchens, to me, looks like he has.”
The other thing Kitchens has is a brash, defiant, fearless quarterback who is worshipped by the city for his play on the field and philanthropy off it. Mayfield was asked about opening at home and said: “I’d play them in the parking lot. I don’t really care.”
If Mayfield is your teammate, you love him. If he’s not your teammate, you hate his guts.
“This team has never had this kind of talent before, even their best teams in the ’80s never had the star power that this team on paper had,” Grossi said, “and the reason I don’t think they’re going to be crushed at all by the expectations is because of Baker.
“He’s the toughest S.O.B. in the locker room mentally, and they haven’t had that since [Bernie] Kosar — a guy who not only will shoulder all those expectations, but really embrace it.”
Beckham is by no means Antonio Brown, but he is sure to bring Odellian drama, and Thursday he revealed he has been hampered by a hip injury, and no one can be certain whether it will leave him diminished. Burke was inside the shop when the news broke about Beckham on March 12.
“I don’t think anybody really believed it,” Burke said. “Obviously everybody, across the country, whether you’re a Browns fan or not, you’re excited to see what we’re about to do this year. We’re about to throw up some crazy numbers.”
“What Paul Brown built has just been so lasting through the generations that it’s remained a football town,” Grossi said. “LeBron didn’t change this into a basketball town.”
Etched in the memory of long-suffering Browns fans are Red Right 88, which cost them a shot at the 1980 AFC Championship game, and The Drive, and The Fumble.
Finally, a Browns team that can turn the city into Believeland. If it doesn’t break their hearts.