Losing, he says, is our identity. Clevelanders love the Browns despite all the losing. Besides, he says, we "wouldn't know how to handle winning all the time like the Steelers."
When you first hear something like that, the initial reaction is to dismiss it as just something a stupid Steelers fan would say. After all, we all know how Steelers fans are sore losers and sore winners — it's why they're so annoying.
But, I'll admit, it really made me think. Maybe there's more to it than just being a dumb comment from a typical annoying Steelers fan. Is there some truth to his statements?
Do we, not just Browns fans but all Cleveland sports fans, take some sort of pride in the heartbreaking misery our teams deliver us season after season?When you try to compare fan bases, what is always the argument Clevelanders make for being the biggest die-hards? "Our teams haven't won anything, they keep breaking our hearts, and yet we still love and root for them!"
No one can question our loyalty as fans, because we still cheer them on year after year with nothing to show for it. Hmm ... could we still make that argument if one of our teams — especially the Browns — actually won a championship in the not too distant future?
Anything is possible ... so imagine that scenario. Now, if that happened, would we be still be viewed as great football fans? Would we be recognized for sticking by our team for so many down years, deserving of our reward?
Or ... would be be loathed by others, much like Steeler fans are despised by just about everyone outside Pittsburgh? I mean, how would we, as die-hard Browns fans, handle winning?
Could we possibly do it with class? It's difficult to say, really.
Look at the Indians and Cavaliers. It's hardly fair to compare those two franchises with the Browns.
In the 1990s, when the Indians were winning like crazy and Jacobs Field broke attendance records, Clevelanders were recognized as great baseball fans. But, unfortunately, our Tribe could never bring home the ultimate prize and the team began a downward spiral back to embarassment. And, the attendance dwindled — OK, maybe dwindled isn't a strong enough word. The fans vanished.
Though the Browns have made the playoffs only once since their return to the NFL in 1999, Cleveland Browns Stadium is packed week after week. It doesn't matter how terrible they are, or how many games they lose, we love our Browns.
I said it was unfair to compare the Indians and Cavaliers with the Browns because, no matter how successful our baseball or basketball teams are, this is a football town.
We curse them when they lose and we tear our hair out complaining about bone-headed moves by management or our constant state of rebuilding, but we still love our Browns. We still show up, week after week, to cheer them on.No one knows how long that will last, but I think it's safe to say, the Browns could go on losing forever and we'd still keep showing up on Sundays.
We love football so much in this city, we'd rather watch a losing team year after year — as long as it's our team — than not watch football at all. We've been there. We've had our team taken away, and it sucked.
Do we need the Browns to keep losing? Is that our identity as a sports city? A city of die-hard fans with losing teams?
You don't have to have a great football team to be a great football city.
The Browns were once a great football team, but they've been a bad football team for far more years. Cleveland, however, was, is and always will be a great football city.
Go Browns!
Sorry, I don't buy it. Like you said, Cleveland is a football town and would embrace a winner like no other city except maybe Green Bay. Growing up in the 1990s, easily the glory years of post-Super Bowl Browns football, the city was electric and the fans were called the best in the NFL by many national commentators.
ReplyDeleteYour Steelers "friend" has a limited memory when it comes to his team's success. Before the mid-1970s, the Steelers were the modern day Detroit Lions. During the 1980s (the Mark Malone and Bubby Brister years), the Steelers were an at best average team the entire decade and didn't sell out Three Rivers on a regular basis. Pittsburgh fans have enjoyed watching their team enjoy great success the last 20 years but don't have any kind of stranglehold on it.
If anything, I think your "friend" was tweaking you and hoping to get some sort of emotional response from it. That or he's just an idiot - probably more likely since he's a Steelers fan.
Thanks for the comment, jacaf.
ReplyDeleteI agree with you ... Cleveland is a great football town and we would embrace a winner with great gusto.
You're right about the short memory of my Steelers "friend" ... in fact, most Steelers fans these days all seem to have no memory or appreciation for the many many years of professional football in which the Steelers weren't a good team.
Coming from a Steelers fan with a considerable memory, it seems so quickly that everyone has forgotten when we, like you stood beside a loser. For the love of God, I wore a Bubby Brister jersey, and some would say was more qualified to.
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The point isn't that a winning team wouldn't be accepted here, the point is that the fan culture would change dramatically. Lets rewind to when your team came back to town and die-hards were relegated to the parking lots and tailgates because ticket prices were so high the "real" fans couldn't afford to get in. Do you honestly think that prices wouldn't rise with a winner? That was just a few years back folks, maybe your memories aren't as solid as you might think.
RJ
Thanks for your comment, RJ.
ReplyDeleteTo your point, I don't think the fan culture would change dramatically. I do agree, to an extent, that perhaps ticket prices would be raised and some of the big die-hards would be kept out of the stadium on Sundays — due to an invasion of "suits" who would attend games because it's fashionable to be seen at the games of a winning team.
But alas we shall never know. . . with no offensive coordinator (or offense to coordinate, save Hillis), this is all just off-season conjecture.
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I for one would actually like the Browns to get their act together so that the rivalry would be back and be important to both teams again. But, until your office and ownership stop taking you for granted that ain't happening.
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I've never seen Randy Lerner wearing browns gear to a Villa match, but have often seen the claret and blue in his box come Sunday. . . just something to mull over.