This has gone on for far too long. I was born in 1996 in northeast Ohio to Stephen B Keider and Karen F Bartos. My father was born in 1962, my mother in 1963. Even though I was born thirty-three years after my parents, neither them or myself have ever seen The Cleveland Browns play in an NFL Superbowl. Hell, we’ve been through it all. We even saw our beloved NFL franchise stolen away from us by a man who some may say is “he who shall not be named,” Art Modell. Now, even if you put Cleveland’s 52-year championship drought aside, or the fact that we’ve had our beating hearts ripped out of our chests more times than we can count by Lebron James, Michael Jordan, and John Elway, you Browns have disappointed me more than I could ever wish to describe.
Let’s start with what the organization has accomplished since your return to Cleveland in 1999: Playoff appearance (2002).
Hmmm, there doesn’t seem to be anything else…
The Cleveland Browns’ record since 1999 is 84-172. With only one winning season in 2007 where the Browns went 10-6, but missed the playoffs. Since 1999 the Browns have had 24 starting quarterbacks. Twenty-four! That’s almost a quarterback for every team in the league!
With all of that aside, I have to say that this past season (2015) was undoubtedly the most pathetic performance by a professional sports team that the world of sports has ever witnessed. I don’t even know where to begin with this past year. Maybe I could start with our 2014 first round draft pick, Johnny (Money) Manziel who scooped this city’s hopes up from Euclid Avenue and held it high above Key Bank Tower, only to eventually drown it in a bottle of Kentucky bourbon. Or maybe I could talk about how your eight head coaches since 1999 have been a mix of horrible and “not bad I guess.” However, Mike Pettine was without question, the worst man to ever be handed over the keys to an NFL Franchise. The only reason Mike Pettine was hired as The Browns head coach in 2014 was because no one else in their right mind would have ever wanted to coach such a pathetic, dysfunctional team.
As I sat in my downtown apartment on Monday November 20 to watch The Cleveland Browns square off against divisional opponent the Baltimore Ravens, along with the rest of the world watching Monday night football, I watched as the Browns seemed to just give up. With a chance to kick a field goal and win the game and come away with a divisional victory on the national stage, The Cleveland Browns did the most Cleveland Browns thing they could have ever done. The ball was snapped and the hold was good, but the kick was blocked and the Baltimore Ravens ran back the football into the end zone as time expired to win the game. What in the hell did I just watch? But was I really surprised? Not at all. See, that’s the problem here in Cleveland. The Browns, even though the most loved team in the city, is our elephant in the room. I would call it a “culture of losing.” No one is surprised when the Browns lose, in fact we all kind of expect it now. We are sure of it.
Please, Mr. Haslam, Mr. Brown, and Mr. DePodesta, this is an SOS from the people of the city of Cleveland. Reverse this “culture of losing” and replace it with a tyranny of winning. Do whatever it takes to scrape this team up out of the gutter and into the spotlight. You have the greatest fan base of any professional sports team in the world. Can you only imagine if you were the gentlemen to bring the city of Cleveland an NFL Super Bowl title? I don’t think I, or anyone else for that matter, could stick around much longer with realistic hopes for anything good to happen with our NFL team, but we are here now. And we are hungry for a winning culture and championship parades. Do whatever it takes to rid this city of our elephant in the room. We beg of you.
- Zachary Keider, Browns fan.
