For Cleveland Browns fans, “Clay Matthews intercepts Jim Kelly” seems like yesterday

The last fantastic moment in Cleveland sports history was Clay Matthews intercepting Jim Kelly.  Since then, it’s been a journey to the bottom of the earth.

For Browns fans, time has stood still since the glory years of the late 80’s, which were “a couple of seasons ago” in our minds.  Admit it fellow Browns fans, it really feels “recent,” doesn’t it?  That’s because there’s been nothing good to mark the passage of time since then. People tend to remember things sequentially, based on large, positive events in our lives: “It’s been five years since my son was born,” “Three years ago next week, they stopped making The Suite Life Of Zach And Cody,” “It’s been exactly six months since my mother in law died.”  You know, happy events that make us dance with scotch.  With that in mind, we in Cleveland can’t grasp how more than twenty years could possibly have passed since the last “something good,” because any Browns fan can tell you everything about those great teams in vivid detail.  We remember the comeback against the Jets in the ’86 playoffs (The last two minutes, of it, anyway; the first fifty-eight minutes of that game have been deleted from our collective memory banks; I couldn’t tell you a single thing that happened before the Gastineau roughing the passer penalty).  We remember Kosar to Brennan for a 48 yard touchdown in the AFC title game (time left on the clock 5:37), we remember that the Browns nearly recovered a fumble on the ensuing kickoff, gave up that first 1st down of “The Drive” by two inches, that the shotgun snap hit Steve Watson on the hip on 3rd and 18 (one more inch to the left? It couldn’t have hit him ONE more inch to the left and dropped to the turf?), and can tell you down to the centimeter how far left Karlis’ kick in OT was.  We remember the furious second half rally in Denver the following year, where no one on Earth could have stopped Bernie Kosar - he could have passed them safely past Charlie Sheen’s nose while wearing a suit made of Columbian BamBam.  Sadly, we’ll also recall the name Jeremiah Castille to our dying breath, and when ESPN forces the replay of that fumble down our throats every year, we’ll still secretly hope that somehow, some way Dan Fike comes out of that pile with the ball that Byner dropped.  Metcalf took a kickoff to the house and Clay intercepted Kelly in the end zone, preserving a wild 34-30 victory over Buffalo, and then ... well, and then nothing. Then Bernie had “diminishing skills,” and everything since then has been a blur.  A terrible, terrible blur of deep fried misery.  A blur that has changed our collective outlook from one of true believers to one of cold, cold cynics.

Seriously, fellow Clevelanders, what in the past twenty years has been anywhere near as fun, or good, or inspired a level of confidence like that run with Bernie?  Sure, there’s been near-successes with our other Cleveland teams, but did you ever actually believe in those teams like you did in the Browns back then?  Back then, we knew - I mean, we KNEW - Bernie would find a way, and they were going to win.  We were positive fans, always finding the good, believing things would go our way no matter the situation.  Heck, maybe we were pioneers in using The Secret without even knowing it. (Of course, we were using it without the instruction manual, kind of like Ralph Hinckley in The Greatest American Hero, and our landings were even rougher than his)  Since then though, we haven’t been positive about anything, not now and certainly not during the runs of our other sports teams.  No, if we’re honest with ourselves, we were all waiting for the other soul crushing, cement filled shoe to drop on our heads all through the years of near-misses by the Tribe and Cavs, weren’t we?  We never truly expected them to win like we did those Browns of yore; we’d been walloped about the head and stabbed in the soul too often by then.  The period of time since Clay Mattews grabbed that Jim Kelly pass and burrowed into the green, painted dirt/sand combo on the one yard line at the closed end of Municipal Stadium has been harder on our system than a 3AM White Castle binge.  Say the words “David Justice” to a Cleveland fan and their dinner will back up on them a bit; bring up Art Modell and they’ll ask for the nearest restroom (or at least a picture of Art’s face); ask the question “Why oh why did Hargrove bring in Mesa for Jackson?” and you can almost see the stomach ulcer flare into high gear.  Nothing good since 1991.  Nothing.  We’ve seen:  Bill Belicheck when he coached more like Bill O’Reilly.  The move in ’95.  Repeated refusals to trade for Curt Schilling when he actually WANTED to come to Cleveland.  The return of semi-professional football in ’99.  Northcutt dropping the 3rd down pass that would have put away the Squealers in the only playoff appearance, in ’02.  Dwayne “Ichabod” Rudd.  The breakup of the Wahoo Warriors.  A Super Bowl title for ... well, for you know who.  Then there was He Who Shall Not Be Named, who I don’t care what anyone says spent three years knowingly planning to screw the Cavs.  Specifically relating to the Browns, there’s been a parade under center of Couch, Garcia, Dilfer, Quinn, three or four Gradkowski’s, I think Don Strock and Mike Pagel had a shot, several trained chimps, the IBM computer that was on Jeopardy, and an exchange student from Bombay named “Eddie” (Not his real name).  None of it has worked.  It’s week after week, season after season, year after year of heart-wrenching defeats, and it wear on us.  It wears on us in a grating, under your skin fashion that’s nearly as annoying as the way ESPN continues to try and force soccer down our throats, nearly as annoying as Joy Behar.  In the middle of the 3rd quarter, other NFL fans start figuring out what has to happen for them to win; we in Cleveland start working out the exact series of mishaps they’re going to pull off to blow another one, and you can’t really blame us.  We’ve seen this script before, and Old Yeller doesn’t make it to the final credits.

Yet, we still support our teams, especially our beloved Browns.  Forbes just listed the Browns as worth almost a billion dollars, the 30th most valuable sports franchise in the world.  (Sadly, this is a higher ranking than the 31st against the run they ranked last season) A great portion of this is due to the unending loyalty of the fan base.  13-3 or 3-13, Browns Backers worldwide come out in our dog masks and pack the stadium every fall, and will continue to do so - just as we’ll continue to hope against hope that this year is going to be different. Why?  Well, because we’re real fans.  Real fans are fans because we love the team, not because we love the team when they win.  Real fans aren’t frontrunners, we’re there, win or lose.  Or lose, or lose, or lose again.   We believe it’s going to turn around.  It HAS to turn around.  When it does, we’ll be there, and when the bandwagon gets full the real fans will know who the jumper fans are.  (Bandwagon jumper fans make real fans of any team sick.  When they come out of the bushes, all we real Browns fans will have to do is ask “Hey, do you remember Boyce Green?”  Real fans remember.  The wannabe’s who don’t will be ignored, given the warm beer and fed the tailgate party hot dogs that fell off the grill into that oddly colored puddle near the cat.  They deserve it.)

Personally, I do have a different feeling about the 2012 Browns; it’s incredibly odd, but I have a GOOD feeling about this year.  I’m not sure what to do with it, as for the reasons enumerated above a “good feeling” is weird for a Cleveland fan.  It’s unfamiliar and unnatural, like a good Lindsay Lohan movie, or sex in a marriage, but it’s there nonetheless.  Every year the NFL has one or two teams who are supposed to be doormats that end up making a run, and I can’t shake the feeling that this year, the Browns are going to be one of them.  There’s little evidence to support this feeling - the schedule is brutal on paper, they’re thin in key spots, they’re starting roughly twenty eight rookies, one of which will be on the cover of AARP Magazine during their bye week - so feel free to argue with my feeling, but I fully believe they’re going to surprise a bunch of people this year.  Maybe I have this feeling simply because every sportswriter on the planet is in agreement that the Browns are going to be terrible, and if history has taught us anything it’s that when sportswriters all agree on something, it’s almost guaranteed to be wrong.  Maybe I have this feeling because after all that’s been wrong in sports lately - horribly, horribly wrong - America needs a feel good story, a Rocky Balboa, a Miracle On Ice level underdog to root for, and the Browns are a perfect fit for that script.  It could be as simple as that, or I could have this feeling because my medications are once again out of balance - admittedly, I’m wearing a hat with a monkey on it and no pants as I write this, so the prescription drug thing is a definite possibility.  Be that as it may, I still say the Browns are going a lot farther than people think this year.

Unless of course, they have their chance and blow it.  They probably will.  Hey, where’s that video of the Clay Matthews interception?  Nevermind, I’ll close my eyes and relive it second by second; it wasn’t that long ago.

Stephen Thomas--Featured Columnist
Stephen Thomas has been a professional comedian and writer for the past seventeen years, and a season ticket holder in the Dawg Pound since 1991. You can follow him on Twitter @15stephen15 , on his Facebook Fan Page here, and read his past columns on his Humor Blog here. Send email and money to funnyman1515@hotmail.com