How will the Browns do in their game against the host Las Vegas Raiders beginning late Sunday afternoon?
Good question, for which I nor anyone else has a good answer.
The Browns were expected to give the Dallas Cowboys a game at home in the regular-season opener. They did not. They lost in resounding fashion, 33-17, and it wasn’t even that close. They were non-competitive. They also looked disorganized, as if they had never practiced.
Two weeks ago, the Browns were expected to lose in Jacksonville. They did not. They played hard and tough, and very well early on and late in the game, in topping the Jaguars 18-13.
Last Sunday, the Browns, with their confidence restored, were expected to easily beat the struggling New York Football Giants at Cleveland. That did not happen as well. Their offense was dreadful in a 21-15 defeat. They seemed, once again, to be ill-prepared and they looked to be disinterested to boot. That they did so on Alumni Weekend just made matters even worse yet as it served as a sign of colossal disrespect to the incredible legacies of the two Cleveland Browns Legends club enshrinees that day, Phil Dawson, the greatest kicker in club history, and Jim Donovan, the incomparable radio play-by-play announcer.
Considering all that, then, the guess — and it’s strictly a guess, and perhaps not even a good one — is that, with the fact the game is on the road and they are coming off a humiliating effort and performance, the Browns, though banged up, especially along the offensive line, might be ready to regroup and get a win to even their record at 2-2 and stay at least within striking distance of the surprisingly streaking Pittsburgh Steelers (3-0) in the AFC North at approximately the quarter-mile post of the season.
But again, quite honestly, in the words of late Browns head coach Bud Carson, “Ah, who the (heck) knows?”
This much we do know, though, and it is that it should be interesting, particularly with quarterback Deshaun Watson and the offense. As they go, so, too, will go the Browns overall, not just on Sunday but for all of the season.
*Here’s just one more unrelated thought. It’s something I’ve been thinking about this week, and perhaps you, as Browns fans, are thinking about it as well.
The A’s played their last home game ever in Oakland the other day, ending a 56-year stay in the city. They will eventually move permanently — or at least as much as the A’s franchise has ever moved permanently — to Las Vegas to join that city’s two other major pro sports teams in the Raiders and the NHL’s Golden Knights. Can an NBA franchise be far behind?
The A’s began in Philadelphia well over a century ago and stayed there through 1954, after which they went to Kansas City. They were there for only a relatively short time before leaving for Oakland following the 1967 season. My late relative, a native Kansas Citian, despised A’s owner Charles O. Finley for doing that until his dying breath.
The Knights were, of course, an expansion franchise, but as longtime NFL fans know, the Raiders are well-traveled. They started in Oakland in 1960 as an original AFL franchise before moving to Los Angeles just over two decades later. They eventually went back to Oakland before relocating to Las Vegas several seasons ago.
In all those franchise moves involving the Raiders and A’s, and all the franchise moves in all the different pro sports leagues through the many decades, the fanbases in those cities complained and protested long and hard trying to keep their teams in place. None of them was successful.
The only fanbase that fought city hall, so to speak, and won back their team — at least an expansion one with the same name, history and colors — was that of the Browns — all of you. It is why Browns fans are the best fanbase in the world. It’s not a debatable point.
Steve King
