Browns go from worst to first in TV announcers, too

By STEVE KING

Remember all those Sundays in all those seasons in the expansion era when the Browns got the TV networks’ bottom-rung announcing teams doing their games?
It was lousy viewing, so lousy — no, be nice now, rather not-the-greatest — announcers were assigned the games.
Ugh.
But those days are just distant, though still painful, memories, for the Browns are now attention-getters, and made-for-TV viewing, when it comes to the networks Their 49-37 win over the Pittsburgh Steelers in the opening round of the AFC playoffs last Sunday drew astronomical rating numbers for NBC, and CBS has taken notice, sending its top announcing team of play-by-play man Jim Nantz and color analyst Tony Romo to Arrowhead Stadium for Sunday’s Browns-Kansas City Chiefs divisional-round game.
The other AFC divisional game, the Baltimore Ravens at the Buffalo Bills on Saturday, is an extremely nice attraction, too, but CBS opted to bypass it for Cleveland-Kansas City.
That’s what happens when your team is relevant.
That’s what happens when your team is exciting.
That’s what happens when your team plays in big games.
That’s what happens when fans want to see your team in action.
Nantz is married to a Greater Cleveland area native, and so he understands what the Browns mean to the community and what they have come to mean to the rest of the country as, seemingly overnight, they have risen to power in the AFC. It is a great story — the best in the NFL, by far, this year — with a once-proud franchise resurrecting itself and becoming a contender.
As with every other positive aspect of what is going on with your team, Browns fans, enjoy this new-found popularity, resurgence and cool-factor. You’ve waited a long time for it– way, way, too long, in fact — and so you deserve to bask in all this. Don’t be shy — not a bit.