Yesterday, my friend, Tim, a huge Browns fan and usually a very positive person by nature, was where he was normally at that point of the day, leaning up against the wall and taking a quick break from work.
 
He was wearing a nice-looking Browns sports shirt, and it was hard to tell who had the wider grin, him or the Brownie elf sewn, appropriately so, over his heart. shirt.
 
“So, what did you think of the game on Sunday?” I asked, throwing that seemingly easy question up there so he could take it and run with it.
 
I expected him to be gleeful following the Browns’ 28-14 home-opening victory over the Tennessee Titans at FirstEnergy Stadium, but he was only moderately so. In fact, the longer he talked, the more moderate his glee became until eventually I had to stop and, in my mind, make sure I had remembered the final score correctly.
 
Tim acknowledged that Johnny Manziel had looked “OK” and then proceeded to bemoan the fact that the quarterback had completed hardly any intermediate passes, that the team had nearly blown a three-touchdown lead in the second half, that the run defense was bad again, especially in the second half, and that this, that and the other stood out as negatives.
 
At no time was there mention of any of the long list of positives, including the most important one, that the Browns had won the game.
 
Again, I checked my sometimes forgetful memory to confirm that the Browns had won by two touchdowns.
 
It seemed that Tim, the huge Browns fan and the glass-is-always-half-full guy, had forgotten all that. Or maybe it was that Merrill Hoge had jumped into his body. If the latter were the case, Tim should have known better than to let a former Steeler frame his thoughts for him.
 
Maybe what happened with Tim also happened elsewhere in Northeast Ohio yesterday morning, or maybe not. In my heart of hearts, with it having been a victory Monday, I can’t imagine that it happened much.
 
As such, then, I am invoking Sgt. Hulka’s great line from the Bill Murray movie entitled, Stripes, “Lighten up, Francis!”
 
In New England yesterday morning, they weren’t bemoaning the fact that the Patriots nearly blew a 37-13 fourth-quarter lead and had to hold on for dear life to defeat the Buffalo Bills.
 
In Cincinnati yesterday morning, they weren’t bemoaning the fact that the Bengals needed a late interception to edge the San Diego Chargers.
 
And in Atlanta yesterday morning, they weren’t bemoaning the fact that the Falcons needed a touchdown with 1:14 left to rally past the New York Giants.
 
No, not on your dear, sweet life they’re not, for in each of those cities – and in fact all cities where their NFL teams won on Sunday – they were celebrating the final score and not sweating the small stuff.
 
It really is as former NFL player and head coach turned NFL analyst Herman Edwards always likes to say, “You play to win the game.”
 
The other things? They don’t call it the small stuff for nothing. Winning greatly overshadows all of it anyway, like that bouquet of flowers for your wife greatly overshadows the fact that you forget to stop at the supermarket on the way home to buy all the dinner ingredients.
 
Look, the Browns haven’t won much in the expansion era, especially at home and hardly ever in home openers. All that is reason enough to savor the victory. To do anything but that is to live in some miserable world of negativity in which you win the lottery and then complain that some of currency is wrinkled.
 
Geeeesssshhh!
 
“You either drink the win or end up stomping the grapes in the NFL,” former Browns head coach Sam Rutigliano has been pointing out for years.
 
The Browns – and their fans — have done way too much stomping and not nearly enough drinking since 1999.
 
So keep your shoes and socks on and fill up your class.   
 
And please, please, pretty please, don’t try to wipe the smile from the face of the Brownie elf on your shirt.