A few final thoughts as the Browns get ready to host the Dallas Cowboys at 4:25 p.m. Sunday at newly-named Huntington Bank Field in the regular-season opener:
*I will be real honest with you — I always am, but it’s even more important now, given the subject matter — but I am having trouble getting jazzed about this opener. This is a first for me. Usually by this point, I am like a little kid awaiting Christmas and not being able to sleep at night because of the excitement. Oh, sure, I will warm up to it by late afternoon Sunday, but it became a process when Jim Donovan announced his retirement recently after 25 years to concentrate on his fight against the cancer that, he says, has returned “aggressively.” It makes me sick to my stomach, and I would guess most of you feel that way as well. I remember the same thing happening in 1994 when, on Aug. 8 in the middle of training camp and as the preseason was beginning, the great Nev Chandler passed away after a year-long battle with cancer. Like Donovan, Chandler was iconic in his role as Btowns radio play-by-play announcer, in his case for nine seasons (1985-93). Whether it was Jim, Nev or the man who preceded Chandler, another legendary guy in Gib Shanley (1961-84), you knew you were going to get a great call that would be thoroughly entertaining, even if the Browns lost. I would tune in to listen to any of those men reading the phone book to me. I really, truly would. Honest. That’s how much I enjoyed their style and delivery. Now, to be sure, as I pointed out the other day when I hyped Andrew Siciliano as a possible replacement for Donovan, he will do a great job in his trial run this season and I have no doubt the Browns will at some point give him the job on a permanent basis. I am thrilled with his coming here. He’s going to be outstanding. But the loss of Donovan, especially considering the reason for it, will take some getting used to.
*FOX has made Browns-Cowboys its national game for the opening Sunday of the season, and the first game with Tom Brady as its lead color analyst. That’s quite a complement to both teams and what the network thinks of them and the game. The Browns have a great opportunity to showcase their lights-out defense and their talented team overall as a legitimate Super Bowl contender out of the AFC. They’re at home, where they played so well last season. They can’t lay an egg. They just can’t. In terms of how they’re viewed nationally, particularly after getting embarrassed by the upstart Houston Texans to the tune of 45-14 in the first round of the playoffs last year, and also in terms of their own confidence level moving forward, it will take a real hit if they fail.
*Then there’s Browns quarterback Deshaun Watson. This is a seminal moment in his Cleveland career. In two seasons, he’s mostly been hurt, and when he has played, he has been unimpressive. Their investment in him of a fully-guaranteed $230 million contract over five years seems like a colossal mistake, but he can begin to drastically change that narrative on by leading the Browns to a big victory on a big stage on Sunday. If he wants to quiet all his doubters, then he can do it. It is within him. But will he be up to the challenge? We’ll see.
*And finally, when talking about Watson, his acquisition from the Houston Texans, his big contract and his success or the lack thereof, we always need to keep in mind that if the Browns thought they couldn’t get to the Super Bowl and win it with Baker Mayfield, and that’s obviously what they thought, then they had to go out and try to find the guy they think can get them there. You can’t become a great team until you have a great quarterback. It’s that simple. It really us. So, then, I was on board with the Browns making the kind of move they did with Watson, even with the fact they had to give up their first-round NFL Draft picks over three years to do it, just like they surrendered two first-round draft picks in the move to get quarterback Bernie Kosar 39 years ago, in 1985. The problem I have is that Watson, both in terms of production and character, is no Kosar. Keep in mind that in his first three years, Kosar, in coming to a team that had finished just 5-11 in 1984, had led the Browns to three straight Central Division titles and two trips to the AFC Championship Game. Watson has not done any of that — not even close, in fact — and there’s a belief from a lot of people that he never will.
Enjoy Sunday’s game. You will if the Browns win, right? Hey, I get it.
Steve King
