DID THE BROWNS STEAL YOUR FUN WITH WATSON TRADE?

By STEVE KING

All sports, including football and the NFL, are supposed to be fun.

Yes, it’s a business, but in its purest form, it is entertainment, and if you’re not entertained by it, then you’ll find something else that is.

With that, then, have the Browns run the risk of doing that to some — or perhaps even a lot — of their fans with this huge trade to get quarterback Deshaun Watson? It’s huge because the Browns, in exchange, gave up three — three!! — first-round picks in the NFL Draft in the deal with the Houston Texans, and also because he isn’t just any ol’ player. He arrives with a Dawg Pound-full of baggage, and not just any garden-variety baggage but the seediest kind, with 22 civil lawsuits being level against him for alleged sexual misconduct.

Yes, that’s right, 22, as in one for every position on the field on offense and defense.

You will never personally meet any of those women, but that doesn’t make them anonymous. That you could be your wife, your girlfriend, your sister, your mother, your neighbor, your co-worker, your friend — anyone close to you.

Now, do the Browns need another quarterback? Yes, many argue, they do, because Baker Mayfield isn’t the guy — he isn’t good enough to be the franchise quarterback and the face of the franchise.

We can debate that back and forth all day, but in reality, that day isn’t today, because if the people running the team think another quarterback is necessary, you, as fans, have to like that if only for the fact they obviously realize the value of quarterback and know that it’s the most important position in team sports. If a team has a good quarterback, then it has a chance, and if it doesn’t, then it doesn’t. It’s that simple.

But in trying to do so with someone with these accusations chasing him like pass rushers and trying to bring him down, have the Browns gone too far off the beaten path, skidding into the guardrails, and thus taken away from your enjoyment of the team? Have they ruined the entertainment value of it for you by removing the decency?

After all, seedy isn’t fun. Seedy is … well, just seedy, and distasteful, and uncomfortable, and ugly, and perverse, and just not right.

Only you can answer that, but all the backlash thus far — and keep in mind that this is only April, the trade just recently was consummated and the start of the regular season is still a long way down the road — suggests that such may well be true.

Indeed, you have to ask yourself, “Are we having fun yet?”