By STEVE KING

As the Browns were wrapping up their 35-30 win over the Cincinnati Bengals on Thursday Night Football a week and a half ago, the FOX/NFL Network announcing team of play-by-play man Joe Buck and color analyst Troy Aikman made some interesting, and familiar, comments.
They said, basically, that if the Browns ever could get good consistently, it would be great because, with the passion of the fans and the fact that Cleveland is such a wonderful football city with an outstanding tradition, the NFL is better when the Browns are successful.
Buck has a lot of personal interest in Cleveland and Ohio in that his late father, broadcasting legend Jack Buck, spent his teenage years in Cleveland and is a graduate of Ohio State University.
I have heard those kinds of comments any number of times before from national media people, including Al Michaels. So it’s a recurring theme, and belief, in that adage that’s what good for the Browns benefits the NFL. 
Anyway, if the Browns want to be that good team that Joe Buck and Aikman were talking about, then they have to — absolutely, positively have to — win games, especially at home, like the one on Sunday against the Washington Football Team at FirstEnergy Stadium.
The 1-1 Redskins are better than what people expected, and may continue to exceed expectations, because of the abilities of new head coach Ron Rivera. Still, this is a rebuilding club that probably has a long way to go before it can be a legitimate playoff contender again.
So, then, this is an opponent the Browns should beat, but the problem is — or at least could be; I certainly believe it is — that all of those young players on the Browns, feeling all fat and sassy after that win over over the Bengals that evened their record at 1-1, now believe they have arrived and thus all they have to do is show up and Washington will roll over and play dead,
I fear that — I desperately fear that — and I hope that Browns head coach Kevin Stefanski, his assistant coaches and the small handful of veteran players on the team have been working as much mentally and emotionally as physically with these young players to dispel that ugly — and very dangerous — rumor.
We’ll see soon enough. 

9/26/20

It will be hard — and weird, really — to be rooting against two former Ohio State stars in quarterback Dwayne Haskins and defensive end Chase Young when they play for the Washington Football Team against the Browns on Sunday at FirstEnergy Stadium.
Actually, I’m like most people from Ohio, or natives of the state, in that I want the Browns to win but also for Haskins and Young to play well. It’s like that with all former Buckeyes, Ohio-bred players and those who once played for the Browns and left a positive taste in the fans’ mouths.
I’m glad that the Browns have a core player who is a former Buckeye in Nordonia High School product Denzel Ward. For so many years, the Browns never drafted, or acquired in any way, ex-Ohio State players, Other teams would draft or acquire them and they’d perform well. It was almost as if some of those former Browns knucklehead regimes — are you listening, Eric Mangini, Joe Banner, Mike Lombardi and Ray Farmer? — knew the fans wanted to see some of the better Buckeyes in Cleveland so they refused to go after them to spite the fans and prove that they knew better, that they were always the smartest people in the room and we should just sit down and shut up and let them run the team.
Ugh!
Double-ugh!!
It just makes sense that with all these great Ohio State teams, there ought to be players from there who could help the Browns. The Buckeyes aren’t going 12-0 by osmosis.
The early Browns had a lot of former Ohio State players. After having been head coach there, Cleveland head coach Paul Brown knew the quality of the talent there and stocked his roster with players such as kicker/left tackle Lou Groza from Martins Ferry, middle guard Bill Willis (Columbus) and wide receiver Dante Lavelli (Hudson), all of whom are enshrined in the Pro Football Hall of Fame along with Brown. Others, like linebacker Jim Houston (Massillon), are in the so-called Hall of the Very Good.
Anyway, here’s hoping the Browns — and Haskins and Young — all are successful on Sunday. If so, then it will be a win-win, literally and figuratively