Much was made of FirstEnergy Stadium becoming Foxborough West last Sunday when the New England Patriots defeated the Browns 33-13 there.
Indeed, there were a lot of Patriots fans in the building. You could see them and hear them.
And the Patriots gave them plenty to cheer about – to be loud about – with their outstanding and, at times, nearly flawless play.
That whole experience was a tough one to swallow for longtime Browns fans who remember when old Cleveland Stadium, which sat right on that same footprint, was one of the toughest venues in the NFL for opponents to play – even in years when the Browns were struggling. Teams hated coming here, and with good reason, because the Browns won 63 percent of their home games at the Stadium during the 50 seasons of the original franchise.
But when teams lose – and lose and lose and lose, as these new Browns have done in the expansion era – that home-field advantage goes away. No one fears coming into Cleveland. Why should they?
So this, then, is a tale about winning – the need to win. Winning solves every problem. It is the great elixir that cures every ill throughout the organization.
If the Browns were winning, then tickets to their games would be a hot item and Cleveland fans, not those of their opponents, would be gobbling them up and sitting in those seats. When that happens, there is no Foxborough West. There is only one Foxborough, and it stays in Massachusetts.
The members of the current Browns organization haven’t really helped the situation – they haven’t had enough time to do so – and as such they are paying dearly for the foibles for all those who have gone before them since 1999. But they can’t complain about it, either. Those old regimes aren’t around anymore to change it. So it is up to Jimmy and Dee Haslam, Sashi Brown, Hue Jackson and the rest to get things turned around.
And when they do, they’ll find out what the rest of us already know, and that is that Cleveland fans provide an unbelievable home-field advantage when their team gives them a reason to do so.
