JUST SHUT UP AND PLAY

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By STEVE KING

My dear, sweet mom didn’t know much – and didn’t care much – about sports, and even with that, only to the extent that how all these games and leagues affected my dad and me, which was a lot.

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To that end, then, my mom probably scratched her head a lot and tried to understand – at least in some way – how she ended up giving birth to a kid like me. Isn’t an offspring supposed to represent the characteristics of both parents, and not just one?

Whatever the case, my mom would have like Charles Barkley, the ex-NBA star turned NBA analyst. What?

Yes, she would have loved the guy. I know it. Why? How?

Because my mom, though a little hesitant at times to really, truly expression her own opinions, liked someone who did.

“He’s (or she’s) never going to have an ulcer,” she would say of someone who didn’t keep anything in – didn’t internalize things.

Well, that’s Sir Charles, right?

Charles was at his ulcer-free best recently when talking about the Philadelphia 76ers, calling them “the NBA version of the Cleveland Browns” because all they do is talk, talk, talk. They don’t produce, despite all their talent.

Ouch.

Double-ouch.

That does indeed hurt, but it’s oh so true.

You know that, and I know that.

We saw it with our own eyes in the recently-completed 2019 season.

The 76ers are trying to learn how to put their opinions and egos aside so they can focus on the games, and winning games.

In other words, they just need to shut up and play.

Yes, that’s right, just shut your big mouths and play.

Don’t tell us what you’re going to do, 76ers and Browns. We don’t want to hear it. Just go out and do it.

Winning the games – not the games on social – are all that matters.

All the time.

Are you listening, Browns?