Thursday was a huge day — a historic one, one for the ages, one we’ll never forget, in fact, but in two entirely different ways — for the Browns and Guardians.
The Browns, as it came about on Thursday, will apparently build a domed stadium not in Cleveland but instead in the suburb of Brook Park, in the vicinity of Hopkins Airport, and it is there that they will try to build new memories. Indeed, the memories they’re building now are bad ones, as they are at a low ebb, carrying a four-game losing streak and a 1-5 record into Sunday’s game against the Cincinnati Bengals at Huntington Bank Field.
It’s one thing to lose games, but it’s another thing entirely when the team can’t score points. That makes the defeats, then, both painful AND boring. Add to that the fact the Browns are playing a quarterback who is incredibly ineffective and is universally disliked because of his egregious off-the-field behavior, and it makes it even worse yet. The entertainment value is non-existent, and the fans feel trapped because head coach coach Kevin Stefanski, when he takes his head out of the sand, insists that he is not considering benching Watson, and that he gives the Browns the best chance to win.
Hmm. Win what?
Does Stefanski hate Browns fans or something?
If the Browns carry this kind of team, these type of games, this kind of quarterback and this kind of coaching attitude into that domed stadium, then it will be simply a much more expensive — and a climate-controlled — unmitigated disaster. The memories the Browns make would be nightmares.
You just can’t make this stuff up. It is that horrible.
And when it comes to the Guardians, you can’t make that stuff up, either, especially with what happened Thursday night in Game 3 of the American League Championship Series against the New York Yankees at Progressive Field. The good guys blew the lead and then came back in the ninth inning to tie the score with a two-run homer and force extra innings and went on to win it in the 10th on another two-run homer.
If there’s been a better and more thrilling postseason baseball game than that 7-5 victory, then I’d like to see it. The gutsy, never-quit, find-a-way-to-win Guards are what the Browns used to be.
What a memory that game will be.
The Browns will be pressed to have anything even close to it anytime soon, a fact that was brought to light — once again — on Thursday.
Steve King
