SAM, FREDDIE, JOHN AND A BIG TRADE

By STEVE KING

Sam Rutigliano is my favorite Browns head coach of all-time because he made football – and the team – fun, a whole heckuva lot of fun.

That 1980 Kardiac Kids season was a four-month-long party.

Football is important. There are millions and millions and millions – even billions and billions and billions — of dollars spent on it. So, yeah, the NFL is a really big deal, especially in Cleveland, the best football town in the league – by far, it isn’t even close.

But let’s be honest, we’re not curing cancer here, nor are we breaking down the Pythagorean Theorem or solving world peace. It’s football, for crying out loud.

And Coach Sam always got that. That’s why he so famously said, “Eight hundred million Chinese don’t care.”

I think new head coach Freddie Kitchens has a little – or perhaps a lot – of Sam in him. I’m really looking forward to that.

I also think Browns General Manager Joh Dorsey has a little bit – not a lot, only a little bit – of Sam in him. It’s much more controlled, and subdued, such as when he said upon arrival, “Let’s awake this sleeping giant, the Cleveland Browns.”

And he has. He absolutely has. That is undeniable. For that fact, every Browns fan is thanking his or her lucky stars.

Sam also said one time, when, in one of those NFL Films highlight videos upon being asked why the Brian Sipe-led Browns passed the ball so much, “To do anything else would be incredibly boring.”

 There is a lot of truth to that. There really is. Again, this is football, not the seriousness of the real world. It’s entertainment and as such, it is supposed to be fun. If it’s not fun – as was the case with the Browns in that 2016-17 nightmare – then you’re going to find something else to do with your free time.

I think that quote is the way Dorsey looks at it. Like Sam was, he is a gambler, a guy who is going to push the envelope, a guy who is going to take a calculated risk. It is better than the alternative, which is sitting there doing nothing and letting the world pass you by.

For that reason, I believe Dorsey will trade into the first round and grab a dynamic player who can make a … well, dramatic impact on the Browns.

Why? Because 800 million – or perhaps 800 thousand – Browns fans really do care, and to do anything else would be incredibly boring.