I am torn.
And that’s OK, at least I think it is, at the fear of being wishy-washy, which I know for a fact that I never, ever want to be accused of.
Anyway, about all this jabbering the Browns, mostly from defensive end Jared Verse, heading into last Sunday’s 27-6 loss to the Pittsburgh Steelers:
I am from the olden days, when you were told — more specifically, ordered — to keep your mouth shut in the week leading up to a game, especially a big one, so as to not give that opponent any bulletin-board material. I saw former head coach Bill Belichick win a game like that for the Browns down the stretch in that 1994 playoff season. He had his players – – all of them, from the top of the roster to the bottom – join him in making the Dallas Cowboys look like they were superhuman creatures. To hear Belichick and his guyd, they were honored just to be on the same field with the mighty Cowboys. It softened up the Cowboys just enough so that the Browns beat them 19–14 in a nationally-televised Saturday afternoongame from Texas Stadium. Upset? You bet!
But these are different times now. I still don’t like to hear players and teams running their mouth talking trash. It just doesn’t sound good, but the fact of the matter is that a good number of players and teams now do it. Sports is so proliferated with that in no no 2026 that it’s the tsunami you can’t stop from hitting the shoreline and changing everything.
Back in the day, quarterback Joe Namath became famous for doing it before Super Bowl 3 following the 1968 season. He guaranteed his New York Jets would beat the heavily-favored Baltimore, Colts, and he made good on his promise, 16-7. Everyone was aghast. How can a player, even if he pulls it off, be so boastful?
Finally, I go back to two different times in Cleveland sports history — decades ago. The then Indians signed pitcher Satchel Paige from
the Negro Leagues in 1948, who, at the ripe, young age of 42, helped them win what is still their last World Series, or, as ol’ Satch liked to call it, “World Serious,” championship. Satch used to say all the time when he talked about his baseball abilities in lofty ways, “It ain’t braggin’ if you can do it.”
Nooo! You don’t say?!!
Yes, I do say. A fact is a fact. You can look it up.
Then there’s your Cleveland Browns way back in the day, 62 years ago, to be specific.
Leading up to his team’s matchup against the heavily-favored Baltimore Colts in the 1964 NFL Championship Game, third-year wide receiver Gary Collins, when asked by a reporter if he thought the Browns would be victorious, remarked, “Yes, of course I think we’ll win.”
Gentlemanly, reserved, soft-spoken head coach Blanton Collier about lost his mind.
“Why did you say that?!,” Collier asked him.
Collins had what he thought was a perfect reason for doing so.
“What do you want me to say, that I think we’re going to lose?” he said. “I think we’re going to win, and I said so.”
Collins was right with his prediction, and he was a big reason why, catching three touchdown passes, still an NFL title game record, from quarterback Frank Ryan in a 27-0 blowout triumph.
Steve King
