In a few short hours, it will be all over.

Finally.

Mercifully.

Thankfully.

The Browns season that began with such great promise ended in nightmarish fashion Saturday. They are 3–14 and need binoculars to see the AFC North-leading Ravens, who, after losing to the Browns in Cleveland earlier this year, have put on a late surge to overtake Pittsburgh and are 12-5.

I love watching Browns football. I really, truly do. But I was hoping that this season would’ve ended about a month ago, when it became painfully clear that this thing was going south and was not going to recover. Of course, I could’ve said that much earlier, but we waited until it became official.

Watching these games down the stretch has not been pleasureable at all. They have been like exercises in misery. Football is supposed to be fun, and this season was anything but that.

The Browns have no one to blame for this but themselves, not so much the players, although they have generally underperformed, but moreso the people leading the charge in head coach Kevin Stefanski, General Manager Andrew Berry and owner Jimmy Haslam. They have really dropped the ball much more than any of their ball carriers or wide receivers or anyone else could’ve dropped it.

We have our life back on the weekends to do what we want, but what we really want is for this team to get straightened out and become a contender.

Can people in charge of the Browns do that? Again, I go back to the dropping the ball comment.

Haslam isn’t going to sell the team or fire himself, and he doesn’t appear ready to fire Berry or Stefanski, either. So we just have to hope and pray that they find a way to fix this, because it can’t continue.

Steve King