The NFL has announced that the Browns will play a regular-season game against the Minnesota Vikings in London next year.
Great, right?
No, not at all.
Aw, come on, what can be bad about going across the big pond to play a football game that the whole world will see?
Plenty.
Have you looked at the Browns’ record this season? They’re 0-13. It’s hard enough for their own fans to watch them, let alone some fan in China. The Browns don’t need to broadcast the fact they’re in a total rebuild. Yes, 2017 will be Year 2 of the great makeover, but it’s still going to be a struggle. The Browns have a lot of work to do, and they need to focus on it every waking minute from now to whenever. They don’t need the international-sized distraction that a game overseas will be.
Instead of touring Big Ben or Buckingham Palace, they need to be figuring out how to defeat Big Ben, the one in Pittsburgh. Trips to London are for teams like the New England Patriots, who begin each season with realistic expectations of not just getting to the Super Bowl, but winning it. It’s not for teams that have never been to a Super Bowl.
Such a trip would have been a much better idea for a time several years from now when, hopefully, the Browns are in the playoff discussion. Hearing about it now, when the club appears headed for a winless finish, seemed silly. It was about as ill-timed as it could be.
Other than all those issues, yeah, it’s tremendous news.
