BYE-BYE BROWNIE THE ELF

Why I Walked Away

With the Cleveland Browns, I could handle the losing. What I couldn't handle was a multimillion dollar perv.

"When you're playing Cleveland, you just keep plugging. The Browns will always find a way to lose."

That quote from a Baltimore Raven sums up a lifetime of Browns fan. Even when they were good, they would find painful ways to lose. The Drive and The Fumble are two well-known examples.

Over the last 23 years, the Browns have the worst record in the NFL. They've lost because a player took off his helmet in celebration and gave a team the chance for the game-winning kick. They've lost on blown assignments, untimely turnovers and missed kicks. Since returning to the league in 1999, they've had 21 losing streaks of four games or more. They've tried 35 different starting quarterbacks.

Being a Browns fan certainly built character, but in a really masochistic way. That's why I don't think of my walking away like it's a divorce. I see it as an addiction.

I'm a recovering Browns fan.

The Red Sox/Cubs Analogy

In terms of lovable losers, two recent examples come from baseball. When the Red Sox and the Chicago Cubs finally won a World Series, everybody was pulling for the underdog.

I always said when the Browns got good, they would swamp those stories. A team that went winless, a team that won one game in two years, a team that hadn't won a championship since 1964 — now that's an underdog. Turn that around and you become America's team.

That was the plan of the guy who was playing quarterback last year, Baker Mayfield. He had such fire and drive he basically played an entire season with a broken shoulder.

And the Browns ran him out of town.

D-Wat: "The Michael Jordan of Football"

Deshaun Watson won a national championship in college, was a first-round draft choice, and was an all-Pro multiple times with the Houston Texans. He was widely regarded as one of the top quarterbacks in the NFL. His college coach compared him to Michael Jordan, that he was that good, that special.

Turns out, he was also a serial sexual abuser. Because of his misconduct, when he finally takes the field for Cleveland this fall, as either the 36th or 37th quarterback, he will not have played in nearly two years.

I won't trouble you with specifics (you can find the allegations here) because I have a different beef.

As a young man who had to work hard at finding a girlfriend, good-looking, rich star athletes who have to resort to roofies or, in this case, sexual misconduct with massage therapists are just the worst. Men who have every advantage and still can't find a girlfriend are just pathetic human beings. Watson is just the latest in a troublesome list.

But back to the Browns, desperate beyond belief for a star quarterback. So what did they do? They made a huge trade, mortgaging their draft-choice future, and gave Watson the largest guaranteed contract in NFL history. The league promptly suspended him for 11 games, in large part because he's never shown any remorse.

Which gets me back to the stories of lovable underdogs like the Cubs and the Red Sox. There's nothing lovable about a serial pervert, a man addicted to power over women. So even if the Browns do make it to their first Super Bowl, there would be no fun in it. He's Bill Cosby with a better arm.

"I can't quit you"

Brokeback Mountain reference aside, I was determined to quit them, and I can report success so far. So far is key. People in recovery take things one day at a time.

Taking a cue from addicts, I had to give up the triggers. No more sports talk radio. No more sports bars. No more fantasy football. People said I should just start rooting for another team, but I couldn't do that. Your team is your team. That's why I stuck with the Browns for so long in the first place.

No, I had to de-escalate the hold football had on my life. I needed to get away from television on Sundays.

As my wife would always say, watching me suffer through the latest Browns loss, "Don't let it ruin your entire day."

Judging from Twitter, I was not alone. Plenty of Browns fans — including a lot of women and a lot of men who raised daughters — aren't having anything to do with this team. At least so far.

With the Browns, even with all the frustration, there was always hope that they'd turn it around. My fear now is what if they start winning? What if people are having a Super Bowl party, and the Browns are playing in it? What will I do? Will I break down and root for them?

Just kidding. It's the Browns. They'll find a way to lose.

-30-

Mr. Marshall, who speaks in third person in his italicized footers, worked at the Ohio University Post with a sportswriter now in his 38th year of covering the Browns. Tony Grossi once compared his career to covering The 100 Years War.