In Cleveland sports, it seems as if every team has one player that fans love to … well, hate is too strong a word … so let’s say kvetch about.
With the Browns, it is usually the starting quarterback.
For the Indians, it’s first baseman Matt LaPorta. But the player who fits the bill on the Cavs is a bit of a surprise to us.
To find out the rest of the story, visit The Cleveland Fan.
The New York Giants win over New England in Super Bowl XLVI confirmed a couple of truths about life in the National Football League.
A team’s regular-season record no longer matters; all that is important is getting into the playoffs and getting the right match-ups once you are there.
At 9-7, the Giants were clearly not the best team in the league during the regular season. But they made the playoffs in part because Dallas fell apart down the stretch and, once there, the Giants made the most of their opportunities.
It helped that New York played a flawed team in Atlanta, a flat Green Bay squad and an over-rated San Francisco team. They also matched up very well with New England.
Even though the NFL Draft is not until late April, Browns fans are already focused on what the team will do with its pick in the first round, currently the fourth overall selection.
What? It’s not like we’re going to be watching the Browns play in the Super Bowl on Sunday or anything.
As host city for Sunday’s game, Indianapolis has been ground zero this week for draft talk.
If you read and listen closely, and connect a few dots, a fairly likely scenario comes into focus about which player will be staring Browns general manager Tom Heckert in the face when the Browns make their selection.
Heisman Trophy-winning quarterback Robert Griffin III.
To find out how, head over to The Cleveland Fan.
You may not have heard, but Super Bowl XLVI is this Sunday. The game itself has flown a bit under the radar because the participants represent two small markets in Boston and New York.
But the game is on the minds of Cleveland fans because of New England coach Bill Belichick, who is going for his fourth Super Bowl championship. The fact that none of those championships came in Cleveland, where Belichick was coach from 1991 to 1995, still gives many Browns fans agita.
Honestly, though, it’s been more than 20 years since Belichick was hired as Browns coach and 16 years since he was fired, so we’ve pretty much forgotten why we are supposed to be mad at him.
Head to The Cleveland Fan for the rest of the story.
If you are only going to read one other item the rest of today (other than this site, of course), you would be hard pressed to find a better article than Vince Grzegorek’s interview with Cleveland Browns owner Randy Lerner in Scene magazine.
Over the course of five interviews Grzegorek got Lerner to open up about the Browns in a way that we’ve rarely seen.
A few items stand out from the piece:
The biggest takeaway is that Lerner wants to get this right and bring a winner to Cleveland. Just because he doesn’t need to feed his ego by constantly going in front of a group of reporters, like Jerry Jones or Dan Snyder, doesn’t mean he doesn’t care.
Many Browns fans have a hard time wrapping their head around that idea, but that’s there problem. Lerner gets criticized for way too many things that have nothing to do with the success of the Browns.
But after reading this article, it would be hard for fans to carry on with that fiction.
(Photo by Getty Images)
It was quite a week in Cleveland sports, with two stories dominating the headlines.
First off was Prince Fielder signing a nine-year, $214 million contract with the Detroit Tigers.
The second, while off the field, made just a much news, as The Plain Dealer pulled longtime reporter Tony Grossi off the Cleveland Browns beat after Grossi sent a Tweet that personally criticized Browns owner Randy Lerner.
And the reaction to those stories from a growing legion of fan-driven sites highlighted what makes Cleveland such a great sports town.
The Cleveland Browns finally filled the offensive coordinator position on Friday, hiring Brad Childress to fill out the coaching staff.
So what are the Browns getting here?
Childress brings value to the position in that he’s experienced in the West Coast offense. He gives the Browns another voice immersed in the language of the offense and someone who should have no problem building on the knowledge base put in place during Pat Shurmur’s first year as head coach.
Childress also brings experience as a head coach, giving Shurmur a third person (along with defensive coordinator Dick Jauron and senior defensive assistant Ray Rhodes) to help Shurmur accelerate his learning curve as he heads into his second year on the job.
We really weren’t surprised when news broke that The Plain Dealer had taken Tony Grossi off the Browns beat.
When Grossi tweeted last week that Cleveland Browns owner Randy Lerner is “a pathetic figure, the most irrelevant billionaire in the world” it was only a matter of time, really, before some kind of punishment had to be handed down.
Grossi crossed a line when he went from professional to personal; rather than attributing the Browns continuing struggles to Lerner being a bad or disinterested owner, he attacked Lerner directly, and you just can’t do that.
Every week as the Cleveland Browns drudged their way through a 4-12 season, the anti-Pat Shurmur crowd was out in full force, bleating about the first-year coach’s shortcomings.
No matter what happened, it was somehow Shurmur’s fault.
We certainly share the frustration of another lost season – did we mention the Browns were 4-12? – but we never totally understood the level of criticism.
Head over to The Cleveland Fan for the rest of the story.
(Photo by US Presswire)
There has always been a subset of NFL fans who think the league did not begin until the Super Bowl era started in 1967 (in these parts, they are known as Steeler fans).
So it didn’t totally surprise us when we read on ESPN how, if New England beats Baltimore in today’s AFC Championship Game, then Bill Belichick and Tom Brady will become the first head coach and starting quarterback tandem in NFL history to reach five Super Bowls.
Belichick and Brady are currently tied with Pittsburgh’s Chuck Noll and Terry Bradshaw, Buffalo’s Marv Levy and Jim Kelly, and Dallas’ Tom Landry and Roger Staubach with four Super Bowl appearances.
While getting to five Super Bowls is certainly an impressive feat, by ignoring the fact that the NFL has existed since 1920 and overlooks coaching and quarterback duos that have far surpassed what Belichick and Brady have accomplished.
Red Right 88 