Embrace the absurdity
Well, I know I had fun watching the Browns Sunday. Honest, I did. I understand that this may be a minority opinion. I understand that extending an NFL-record losing streak on opening day is no one’s idea of success. I understand that it’s tough to enjoy watching a team that cut its fourth-round pick wide receiver while the other team’s best wide receiver, who was acquired for a fifth-round pick, takes that first team’s best cornerback to school. I understand that it’s not easy to delight in a five-turnover, 21-point loss. That all makes complete and total sense to me. My counterpoint is that you’re watching the Browns all wrong.
The fun I had Sunday wasn’t the traditional fun that one tries to have watching his favorite football team. The Browns, however, are far from a traditional football team, and you can’t treat them like one. You cannot watch them like you’re watching a competitive NFL franchise because, I’m sorry to say, they’re not — not right now, anyway. I can certainly envision a world in which they pull it together next week and knock Tennessee’s Marcus Mariota down a peg or two and return to the ranks of the mere subpar (as opposed to the oh-my-god-what-is-going-on?!), but we’re not there yet.
The question, then, is how to watch the Browns. The answer is that you have to embrace the absurdity. Bathe in the madness. Watch them as though they’re performance artists. Performance art is loosely defined, but the basic gist is that the artists do something novel to elicit a reaction. Whether your preferred expression thereof is closer to ballet or pro wrestling, you can surely find something at least interesting in the Browns. Looking for things like skill and execution, in the traditional football senses of those words, is guaranteed to leave you wanting. You’re better off reveling in the chaos and getting a few laughs out of it.
When you see Josh McCown getting helicoptered like Shane Falco into the end zone, don’t ask what the hell are you doing? Instead, say hell yeah, go for it. In that moment after he left his feet and before his bell got rung worse than a house giving out king-size Snickers on Halloween, I was all the way in on Josh. The man showed no fear and no hesitation (…and no sense). You’re damn right I want a quarterback who spits on the pussyfoot notion of sliding and puts his head on the line in the name of getting six points. Instead the Browns got zero points, but that’s only because they don’t give out points for being entertaining.1
McCown’s departure meant Johnny time. Johnny time! In the first quarter! Of the first game! Can you even understand how amazing that is? Just weeks ago we were lamenting Johnny’s nebulous and apparently longstanding elbow injury, and there he was, tossed into the fire on the second possession of the whole season. Usually we have to wait until about Week 6 for that delicious, chewy quarterback controversy. This year we got the main course where the apéritifs usually go. We’re so lucky.
And Johnny wasn’t that bad! I know, I know, three turnovers and just one touchdown. But could you really hope for more? At least he ran around and did stuff. He was the team’s leading rusher, and his margin would have been much greater were it not for penalties. He did his best-ish. The backup QB, while always beloved, is one of the few players for whom expectations should not be high in the first bloody week.
Johnny went in headfirst on an early run despite McCown’s injury, which raised questions. 1) Did he see what had just happened to McCown, 2) Did he understand that the Browns would have no quarterback if he also got hurt, 3) Who was the Browns third quarterback,2 and 4) Terrelle Pryor couldn’t find a place on this team? The Browns could have been stuck with the equivalent of a left fielder toeing the rubber inside of 20 minutes of regular season play. Most people go a whole lifetime without entertaining such possibilities.
I recognize that this is not a great way to view one’s favorite football team. A bunch of people are either upset or frustrated with the Browns, and that is one thousand percent reasonable. You need some sort of defense mechanism when you waste one-eighth of your Sunday. I have come to realize that anger is not my reaction; laughter is. I’ve never really known how to be mad at someone or something without cutting it out of my life altogether; I’m not the sort to get in a fight with someone at lunch and have it be fine by dinner. I have no plans to cut the Browns out of my life, and I don’t enjoy the feeling of anger, so what do I do?
I channel the feeling of the morning after an all-nighter and giggle at everything like an idiot.
I really don’t know what else there is to do. Getting mad surely helps a bit, if you don’t mind the elevated blood pressure. The Men in Blazers soccer commentators advocate taking a “sad nap” after your team suffers a defeat — I tried one of those Sunday, and it was wonderful. What I don’t support is complaining, because oh my god is there anything worse in this world than people who call in to radio shows saying that the whole team sucks and everyone should be cut, except for the people who say the same stuff in a one-on-one conversation?
If you’re going to complain about the Browns, at least do it creatively. Bring something new to the party. If you were stuck in a desert for 15 years, wouldn’t you get tired of the fellow who greets every 100-degree day with, “Same old weather, eh?” You would rightly want to affix that man’s vocal chords to a particularly sharp cactus. You should wish the same upon those who boldly proclaim, “Same old Browns,” as though that sentence offers anything in the way of value or insight. It might even be true, but that doesn’t excuse a lack of creativity. We might as well break new ground in our descriptive phrases, or we’re no better than the team itself. How about “No wonder it smells like a Don Pablos bathroom on fajita night, they’ve been farting upwind for 20 years.”
NOW THAT’S THE STUFF THAT HAPPY SUNDAYS ARE MADE OF.
The Browns just aren’t worth getting upset about, or if they are, then they’re worth getting upset about in the most fun way possible. Starting up a crowdfund to purchase/liberate the team — that’s a good one. Comedian Mike Polk’s videos offer a fresh take on well-worn misery, as does the Why is Daddy Sad on Sunday? coloring book. We do not need to be miserable just because the team is. We can repurpose that misery into humor and have a good time despite poor play. We’ve certainly had time to practice.
Mitch Hedberg once said that comedy is always the best way to look at a bad situation. The Browns supply plenty of the latter, so it’s only logical that we use the former to help ourselves get through it. I beseech you: don’t get mad at the Browns’ failures. Embrace them. Enjoy them. Laugh at them, not cruelly, but purely. Chew on them like a water buffalo chewing his cud, and for the same reason: because it’s too hard to digest it all the first time.
(Please do better this week, Browns. Talking myself into laughter as medicine is fun, but I would prefer cheering on a victory so much more.)
http://www.waitingfornextyear.com/2015/09/watching-the-cleveland-browns-the-right-way/
