DawgTalkers.net Forums DawgTalk Tailgate Forum My Dad has broken my heart

Hey everyone,

Iv been lurking for a while and have not done much posting.

Anyway about six weeks ago I moved to WV from Cleveland for my first job out of college. I worked a 12 day stretch and earned some days off so I decided to come home for a long weekend.

I had not spoken to my dad about the Browns much since the season started but when I came home we were watching yesterdays game and I started talking about Winslow being sick.

My dad then tells me that he had had enough. He had gotten rid off all of his Browns gear except for a Sipe Jersey I bought him a few years ago. He had a Sipe poster with the Cleveland skyline in the background that has been hanging in our house for as long as I have known and he gave it to a friend.

I was absolutely crushed hearing this news. This is my dad, the one who taught me to be a Browns fan, the man who taught me the history and grew up watching the games with. I was the toddler decked out in Browns gear yelling touchdown because that was one of the first words he taught me.

My dad in his senior year of highschool went to every home game with this friend which ended up being the kardiac kids red right 88 season. He traveled from Indiana (where we lived at the time) to see the Jets double OT playoff game.

I can not believe that he has given up. I know as well as anyone the heartbreak that the Browns have given me and the frustrations but I don't think I have ever thought about giving up on them.

He said that the Ravens and Bengals games were just too much . Have things really become that bad with this organization that people are jumping ship? Are others hearing of fans renouncing their Cleveland Browns religion?

I feel like Iv lost a bond between my dad and I. My dreams of watching the Browns win the superbowl with him are gone.

He will be back.

It's hard to blame him. I'm not to that point, but this is getting ridiculous. Every year its the same thing. "We improved a lot over the offseason, this should be the year we can make a run at the division". Yet, it ends up being "Well, we're 1-4, who are we going to draft?"

I think we all feel the pain of being heartbroken time and time again.. But your father is the first I've heard of actually making a decision to no longer root for or be a fan of the Browns.

I'm sorry he's been hurt and I'm sorry the Browns haven't won..

But I bet you that he'll be back..

I would bet there are other events going on in his life to lead him to this decision. Maybe you should take him out to lunch and just have an open chat with him. Maybe the economy has him worried about his retirement, maybe there's health issues he hasn't revealed to you yet, could be anything, but it's not typical for someone so into something to suddenly change and give away stuff.

It's frustrating.....but if he loves football, who's he going to root for? There's no way I could get as emotional for anything other than the brown and orange. That feeling of excitement and anticipation I have right now for the game tonight could never be felt for another team. I've been a Browns fan since my childhood in the 60's.

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but if he loves football, who's he going to root for?

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When the Browns left for B-town he hopped on the Dolphins bandwagon, I think cuz Bernie was there. Of course came back to the Browns in 1999.

But I don't know who he would root for. I would like to think he would come back but he can be stubborn. It is not like he is a knee jerk fan either. Surprisingly he watches the games very relaxed, the only time iv seen him get up and start yelling is when Metcalf ran back those two punts against the steelers.

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the only time iv seen him get up and start yelling is when Metcalf ran back those two punts against the steelers.

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I do that everytime DA drops back to pass.....but I'm usually yelling "NOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!"

Tell him top strap on a set, and quit crying.

no offense, but i can't stand people that renounce their allegience to a particular team...

for one, they're full of it, and for two, it is a cry for attention... now maybe your father didn't go out of his way to tell people this, but still, you know that if next year, or even this year, the browns make it to the supe bowl, you know he's back on that bandwagon.

cubs fans are doing the same thing right now, calling in radio shows, sending letters to the editors of the newspapers, blogs, etc.. saying that they are no longer cub fans. yeah right.

look folks, you are stuck with the team you root for, like it or not.

i just love these people that call in after a loss on radio shows and talk about how they will never watch the browns again.

sure thing, buddy.

it is hard being a cleveland fan, it really is, i've been one my whole life, which is only 26 years, but i've seen my teams come pretty close in that time. it hurts, but i know better then to sit and try and convince people that i'm no longer supporting them.

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no offense, but i can't stand people that renounce their allegience to a particular team...

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I'm going to assume you made a mistake and that post wasn't directed at me. I told the whiners "good riddance".

I think the better thing to do is put the Browns on hold, if you will. Don't trash all your stuff or announce you've given up. Instead, put all the Browns garb away, don't renew your Direct TV Deal, don't go to the games and stop buying Browns gear.

Take a break from all the pathetic play and losing seasons, and when they actually begin to resemble an NFL team again, pick it back up.

That might be a little bandwagonish, but for as much pain and suffering this team puts us through, I think it's acceptable. After all, a man/woman can only take so much, right???

I'm disappointed in the way team has been unable to be a consistent winner. But I just can't bring myself to step away. I get joy out of watching them play, the excitement beforehand that THIS may be the turning point, the start of a new era.

I want to be there when we turn that new leaf. I've remained true for this long, I might as well get to benefit when we start to win.

My dad did the same thing more then a few years back, even before the move. One day he decided there were more important things in the world other then to live and breathe football, and as I get older I can understand his views more and more.

DC makes a good point, there are many other things you and your dad can do to fill that void you think is missing, but I am sure football isn't the main bond you and your dad share. Football is just a sport your dad on the other hand is family and that doesn't need an explanation.

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I find it odd that we live in a nation with a 50% divorce rate.. where, if your spouse (the one you promised to love forever and possibly the one with whom you have children) let's you down ONE TIME, many people are completely in agreement that you need a divorce so you can move on with your life and be happy... but if your football team disappoints you for decades, you are a whiner and a loser if you walk away from them and you should suck it up and go on in misery for as long as it takes....

Nice priorities we have...

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Hey, I've been a Brown's fan a lot longer than I've been married.

That said, marriage is a piece of cake compared to being a Brown's fan.

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Hey, I've been a Brown's fan a lot longer than I've been married.

That said, marriage is a piece of cake compared to being a Brown's fan.

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I knew one of you married guys was gonna chime in on that door that DC left wide open. Sounds like something my Dad would say..

I don't know how people just randomly decide to jump ship for a team they have rooted for their entire life...

Honestly some times I wonder "Why the hell wasn't I born rooting for another team?" But the fact of the matter is there is something that makes being a Browns fan worth it... The city and the fans are enough, the fact that we play horribly for nearly all 10 years yet people still come back and love this team shows me enough that the Browns are and always will be my team no matter what.

I haven't even gotten to see the good Browns, I was born in 89 and I have 6 Browns jersey's and a ton of Browns gear, we have had two winning seasons and one playoff appearance where we absolutely choked the game away, yet I see nothing that would ever make me want to root for another team... It's my home town, I'm not just gonna go root for another team to win.

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Football is just a sport your dad on the other hand is family and that doesn't need an explanation.

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There are other things we do together. But I have always seen my love for the Browns because of the tradition and that fatherly bond. I mean thats how he became a fan, his dad and that bond.

I believe that is one of the main premises of the book "Being Brown, what it means to be a Browns fan" There are a lot of references to the father son bond.

Going to games with him are some of my fondest memories. We have a great relationship its just that when I was younger watching the Browns was always a highlight to the week.

Its a football family. I spent thanksgiving two years ago with my ex-girlfriend and she thought I was nuts because I wanted to watch the football games and its apparently not what her family does.

My first beer I had with my dad after I turned 21 was a browns game.

There is a lot of fond memories with me, my dad, and the Browns and I was just shocked that he has now blown them off.

j/c.....


Jeffrey King lived for his orange and white weekends, but five minutes of football shook his faith in the team he loved.
by Andrew Reilly
The wind howls as the November cold attacks the souls hearty enough to make the trek here. Scores of men and women have arrived for their weekly ritual of self-sacrifice, gathered on another Sunday at the Cubby Bear to give what they can for the cause they so passionately believe in: the Cleveland Browns.

Clad in their tribe’s traditional orange and brown, they’ve spent the past week girding for battle. Their jerseys are their armor, their dog masks and hardhats their helmets.

From television sets blaring along the eastern and western walls, the Sunday sports pundits hold court while the crowd sneers at their so-called wisdom. The air reeks of last night’s stale cigarette smoke and this morning’s brunch buffet as the patrons steel themselves with platters of scrambled eggs and tumblers of Bloody Marys.

They each have different ways of pledging their allegiance but all came here to the Cubby Bear sports bar in Chicago for the same reason: In just a few hours, the Browns will take the field against the Cincinnati Bengals, and no one here has any intention of missing a second.

Especially the man at the center of the room. On the surface, he doesn’t look like anything more than a casual fan. Sure, he wears his trademark white Bernie Kosar jersey, its brown numerals the inspiration for the “19″ nickname given to him years ago by the folks in this room. But he bears no tattoos of the team logo, wears no giant foam fingers reading “We’re #1.” By appearances, he’s just another guy wearing Browns gear in a room full of guys wearing Browns gear.

In street clothes, his athletic build and nondescript fashion sense better reflect the weightlifting and running regimen that dominates his weeknights than the liquor and chicken wings that dominate his Sundays. Still, he woke early today and got to the bar as soon as he could. “Beer and Browns,” he tells those around him, “no better way to spend a day.”

All you can see is orange and brown. Little kids holding signs, people who’ve been tailgating since 5 in the morning,” he says. “It’s like a church, but better.
Certainly not for him. For here is a man who knows the Browns’ history better than most people know their own. He knows the going rate of Browns memorabilia, like the 1995 Michael Dean Perry figurine atop his television. Or the framed aerial photograph of Cleveland Municipal Stadium that hangs on his living room wall. He can instantly recall where he was when someone was signed, drafted, injured, released or traded. He can go on at length about the civic betterment brought about by not selling the naming rights to Browns Stadium or how engineers turned 5,000 cubic yards’ worth of the old Cleveland Stadium into an artificial reef in Lake Erie, and can just as easily talk about fond boyhood memories of game day in Cleveland.

“There’s nothing like it,” he says with a smile. “You walk up that ramp and step out into the stands, and all you can see is orange and brown. Little kids holding signs, people who’ve been tailgating since 5 in the morning, everyone in the place screaming for the Brownies to come out and tear it up. You see the guys in the Dawg Pound getting the crowd worked up. It’s like a church, but better.”

His name is Jeffrey Dennis Timothy King – Jeff to his family, Dennis to some friends, Denny to others, The Browns Guy to his co-workers. And today he is more excited to watch football than he has been since he first started watching it thirty-one years ago as a newborn cradled in his mother’s arms or held upright in his father’s lap; more than when he went to his first Browns playoff game in 1994. He’s more excited than when the Browns returned to the league in 1999. Today, he’s certain, is going to be a good day.

It is an optimism based on little more than his own enduring faith, a sucker’s belief as trusting as Charlie Brown running to kick the ball one more time before Lucy’s inevitable betrayal.

Case in point: One week earlier, the Browns were hosting the Pittsburgh Steelers and the Steelers were playing terribly. It was a cold and rainy afternoon at Cleveland Browns Stadium, and with five minutes left in the game the Browns were up 20-10. It wasn’t the Super Bowl – there would be no Super Bowl this year for Cleveland Browns fans – but victory over the Steelers . . . that was almost as good.

“We had it,” King says. “I mean, we were going to win. No question, lock it up, put it down. Goodnight Pittspuke.”

Pittspuke. The enemy. The evil team in black and gold. Everything the Browns have always wanted to be: winners. Since 1950, the year the Browns entered the National Football League, these two teams have fought for supremacy in the American rust belt, and since then it’s usually been the Steelers atop the pile. Separated by a mere 134 miles, the two cities are remarkably similar in their histories and demographics. The fates of their football teams, however, could not be more different. The Steelers have won both times the two met in the playoffs and, more painfully for Browns fans, Pittsburgh’s five Super Bowl victories are five more than Cleveland’s.

“I’m not sure rivalry’s the right word any more,” The Browns Guy says with a laugh. “More like hate and…”

He pauses. His voice turns bitter. “Hate and envy. They’ve won. We haven’t.”

Growing up in Cleveland you learn to live with defeat. You spend your life surrounded by factories closing and people moving away. You learn your city’s population has been shrinking for the past seventy years, thanks in no small part to the mass exodus to the suburbs in the 1950s, the city’s race riots in the 1960s, and Mayor Dennis Kucinich defaulting on Cleveland’s debts in 1978. You read in the newspaper that your city has the highest poverty rate in America. You endure countless jokes from out-of-towners about how Lake Erie caught on fire, then suffer the embarrassment of having to explain that it wasn’t the lake but the Cuyahoga River. As if that’s somehow better. And if that’s not enough, your favorite teams, well, suck.

But you love them. More than anything. Companies come and go, but the team remains. Everything else may vanish, but the game is still on.

It’s no overstatement. Browns Backers Worldwide, Cleveland’s official football fan organization, boasts more than 48,000 active members – more than the New York Yankees, more than Manchester United, more than any other team in the world – with chapters established as far away as Branimirova, Croatia and Misawa, Japan. That the team has such a less-than-storied tradition speaks to the loyalty the team inspires.

“It’s the sports version of staying in an abusive relationship,” King says. “They knock us down more and we love them more.”

You endure countless jokes from out-of-towners about how Lake Erie caught on fire, then suffer the embarrassment of having to explain that it wasn’t the lake but the Cuyahoga River. And if that’s not enough, your favorite teams suck.
For people in most cities, the game ends and life goes on. For Browns fans and for people from Cleveland (which, the Browns Guy says, are one and the same), autumn Sundays run much deeper than that.

The problem, as King will readily tell you, is that one important being who is clearly not a fan. God, he will tell you, hates Cleveland sports.

To hear his version of it, there is no other possible explanation for the city’s long, sordid history of failures and near misses. Other teams get up and get better. Other fans are given something to cheer about. In Cleveland, you know better than to get your hopes up. When their teams take the field, it’s not a matter of hoping for victory; it’s a matter of hoping the natural order of the universe will somehow reverse itself.

Cleveland fans don’t romanticize this the way some other fanbases do. In Boston, they reveled in the Curse of the Bambino. Novelists and sportswriters around the country penned big wet kisses to Fenway Park. On the North Side of Chicago, Cubs fans will point with a defiant pride to the Curse of the Billy Goat, use it as a way to make losing lovable and to justify filling postcard-perfect Wrigley Field no matter how bad the team. But those cities have also experienced dynasties. From the Boston Bruins’ two Stanley Cups in the 1970s, to the Celtics’ three NBA championships in the 1980s, to the Chicago Bulls’ six NBA titles in the 1990s, to the New England Patriots’ three Super Bowl victories in this decade alone. A championship pennant now flaps over Fenway Park.

Yet somehow people still lavish sympathy on those cities and those “poor folks” who love those poor teams. Cleveland enjoys no such loving pity. The Cleveland fan is left to suffer in silence, penance for the sin of being born in a city whose history has earned it billing as “the mistake on the lake.”

No one pens poems about Jacobs Field and no one ever dreamed up a curse on which to blame the disappointments. God hates Cleveland sports, as The Browns Guy says, and history is all the evidence any Cleveland fan needs to prove it.

Ask and they shall tell you: About The Drive, where the Browns were five minutes away from going to the 1987 Super Bowl before the Denver Broncos pulled a “miraculous” come-from-behind victory.

About The Fumble, where this time those same Browns were one minute and two yards away from sending the 1988 AFC Championship game into overtime and watched it tumble away when Cleveland running back Ernest Byner fumbled, punching another Super Bowl ticket for the Broncos.

They’ll tell you about former Browns owner Art Modell shutting down the team in 1995, setting up shop in Baltimore, and giving that city a Super Bowl champion after only five years.

And they’re just getting started.

They’ll tell you how the Cavs have never won the NBA Championship. How twenty-eight other teams have won a World Series since the Indians did it last in 1948; about Super Joe’s bad back, John Smiley breaking his arm in the bullpen, or Jack McDowell’s elbow giving out once the Indians got ahold of him. Mark Price’s ACL. Red Right 88. Keith Foulke. Atlanta 1995. Ray Chapman. Kellen Winslow II. The Shot. Game 7 at the Palace.

And they’ll defy you to claim sports disasters of this magnitude happen this regularly to other cities. In the eye of the Clevelander.

And yet … for a few glorious hours that Sunday at the Cubby Bear, when the Browns had their foot on the Steelers’ neck, none of that mattered to King. Browns 20, Steelers 10. Five minutes to go. Start celebrating, he thought. He saw the happy looks and the high-fives, felt the warm feeling of good will spread through the room. People smiled, laughed. Chants erupted. One side of the room: “Here we go Brownies, here we go”; the other side responding: “Woof! Woof!” They knew they were going to win. Nothing, not even God Himself could ruin this one.

Well, it might not have been God — who knows? But something told the Browns defense to suddenly quit. Something lifted the Steelers and carried them 79 yards down the field. Something put that ball in Willie Parker’s hands and shoved him into the end zone.

Browns 20, Steelers 17.

Okay, King thought. No big deal. Four minutes left. Just run the clock and keep the damn ball and we’ve got this. He looked around. Doubt darkened faces that shined with delight only moments earlier. They had seen this movie before.

We had it,” King says. “I mean, we were going to win. No question, lock it up, put it down. Goodnight Pittspuke.
“Don’t worry,” he said, trying to rally them, “not even we can blow this one.”

Browns ball. Quarterback Charlie Frye is sacked. A short pass. An incompletion. A decent punt return. Suddenly, the Steelers’ had the ball again. Seventy-seven yards to the end zone. Three minutes to go.

King fell silent. Other fans held their head in their hands. A few prayed. Please God spare us thy divine wrath just this once.

Incomplete. Relief. Short pass. Incomplete. yes! Long pass. Oh God. Short pass. Oh please. Run. Pass. Pass. Run. Touchdown.

Twenty-seven seconds on the clock.

Browns 20, Steelers 24.

Un-friggin believable.

But fate wasn’t done twisting the knife. A few short passes put the Browns 22 yards away from a miracle victory of their own. Three seconds left. Charlie Frye took the snap, ran back, threw left to Braylon Edwards . . . and . . .

Game over.

Browns lose.

Browns lose.

The Browns Guy stood numbly, looking helplessly at the other fans. Tears filled the eyes of some. Others simply stood up and walked out. More than a few headed straight to the bar downstairs.

How? Why? Against this team, in this game?

The Browns Guy sat down without saying a word. His friends left him alone to contemplate the agony of what had happened. The Browns had blown it in the worst way possible. To the @!#$%&*%# Steelers.

King had always defended his team, no matter how painful the loss. And he had always come back for more. Charlie Brown. But this time, this was it. No more. “I couldn’t stand the thought that this was what the rest of my life was going to be like if I stuck with this team,” he says.

He half-watched the rest of the afternoon’s games, then decided it was time to go. Enough was enough. As dusk gathered, he bid goodbye to a few friends. He decided to walk home. His mind flashed to the pictures and souvenirs there, the books and T-shirts and all the other reminders of a life spent devoted to heartbreak. No reason to hurry back to that, he thought.

Walking down Clark Street, he saw a young man with his arm around a young woman. Both wore Cleveland Browns sweatshirts. Both had obviously been crying. King and the couple stopped, exchanged a knowing glance, and kept moving.

Any other day running across a Browns fan and he would have stopped and chatted. But not after that. What was there to say? ‘Wow, we sure @#$$%%^ it up today.’ No thanks,” King says.

When he reached his apartment, King did not turn on the TV. He did not call any of his friends or his family. He made himself dinner, then sat alone in the quiet of his apartment. The questions continued to torment him. How could this be? How did the Browns manage to lose a game that even the Browns couldn’t lose? Why did it have to be against Pittsburgh? Does anything good ever happen?

Walking down Clark Street, he saw a young man with his arm around a young woman. Both were wearing Cleveland Browns sweatshirts. Both had obviously been crying.
And the big one: now what? “It was just like ‘is there any point in this? What am I getting out of this any more?’ You root, you cheer, you believe and you spend your life just wanting to see this team win and instead all you get is people crying in the streets!”

He went to bed early that night, too weary to do much of anything else.The next morning, he called his boss.

“I’m not coming in today,” he said. “Personal reasons.” He turned over and went back to sleep, wrapped tightly in the bedding he had received for his last birthday – brown, orange and white.

That day he watched old NFL Films videos about the Browns. He flipped through books about the teams and players he grew up loving. He read the flaming posts on Browns message boards.

“I’m burning my jerseys,” one person wrote, words that resonated. He himself had thought about torching his beloved Bernie Kosar jersey.

He tried to find something positive in all of this. He wanted to think that it would get better, that this was just an isolated incident. But then he thought back to those previous disasters and realized it was pointless. No good could come from sticking with this team, he thought. They were going to keep letting him down and only a sucker would keep going back for more. Charlie Brown. He was done.

Wednesday morning, he called in sick again as he sank into another day of wallowing in grief and pain. Friends and relatives kept calling and e-mailing. He ignored them.

And suddenly, like a bolt of orange and brown lightning, the answer hit him.

“I started thinking about everyone who wanted to talk. They wanted to talk about what happened and make sure [I was] okay,” King says. “I mean, I’m sitting in my apartment hurting so bad over this, but guess what? So is everyone else. It’s not just me. Everyone felt that game. Everyone hurt from it.” Like any great loss in life, he says, you get through with the support of your loved ones, of your family and of your friends. Like the ones he’d been ignoring, forgetting he was not alone in his misery.

The family and friends that were looking for him were the same family and friends he had spent his entire Browns-backing life with. Family members he had little else in common with but blood and football. Friends he would go on vacations with to watch their favorite team hit the field. The people he had built a life with based around the one passion at the center.

The Browns were the link between King and his loved ones, and suddenly he understood that it wasn’t about the game (well, maybe just a little) but about what the game brought to those watching. Joy. Heartbreak. Bonding. Shared good times and cherished memories. The Browns were his connection to the people and the city he had once called home.

“My mom and dad, my grandpa and grandma, my uncles and aunts,” he adds later, “all Browns fans all the way. Everyone in town is.”

He went into his kitchen, sat down at his computer, and started getting back to those e-mails. No, he hadn’t disappeared. No, he hadn’t done something unspeakable. No, he hadn’t given up on the Browns.

He didn’t believe in the team this year, not when they had just fallen into a distant last place with five games left. But that didn’t matter.
Later that evening he called his father in Ohio. “I’m fine dad,” King recalls telling him. Then “Dad, how are you doing?” They talked into the night about the team, about the game, about the hated Steelers. By the time he hung up the phone, it all made sense to him. Don’t worry about the game; worry about everyone watching it with you. He wondered why it took him so long to realize this.

And no, he didn’t believe in the team anymore, at least not this year, not when they had just fallen into a distant last place with five games left. But that didn’t matter because yes, he would be at the Cubby Bear next Sunday. Big game against the Bengals. The Battle of Ohio, they called it. He wouldn’t miss it for the world.

“Besides,” he says, “what was I going to do? Root for the Dolphins?”

+++
And, true to his word, he got here bright and early today, back in his trusty Bernie Kosar jersey and already making bold statements as to what would happen on the field this afternoon.

“We’re gonna win,” he announces brazenly at kickoff. As the afternoon progresses, he and the Browns Backers watch as the Bengals hand their beloved team a brutal 30-0 loss, but this time King knows he’ll be okay. No need to cry, he tells everyone. We’ll get ‘em next time.

And eventually, he still insists, they will. Until then, it’s a matter not of looking back but instead looking forward. To next week. To next year. To the next time one fan’s faith in their favorite team is finally rewarded.

Man, talk about a misleading title. I thought you were about to tell us that you and you dad got into a big argument and he said some things to you that really broke your heart. - Thank God that isn't the case.

I was born in 1978, my father began taking me to games back in the '80s. - The double ot Jets game - I was in third grade, and I was there with my dad. The next week - "The Drive" Yeah, I was there with my dad.

My dad ran off to Columbus back in 1990. - He met a woman younger than my mom. We kept in touch throughout the years, always on good terms, and always had good times together.

My Dad and I fell out back in the Summer of 2004. A minor dispute turned into him getting drunk, calling my cellphone and calling me some of the most vulgar things you could think of. - We didn't talk for 2 years. Then, back in Spring of '06, I invited my dad to my wedding, he came. - We barely spoke, he didn't offer to help with anything, and he wasn't involved in any planning, or photos. - My own father. - We didn't talk again until April of this year.

April 2008, I called my dad out of the blue. I don't know what it was, but I just got the urge to call him. So I dialed him up, he was very, very, glad to hear from me. He drove up here from Columbus the next weekend. It was a great weekend - we went out to eat a couple times, I drove him by the Browns Stadium, we hung out like father and son. I'm sure by now that you know where this is going. - On April 26, 2008, my sister called me to let me know that my father passed away. - He had been sick, but his passing was abrupt. Everybody kept telling me that I had done everything I could throughout my life to be a good son to my father, and that he was hardheaded and not devoted enough to his family. - Nevertheless, I am still mad at myself for waiting so long to make up with him after my wedding. I look back now on last fall, and I think "What if I had called him last September, we could have gone to a few games together." I don't have that chance anymore. I will never, never, ever, do anything with my father again. Heck dude, my dad's favorite movie was on tv the other day "The Color of Money" I watched it, after it ended, I felt like picking up the phone to call my father to talk about why it was his favorite movie. - Aint gonna happen.

It kills me.

Point is dude, who cares about what your dad did with his Browns stuff. He's still around for you to talk to about other stuff. Maybe the two of you can pick up another hobby together. Call the old man up and ask him a few questions about himself, ask him what his favorite year was, what his favorite subject in high school was, - stuff like that. Don't let anything ever come between your dad and you, even if he is acting in a way you don't like. Get over it together man.

Wish BD was still here,so he could tell Jeffery Whatever King to get a life.What a load of crap.

BAH! My said after The Fumble he was done. I was four years old, and we had just moved into our new house and my dad was saying how amazing it was, that I was so young and I'd finally get to see the Browns make the Super Bowl. Twenty years later, he still watches every game with me.

BAH. Just because you and your dad still watch games together means everyone else should? The fact is people change, times change, as do interests. I can see a point in my life were I won't give a damn about football, it's starting to happen now with the arrests, the drug abuse, the dances after making a stop or TD. There is way more to life then just a game, and if I needed I could easily stop watching the Browns if something of true value was on the line.

Diehard, my dad and I were the same way, then I went to basic training, came back and he pretty much didn't care about the Browns or football anymore, though he'll still watch at times, but doesn't go out of his way to do so. I was confused at first but over time, as I mentioned I see his view, people grow out of things and that's what it sounds like, your dad has grown out of being interested in football and that isn't a big deal, don't let it beat ya up, respect his views and if he wants to watch he will, if not take him fishing on a Sunday or something, just don't value the Browns or football over family, because football comes and goes, family is forever.

I agree with those that say he'll be back to the Browns. Maybe not as rabid, but heck, I'm not as rabid as I used to be, either. He's probably just tired of being frustrated and disappointed...can anyone really blame him? Along those same lines, I have a Browns "room" and I'm considering putting all my things in boxes...just to try to help change the mojo for the team.

It's like tonight -- we're going to our usual joint to watch the game, though I don't really know why. I could just as easily sit at home and watch us lose. I guess I'm going in hopes that we actually pull the win out of our butts -- because it's LOADS of fun to be there when we win.

Gobrowns posted recently about something very similar. She got some good responses, check it out.

the bottom line is, if the browns were in the super bowl, or even the playoffs, they'd all be back like they were never gone in the first place.

maybe it's because i still play competitive sports, or maybe it's just how i am, but i don't sit here and whine and moan, and throw things and say i'm never going to watch them again. when we lose, i move on.

when we lost to dallas, i was already thinking about pittsburgh and how we would match up...

after tonight, win or lose, i will start thinking about washington, sure if we win, i'll celebrate, but if we lose, then we lose, and i'm ready for the next game.

and no, i'm not saying everyone has to be like that, but don't tell me all of these so called quitters wouldn't be back if the browns were in the super bowl.

They aren't "quitters" in my mind. They are frustrated. HUGE, gigantic, difference. If you want to see quitters, look no further than Cincinnati fans...they quit every few years.

I know my dad wouldn't give a crap if the Browns won the super bowl, there are just more important things in his life now.

Oh and my dad is hardly a quitter, the man retired from two different businesses, (Ironworker and from GM) and enjoys occupying his time doing other things. You can't be considered a quitter since you decide not to watch or do something else, that's called a choice, but hardly a quitter.

Many people here take sports way to seriously at times and thats fine, it is your choice, just as it is for people to lose interest in things such as Browns football as well, but you are right to a point, Cleveland fans are bandwagon jumpers they did it with the Indians, and id it when LBJ joined the Cav's and will do it again when the Browns start there winning ways, Clevelanders jump on the bandwagon just as fast as they jump off, don't believe me? The proof is right there with the Tribe and Cav's, and the Browns will be no different.

The funny thing is that the level of frustration has gone up as expectations have gone up... a few short years ago when I expected us to suck, I wasn't nearly as frustrated. But the bar was raised, rightfully or wrongfully so, it was raised... and its not that we have lost some games, it's that we have looked absolutely awful doing it....

I mean let's be honest, some teams which have recently been considered sucky teams at least have a decent win this year, the Rams beat the Redskins, the Cardinals beat the Cowboys, the Dolphins beat the Chargers and pounded the Patriots, the Bills Redskins and Falcons all have 4 wins... these are teams that were at the bottom with us, now they are at least competing while we look sloppy, disorganized, and uninterested...

Tonight's game could go a long way in affecting how much effort I put into the rest of this year... we don't have to win but we damn sure better compete or my own interest in the rest of this year is going to bottom out as well.

Take a look at us, and then look at the Titans. I wonder if what happened at the tail end of last year is influencing what is going on with us and them.

A bunch of us usually watch the games at a Browns bar out here, since it's the only way we can usually see the games. Tonight, we're going to watch it at one of the guy's house. He has renounced the Browns, won't wear his jersey, boxed up all his stuff, says he'll have the game on, but doesn't care anymore. I'm going there tonight because at the very least, it should be entertaining watching him.

I'm frustrated too. Realistically, in my mind, I think we're still a year or so away from any real contention. The success of last year has created false hope. Both the soft schedule last year and the tough one this year has created disproportionate reaction to the reality of the team's abilities, experience and talent level, IMO. But, having said that, I just can't get as fired up about wins or as down about losses as I used to. Even the loss the the Steelers this year didn't raise the bile it normally would.

I'm with Fletch, people change, interests change. The Browns just aren't that interesting to me as they once were. I love them, still, but I haven't bought a damn thing this year that's orange, brown or has a helmet logo. In past years, I've spent at an average of $300 on hats, jerseys, T-shirts, but this year, it's three hundred bucks I didn't spend on stuff that makes me angry when I see it.

I'll wear one of my jerseys tonight, and my favorite hat. Would love to see a win. Won't be surprised if we lose. For the first time since I became a fan in the 70's, I don't have the feeling that anything is possible when they step on the field, and that's what hurts most I think. But it's easier not to hurt when you don't care as much.

Nope - I was born a Browns fan and will die a Browns fan... hopefully we'll win a superbowl before I get there