Opinion: Incessant losing destroying Cleveland Browns legacy

The Cleveland Browns are terrible.
They are the worst franchise in the NFL.
As a Browns fan, I hate saying that.
I truly do.
Hearing it is even worse.
In my mind, I can say it. Like being able to criticize your own sibling.
But to have someone outside of the family making jokes? Pointing out the calamity? Posting memes?
It’s intolerable.
What’s worse than the incessant losing is the destruction of the Cleveland Browns legacy.
Some would argue it was torn down long ago. If that’s true, then this era has ground it into dust.
Perception varies by your age I suppose. I am in my mid-forties. The arc of my Browns fandom ignited with the Kardiac Kids in 1980. It super-charged with the Bernie Kosar heydays of the 1980s, including the romanticized playoff losses of that era. It leveled off with the tumult of the 1990s and wound down with the visceral pain of the team’s theft in 1995.

Fans in the generations before mine remember what it was like to see the Browns as one of the NFL’s elite teams. The generations after mine just hope for a winning season. Today, fans of all generations are ecstatic for just one win.
It isn’t supposed to be this way for the Browns. Despite what people believe outside of Cleveland, the Browns weren’t always losers. Nor do they deserve to be viewed as such. Yet, to the average NFL fan, it is a given that the Browns suck.    
Every fan thinks their team is the best. I am no different. 
Regardless of a team’s record in any given season, fans support their team not just for what they are, but also for what they were. 
It is criminal that this team is so bad. Criminal because of what they were and what they should be.
This is the franchise named after Paul Brown, arguably the greatest coach of all time.
The franchise of Jim Brown, possibly the greatest player in the history of the sport.
A team that plays in Cleveland, a founding NFL city in the state that has had more franchises in the NFL than any other.
The team that once played in Cleveland Stadium, a place that was mocked when it was alive, and has been all but forgotten in death. The current team has the honor of playing on the hallowed ground where that stadium once stood.
No, I’m not kidding.

Mention Cleveland Stadium outside of northeast Ohio and you’ll hear the jokes. “Mistake by the Lake,” right?
By the end of its life, Cleveland Stadium was dilapidated. My intent here is not to argue that point.
But name me an NFL stadium, living or dead, that better bridged the early days of the NFL all the way to the modern era? That was home to and witness to so many NFL championships and dynasties?
Green Bay’s Lambeau Field is viewed today as the NFL’s mecca. But with all due respect, it opened in 1957.
Cleveland Stadium opened in 1931. Two NFL teams played games there before the Browns. The Cleveland Indians in 1931 were the first. The Cleveland Rams were the second, playing their first game there in 1939.
Hall of Famers like Don Hutson, Ernie Nevers, Sid Luckman and Sammy Baugh all played there.
Curly Lambeau never played or coached at Lambeau Field, but he did coach at Cleveland Stadium.
What do legendary QBs Baugh, Bob Waterfield, Otto Graham, Johnny Unitas, Bart Starr, Terry Bradshaw, Joe Montana, Dan Marino, John Elway, Warren Moon, Steve Young, Troy Aikman and Brett Favre have in common? Other than gold jackets? They all took a snap from center at Cleveland Stadium.
But let's meander back to Lambeau Field. I had the honor of attending a game there in 2013, when the Browns visited.

The place was magnificent. To an NFL history nerd like me, everything about it was jaw dropping, the preserved history so thick you could cut it with a cheese knife.
An imposing statue of Vince Lombardi greeted me at the door. The moment I emerged from under the stands to view the names of Packers greats ringing the field in green and gold gave me chills.
As I walked around that glorious facility, it saddened me to remember my departed friend on the Cleveland lakefront. To think that if things had gone a bit differently, perhaps the NFL might have seen the value in refurbishing Cleveland Stadium, rather than demolishing it. To think that fans like me, visiting from other cities, could walk up to the gates on a cold autumn day and be greeted by a statue of Paul Brown.
Instead, Cleveland Stadium is now a pile of rubble, repurposed as a reef in the cold waters of Lake Erie.
And the stadium that stands in its place, FirstEnergy Stadium, is regularly mocked as “The Factory of Sadness.”
To me, this is sadder than people realize.

Paul Brown went on to create another franchise and took it to two Super Bowls. And today, most young fans know him as a Cincinnati Bengal.
Belichick was not popular when he was in Cleveland. But to label him as a failed coach while there is a misnomer.
Belichick took over a team that had gone 3-13 in 1990, a team that had come close to the Super Bowl, but never got over the top. Getting rid of the popular players on those teams, the heroes of the 1980s, did not win him popularity contests. Being surly with the media while doing it didn’t help.
But the fact is the team steadily improved under Belichick.
1991: 6-10
1992: 7-9
1993: 7-9
1994: 11-5
The rug was pulled out in 1995, when the team announced it was moving to Baltimore midseason. Their record tumbled to 5-11.
Since 1996, of the 20 Super Bowls played, Belichick or the Baltimore Ravens have participated in nine of them.
Yes, nearly half of the Super Bowls played since the Browns were ripped from Cleveland and renamed the Ravens have included the coach or the team that was ours.
And in their place we’ve been saddled with a feckless, toothless, clueless expansion team that has had two winning seasons and one playoff appearance.
The problem, as they say, starts at the top.
And since Tennessee billionaire Jimmy Haslam purchased the Browns in 2012, things have gone from bad to worse.
I won’t get into the grisly specifics here. But the team enters the final week of the 2016 season on the brink of the worst record in team history.
But I’m not here to rip Haslam.
I’m sure he wants to win as badly as anyone. Being an owner in the NFL, like any other job, has a learning curve.
The point I want to make is that Haslam is not a Browns fan.
I’m sure he likes the team. He wouldn’t have bought it if he didn’t.
But Haslam, at the time a minority owner of the Steelers, set out to buy an NFL team, any old NFL team. It just so happened that the Cleveland Browns were available.
Despite what I believe was a sincere effort to get to know his new fanbase, Haslam didn’t walk in the door with a passion for the Browns, the love for the history and the team’s eccentricities.
And it shows.
One of the first things he did was set out to change the uniforms. But we’ll get back to that.
You see, Cleveland is a very homebody town. And outsiders being in control of the Browns is historically a sensitive subject.
New Yorker Art Modell swept into town in 1961 and bought what up to that time was Paul Brown’s team.
Brown wasn’t the owner, but the team was his baby.
And Paul Brown was Ohio.
He was born in Norwalk, raised in Massillon, played college ball in Oxford. He became a coaching legend at Massillon Washington High School and in Columbus at Ohio State. And he built the Browns from the ground up. He picked the team colors, designed the uniforms, set the tone.
When Modell fired Paul Brown, he severed Cleveland’s hometown tie, and we haven’t had one since.

Why does this matter?
In some ways, it doesn’t. Just because Haslam isn’t from Cleveland, doesn’t mean he can’t be a good owner. Take Eddie DeBartolo Jr. for example.
DeBartolo bought the San Francisco 49ers in 1977, and people forget he didn’t just waltz in the door and begin collecting Super Bowl trophies. The Youngstown, Ohio, native was an outsider who brought an unpopular general manager with him and burned through four head coaches in two years.
Sound familiar, Browns fans?
DeBartolo finally got it right when he hired Bill Walsh in 1979, and the rest, as they say, is history. The 49ers became the dominant dynasty of the 1980s under the guidance of an owner from Northeast Ohio and a coach who was a Paul Brown disciple.
Hopefully, Haslam has found his Bill Walsh in Hue Jackson.
Given patience and proper support, I have full confidence that Jackson can turn the ship around.
But time will tell if he will get the opportunity.
The Browns under Haslam have not been known for patience.
As a fan on the outside looking in, it feels like the Browns under Haslam have been more concerned with style over substance. More concerned with glitz over grit.
And that is so not Cleveland.
And it shows a fundamental misunderstanding of Browns fans.
It feels like the team history is a marketing tool, rather than a pillar of what it means to be a Cleveland Brown.
The most damaging example was the reach for the worst draft pick in the history of the franchise, Johnny Manziel in 2014. The flashy, undersized southern superstar was never a fit for Cleveland. And his antics set the franchise back horribly.
Browns fans don’t need TMZ darlings to fill the seats. We just need good football.
“Gameday experience” was a term I heard a lot as a season-ticket holder.
The last game I attended was against the Bengals in 2015.
The Browns did a nice job on stadium renovations. They added a snappy drumline. There was a splendid carnival outside the stadium before the game, complete with a zipline.
But once inside, it was the same old bad football.
Bad football played by a team in hideous uniforms. In a process that included years of effort, the team unveiled the new look in 2015. It was a mission to fix something that wasn’t broken.
I loathe the new uniforms.
One of the things Browns fans fought so hard for when Baltimore stole our team was the right to keep our identity. That includes the uniform that outsiders might find ugly, but to me were the best uniforms in the league.
The more vibrant orange is OK. Keeping the iconic logo-less orange helmet was essential.
Other than that, the uniforms are awful. They are ugly high schoolish Nike abominations. Seattle Seahawks wannabes.
I’m a graphic designer by trade, so maybe it bothers me more than most fans.
But don’t tell me I’ll get over it if they start winning in the new uniforms.
My opinion is that the uniforms are an attempt at flash that failed. I’ll never buy one of the new jerseys.
The difference has been most striking when seeing the Browns play teams with classic looks, like when the Oakland Raiders came to town last season.
Some teams have traditional looks that deserve respect. The Browns, the Bears the Packers, the Raiders are a few examples.
Can you imagine the Packers deciding they need a yellow on yellow jersey/pants combination with “GREEN BAY” emblazoned across their chest?
Leave these types of shenanigans to the Jacksonvilles of the league.

Prior to the debut of the new uniforms, the team drew ridicule by unveiling their “new logo.” The difference was minor, using the same helmet logo with the deeper orange. The change being so minor is what prompted the ridicule. To me, the bigger offense that day was the new puppy dog “Dawg Pound” logo that was also introduced.
I have three kids under 5 years old, so the cartoon “PAW Patrol” is never far from view.
When I see the Dawg Pound logo, all I see is Rubble from PAW Patrol. “Rubble on the double!”
Imagine the Chicago Bears changing their uniforms and pushing a logo that looks like Winnie the Pooh?
Rather than pushing the cutesy dawg, the team should stick to its heritage and use Brownie the Elf as their primary logo.
No, an elf is not much more fierce than a snarly puppy.

But the elf dates back to 1946. He is part of who the Browns are. Yes, he’s retro and campy. But he’s ours.
These are the opinions of just one fan, longing for a lost love.
As you can tell, I’m angry. I’m frustrated.
And I care.
I will leave you with an analogy to describe my angst.
I was a Browns season ticket holder from 1995-2015.
The last few seasons the team included a small gift with the ticket delivery. Things like small blankets, scarves, caps.
In 2015, it was a silver travel coffee mug with the new Dawg logo on it. When I saw it, I commented to my wife that this was actually a nice gift, a stainless steel mug.
She pointed out what I was looking past, that it wasn’t solid stainless steel. It was mostly plastic.
I’m not much of a coffee drinker, so it went into a cabinet until a few weeks ago.
I brought it to work one day recently and it tipped over. Though the cap was tightly fastened, it leaked all over my desk.
And in that moment it hit me that the 2016 Browns were nicely illustrated by that mug.
They were presented as a high-quality item, but in reality aren’t as solid as they appear.
They push a logo on me I don’t want, and in the end, fail to deliver their end of the bargain. They leak all over the desk every Sunday.
This season, for the first time, the franchise’s overall win-loss total fell to a losing mark.
And they narrowly avoided the ultimate scarlet letter, a winless, 0-16 season.
A stain that would have never been removed.
Maybe the problem is mine. I feel as if my team, the proud franchise I grew up with, has been taken away from me all over again. In its place is a sales pitch that feeds on my blind faith.
Every week I watch this team rooting for the Browns I remember, and what I think they deserve to be.
How long can my delusion go on?
Regardless of how this season turns out, I’ll likely put on my Browns cap with the elf on it every Sunday and keep watching.
Keep hoping.
But the younger generations that have never had at least a taste of success, may not.
PLEASE Browns, get it together on the field. In the draft room.
Accelerate your recent outreach to team alumni. 
Give us our proper uniforms back. Or at least something close.
Give Hue Jackson what he needs to succeed.
And give the legacy of the franchise you represent the respect it deserves.
You are not just any old NFL team. You are the Cleveland Browns.
And that is no joke.