The only reason to watch the Browns this year

Here's a scenario:

You turn on a game to watch a team play a sport. The game is uninteresting and lopsided. One team is especially terrible. You turn game off.

That scene sounded reasonable, right? Why watch a bad game? That's not really the point of being a sports observer. The point is to be captivated, interested or entertained in some way.

But now, make that scenario more familiar. Add in your favorite team. For example:

I woke up Sunday morning, put on my Josh Cribbs jersey and went around town for some early morning errands. I had this feeling of "It's Sunday, the sun is shining, people are outside, I've got my Browns jersey on, let's drink beer and watch the game." I arrived home, turned the Browns game on and was immediately crestfallen. We suck. It's highly probable that the team I am watching the worst team in the NFL, and the worst Browns team I've ever watched play. It's not competitive at the half....

Now, working off our original scenario, the correct way to end this story would be to turn off the game and do something more entertaining, useful, fun, productive—basically anything that doesn't involve the Browns. Most of society, my dad included, would wholeheartedly agree—especially with THIS Browns team. It has been the same sad story for the last decade. If there's a time to put your family dog to sleep, there's a time to just let your favorite team fade into the background until it gets its shit together and at least makes games watchable, right?

Wrong.

What's that, I say? Wrong? Yes. Wrong. Now be careful, we're going to drift into a strange world of fanaticism devoid of all logic and reason.

As a true fan of a team, you enter into a binding social contract. This contract stipulates that no matter what, you will follow this team. There's no rules against obsessive bitching. There are no stipulations against blind optimism. There are no penalties for cheering on a guy that has murdered innocent children. The only real rule is: If you see your team's uniform playing a game, you will watch it and root for it. Period.

Obviously, there are exceptions when it comes to baskteball and baseball in order to lead a sociable, normal life, but the main instinct remains: complete devotion to following that team. Even football games can be missed here or there—but you can never willingly decide to not watch a game when you are perfectly able to do so. Intent is key.

Do I turn games off? Sure. For a minute or two to cool down, gather my thoughts and perhaps lower my expectations. I might even turn the game off and then take a drive and put it on the radio. But in the scenario I've built, I can never fully shun a game, no matter how pathetic it is.

That's what I signed up for. If I don't do that—if I just say "Man, they suck today, guess I'll turn it off and read a book," that makes me a bandwagon fan. Even if it happens only once in awhile and in the middle of a 15 -year drought where not one competitive game is played, it doesn't matter. Who's to say it won't happen again? Front runner! Bandwagon fan!

Disagree if you like, but if I consciously tune this Browns season out and just quit paying attention, next year, if they turn it around (just go with me on this), and I make sure to watch all of the games again, I would feel like a douchebag. And so should you.

For example, from 2002-2007, the Indians didn't make the playoffs. Not a big drought, not by any means, but it was coming off the '90s where a Central Division crown felt like a given. And during the drought, the team even had a competitive moment or two. But during that stretch, Indians fans dropped like flies. They all bitched about new ownership, sobbed into their Omar Vizquel jerseys and tuned the team out. I saw it happen to people I knew—people in my own family.

And there stood me and my brother. Bitter. Reading up on this new wave of guys. Pleading to people to keep watching and then growing more bitter. We made mental lists of everyone. Then, in 2007, when the team got hot, fans started coming back and getting excited again.

"Hey, this team isn't so bad! This is fun again!"

And there we were with our mental list.

"Oh, really? Now that the team is contending again you're going to watch? Screw you. Do you even know who these guys are? Name me 10 players! Sorry. Too bad. You're out. Find another team."

That's insanity, right? Yes. It is. Fanaticism is insanity. So, if you are going to actually call yourself a fan, this is what you do. You take alllllll of the good with allllllllll of the bad. All with all. No qualifiers.

So there you have it, Eric Mangini. The only reason anyone would watch your pathetic football team is out of devotion to a fictional sense of duty too disturbing to call goofy, but not disturbing enough to cause a holy war.

Feel free to use that as next year's marketing slogan.