Sometimes I look too deeply into sports and see symbolic moments that aren't necessarily there. For example, I once wrote an entire column about the 2007 Indians after a sweep at the hands of the Yankees at mid-season, and I wrote about the gloomy day, and the construction in Cleveland at the time that annoyed me, and I tied everything together with an Arctic Monkey's lyric. My conclusion was the Indians just didn't have it that year based on my symbolic analysis.
They almost went to the World Series. So, I misfired on that one. (Well, kind of. I mean, they did ultimately break my heart, which was the point of the column for the most part. Whatever.)
Anyhow, I'm feeling poetic about this Sunday's Browns game. Big time. The symbolism is palpable, but in a good way. Examine these elements with me:
• Mike Holmgren gets hired to save the Browns.
• Brady Quinn gets hurt and is out for the remaining two games.
• This makes Derek Anderson the starter.
• The Browns opponent on Sunday is Oakland.
• Despite their victories this year, Oakland is viewed as perhaps the only other organization more hapless than Cleveland.
• After Jamarcus Russell was benched, Bruce Gradkowski (a ghost from our past) was brought in for the Raiders. He got hurt. Unwilling to go back to their 2007 first round pick, the Raiders turn to Charlie Frye.
• Yes, that Charlie Frye.
• No seriously, the guy from Akron that we drafted in the third round.
• Even though he suffered a concussion in the previous game, he is making the start this Sunday.
• The game this Sunday between the Raiders and the Browns is so bad that it may receive the first blackout locally since the putrid Browns have returned to the league.
So let's put all of the pieces together. Sunday is the most improbable and potentially the most horrendous football game ever played. The game pits the Browns v. the Raiders. It pits Anderson versus Frye, the two QBs that once battled each other in the worst QB competition ever staged, in a game that neither should be playing. Together, the two seem to sum up everything that's been terrible about the Browns for 10 years. And this epic duel will possibly be the first blacked out game in the modern Browns era.
This game Sunday is the culmination of a decade of Browns futility. Frye. Anderson. Injuries. Two bad teams. Bad weather. A blacked out game.
So why does this game give me hope? Because we have Holmgren. That's what started this chain of events to get Anderson v. Frye in a blacked out football game. Holmgren is good and this game is evil. And the game is happening because good is finally vanquishing evil (unless Holmgren is somehow tricked into believeing Anderson is good or the game is so bad that he has a heart attack and dies. Then evil will win.)
This game, as the full representation of everything that sucks about the Browns, will end the misery. After Anderson faces Frye in a game no one will watch, the atrocious Browns era ends with a dramatic whimper. It is dead. Buried. Done. Holmgren will look out over the field when the game mercifully ends as the victor, ready to rebuild. This is the Browns' Civil War of embarrassment, and Holmgren is Reconstruction.
If we don't hire Holmgren, Quinn stays in, he plays against Russell, we watch the game and we maybe win and think we're 5 percent better than the start of the year and get ready to start the Cycle of Shame all over again. Not now. Holmgren symbolizes the end of the cycle. And because of this, we now get the greatest worst game ever played—the grand finale of suck—one last look at how bad we've had it before Holmgren turns it around.
At least, that's how it seems now. Please don't print this post and give it to me in three years. (Actually, go ahead, because if Holmgren sucks too, it won't matter because I'll be dead. Glue it to my grave.)
UPDATE: The game is now televised locally. So, maybe Holmgren will suck afterall. Either way, go Browns.
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