Ah, The Inevitable Loss At Pittsburgh

 

The last Browns QB to win a game at Pittsburgh in the regular season was Tim Couch.  William Green had 115 yards rushing.  Tommy Maddox played QB for the Steelers.  That was 2003.  Thus, I did not have great expectations of victory.  This was sort of like when Purdue goes to Ohio State.  Everyone understands their role.  The result is never in question.  The home team wins.  The game is decided early.  Everyone goes home happy.  Well, everyone but the sacrificial lamb.  I think we can all say with confidence that everyone did their part on Sunday.  The Browns/Washington Generals did their part and offered resistance, lost, and the Yinzers got to swing their stupid little towels.

Dustin Hopkins fucking sucks.  He makes me long for the days of Wonder Kicker.  I don't know what happened to that guy, but he can't make routine kicks at this point, much less pressure ones.  You could see the life go out of the team when he missed them.  The first miss was a "Here we go again" miss.  The second was more along the lines of "This fucking guy is killing us" miss.  He's never been the same after blowing out his hamstring chasing that Texans kick returner last year.  What's he got?  A case of The Yips?  I don't know if the team flew down for the game or just drove.  Either way, they should have let him find his own way back as at least a show of dominance.  It's hard to be swaggering around as Mr. Pro Athlete Big Shot when you have to pull off to take a leak at that Lordstown Dunkin Donuts oasis.  Stefanski gave him the good old "vote of confidence" in the postgame remarks, so that means he's probably toast.  Get Wonder Kicker back.  He was always my favorite.

Winston looked shitty today, but as expected was still sort of fun.  I saw an online click bait poll "Should the Browns bench Winston?".  For what?  The Golden Age of DTR?  Winston just set the franchise record for single game passing.  The absolute ideal situation for the team is to continue to lose entertaining games, get a good draft position, and then bungle that pick like they almost always do. This is where we are headed.  The bad news for the Browns is six teams only have three wins and two teams have only won twice.  In theory, the team could go 3-14 and still pick 8th overall.  That's a sweet spot to draft an almost invisible defensive tackle or maybe an underachieving offensive tackle.  Love it.  

What can you say about the game this week?  What Stefanski should have said in the postgame was "We lost to not only a superior roster, but a superior coach and front office.  I can tell you guys that we are going to go back to Berea and "clean this up" or whatever, but we're not.  We just kind of suck because we have limited playmakers, our defense is sort of so-so and the kicking game blows.  We haven't been able to draft an impact player for years because the owner demanded that we get Watson, and I have no idea how we can weasel out of that deal.  We are going to go home and get ready to lose to the Chiefs next Sunday.  Maybe we can beat the Dolphins or Bengals, somehow get to 4 wins this year.  I don't know.  I just want this to be over.  This thing is just a total mess.  Any questions?". 

The Browns have had a winning record in only 3 of the last 23 years.  The team released a bunch of bullshit "studies" last week about how building that new fiasco stadium was going to be amazing for all of us, but as far as I can tell they can't even provide the region with 8 legitimate "big events" on their end.  The team is out of contention by November almost every year, which means 4-5 of the regular season games matter.  That means the region can spend $1B to get four regular season games, four games that nobody wants to attend, two bullshit preseason scrimmages, and maybe an AC/DC concert if Angus is still alive in 2028.  Why would we do that?     

Browns 2024 is almost over but yet seems never ending.  They'll probably sneak out another win or maybe even 2.  A scapegoat will be decided upon for the 5-12 finish, which will be tricky.  Do you blame the 2-time NFL Coach of the Year?  That's a tough sell publicly.  How about the front office when it was clearly the owner that wanted Watson?  Again, a tough sell.  How about just moving ahead with the same broken organization?  Tough to get $1B in public money when the fan base isn't exactly electrified by the discount bin picks that have been rolling in from the 3rd and 4th rounds.  It's not really Berry's fault but someone is going to have to pay.  Is Depodesta still getting a check?  What does he do exactly?  Can we fire him and blame him for all of this?  Eh, that's going to have to wait for January.  Now it's all about hoping we get "Good Jameis" versus the Chiefs next week.  Then again, who cares?

Go Browns.