Bleep this Bleeping Team

On the Cleveland Browns, Myles Garrett, and what it feels like when a franchise kicks you in the teeth one too many times

(Nick Cammett/Getty Images)

Ever since the Cleveland Browns traded Myles Garrett to the Los Angeles Rams on Monday for edge rusher Jared Verse and some draft picks, I’ve heard from so many people telling me how I SHOULD be feeling.

Most of these have followed this quite reasonable line:

Look, the Browns aren’t going anywhere any time soon.

They’re still paying dearly for the trade of He Who Shall Not Be Named.

They are going to have to rebuild their team from the ground up anyway, and they had what looks like a good draft in 2025 and maybe another one in 2026, and they got a good return for a 30-year-old Garrett. Verse is a Pro Bowler, and he’s young, and he’s a lot cheaper. The extra draft picks will help. Plus, it’s pretty clear that Garrett wanted out. He asked for a trade last year, and while he quickly backed off of that and signed an extension with a no-trade clause, well, he didn’t exactly invoke that no-trade clause, did he?

Sure, Garrett wanted out because of course he did.

So, yeah, the fan reaction I was told to feel was this one: “Yeah, it sucks, but it’s probably the right move for this team in the long run.”

And maybe there’s something to that.

But fandom, in my view, is not a logical exercise. It is a matter of the heart.

And I can tell you that was NOT the reaction I felt or feel now.

No, my fan reaction was much closer to that of Crash Davis in Bull Durham when he was sent to Class A ball to be a stable pony to a brilliant young pitching prospect.

My fan reaction is simply this: BLEEP THIS BLEEPING TEAM.

And look, I can give you some of the reasoning behind that, if you want. I firmly and deeply believe that this team is the worst run in all of American sports — and there’s plenty of evidence to back me on that — so, no, I don’t trust that they will do anything of value with those draft picks, and no, I don’t think they’re capable of rebuilding this team, and no, I don’t think it’s the right move to trade away the best defensive player in the NFL and the best defensive player in the history of the Cleveland Browns, and no I don’t think that as a fan who, for thirty-plus years, has had to endure this team’s endless stupidity, cravenness and lack of a moral center that I deserve to have the one source of enjoyment that this team reluctantly offered taken away.

But those are just words.

The truth is, it just teels like the Browns kicked me — and all the other people who actually care about this team — in the teeth AGAIN. The “this could be good in the long run,” line assumes that I believe that the team has a long run, which I do not. That went away when they signed HWSNBN minutes before the NFL suspended him for sexual misconduct and gave him the biggest contract to date in NFL history, which gave him the cash to settle the two dozen sexual misconduct lawsuits against him.

Now, they’re on the verge of making him their quarterback again.

Because of course they are.

After they signed HWSNBN, I publicly renounced my Browns fandom. I publicly went looking for another team. But then, because I do believe that fandom is a matter of the heart, I found that I couldn’t really root for another team, that my connection to Cleveland and the Browns was too strong, that I couldn’t walk away from that kid who idolized Brian Sipe and Ozzie Newsome and Bernie Kosar and Clay Matthews and Hanford Dixon and the rest.

As I look back, though, I realize that I never REALLY came all the way back to Browns fandom. Yes, I watched them every week. I wrote about them often. I thrilled in watching Myles Garrett do impossible things, and I got an odd kick out of watching Kevin Stefanski’s spectacularly boring press conferences, and I enjoyed the brief but entertaining Joe Flacco renaissance in 2023.

But, well, here’s the thing: I spent the last month or so passionately watching the Cleveland Cavaliers in the NBA playoffs. And THAT was a fan experience. I felt highs. I felt lows. I screamed at the television (and James Harden). I cheered the television (and James Harden). I felt that nervous tension that you feel when the score is close, and the clock is ticking away, and the next play will decide everything, and you have NO IDEA what that next play will bring. When the Cavs went into Detroit for Game 7 and, shockingly, blew out the Pistons, I felt unmitigated joy. When they blew a 22-point lead in the fourth quarter against the Knicks, I died a little.

That’s a fan experience.

I have not felt ANY OF THAT for the Browns since they traded for HWSNBN.

I felt no joy when they won. I felt no pain when they lost. I watched them and followed them with interest, but that’s not the same thing. The Browns really had severed the emotional connection I have felt for almost 60 years.

And Monday, by trading away their most remarkable player — the most remarkable player they’ve had since Jim Brown, I’d say — they severed it further.

I’ve known all along that the Cleveland Browns don’t give a damn about me as a fan.

But by dealing away Myles Garrett, they are saying they actively despise me. They want me to get absolutely no pleasure out of watching this team play football.

Or anyway, that’s how it feels to me.

What does any of this mean going forward? No idea. If you ask me right now who I want to win the Super Bowl, I’ll tell you the Buffalo Bills without any hesitation. And then I’d probably list a bunch of other teams — the Lions … the Bears … the Chiefs (for my wife and oldest daughter), the Bengals, maybe. Heck, with Myles on the Rams, they move closer to the top.

My answer would definitely not be the Browns, because even though the fans deserve it — as much as, or more than, any fan base in America — the organization does not.

Not that it matters. The Browns are not going to win the Super Bowl.

Not now. Not soon. I’d say not ever, but at some point, maybe, this guy sells the team, and the front office changes course, and this team finds a core worth something. Maybe. I had a friend send me a note saying that the Garrett trade could work because after HWSNBN is gone at the end of the year, this team will have a bunch of draft picks and payroll flexibility, and a chance to take a giant leap forward.

And I responded that if HWSNBN plays even half decently, the Browns will re-sign him. Because that’s who they are.

Bleep this bleeping team.