I hope you intentionally left in the typo (Freudian slip?) in the below description. Feels like it captures something about being a fan.
"The Panthers got the ball back, down by two with 2:14 left, and Mayfield found D.J. Moore for 26, and then everybody remembered that McCaffrey existed, and the Browns had the ball on the Cleveland 15 with 1:27 left."
It's time for an unpopular decision: The Washington Football Team aka the Commanders aka the Commies. Yes, it's the worst owner in the league, overseeing a team with a newly uncovered legacy of (still more, somehow) unethical behavior. But wasn't the ploy where he bought unsold peanuts from a canceled airline and resold them, stale and at a markup, at the stadium the best villain move you've ever heard?! And now you can say the name without being a racist! Progress! Plus, you can join me in calling them the Commies (better red than dead) which is a great subversion for their dumb new name. Terry McLaurin is also legitimately fun, and you get a front-row seat in rooting against the Cowboys.
Also, only one instance of rivers of fecal matter pouring into the stands. ONLY ONE! That's gotta be the lowest (non-zero) number of rivers of fecal matter pouring into the stands in the whole NFL!
Question for you Joe. You said “ I thought maybe there would be some leftover warmth for the Browns. But, Chubb aside, there really wasn’t.” I’m curious if you think you’d feel this way if we were talking about Browns 1.0, the original franchise that moved away to Baltimore. If they’d never left, and this was still that original team that never abandoned their fans in Cleveland, do you think the leftover warmth would still be there? Would you be able to cut ties, even if they’d done the same monstrous move with Watson?
You cannot have a complete quest to find a new football team until you at least acknowledge that there is one team that does not have an awful, immoral owner: the Green Bay Packers. I know we Packers fans can be pretentious and preachy and there are plenty of reasons not be a Packers fan. But a community owned sports team is pretty amazing and you need to at least acknowledge its existence.
Um, according to the most recent estimate, over 537,000 people own shares of the Packers. In pretty much any population of that size, it’s extremely likely that there’s at least one “awful, immoral” person (i.e., in this case, someone whose expressions, acts, behavior, and general philosophy are at least akin to, say, any one of several NFL owners, or would be if they had the necessary wealth), and odds are good that “one” is a severe undercount.* Whether that’s an audience worth joining and/or an ownership group worth tolerating for a newly nomadic NFL fan … really isn’t for me to decide.
*Please note that I’m not trying to cast aspersions on you. I’m just discussing probabilities.
Fun to see this experiment kick off! You have inspired me to abandon my childhood team, the every-it-as-hateable-if-not-more Washington Commanders. My Dad was in the air force, so we moved around quite a bit, but I spent my formative years in DC rooting for the '89 "why nOt?" Orioles (No Nats back then) and the Washington [lower case] football team. Gibbs and Washington seemed unbeatable back then. It didn't matter who the QB was. We would just have the best O-line and Art Monk would do his thing and we would win. If you told me then that the Orioles would be the prouder of the two franchises, I would have never believed you.
My family moved to Philadelphia when I was in high school. I kept on rooting for Washington, donning the burgundy and gold, at risk of life and limb, in Veterans Stadium and then at the Linc. I got married and moved to Minnesota, but kept on supporting Washington. But now I've lived in Minnesota for over 10 years. The team is a disaster, not just on the field, but off it too. Dan Snyder seems like a truly reprehensible human being. The whole franchise just has a gross stink to it. I'll never forgive them for putting RGIII out there in that playoff game, clearly injured. Half (or more) of the team headlines now involve congressional committees.
I've thought for a few years that it's stupid to keep rooting for this team. I mean hey, I can still root AGAINST the Eagles, no rule against that! And now I decided to make the switch. I'm going with the Vikings, because I live here, and it's my wife's team, and the new SKOL chant is actually kinda cool.
My only request for you - do not become a Commanders fan. Not even for a week. They aren't worth your time.
As pleased as I am with Da Bears Week 1 victory, I hope you don’t pick them in Week 2. It never ends well against the Packers, especially in a night game. You’ll find more joy Sunday night in Chicago at Douglass Park, listening to the upbeat cheerful music of Nine Inch Nails, than you would watching football.
Joe, I have a couple suggestions: the Chargers seem like fun, but I think you'd really be happiest/most properly miserable with the Lions. I mean, for the last 20 years, I have been living in Lions country, and long ago came to the conclusion that the Browns and the Lions are *the same guys* - players, coaches, front office, ownership - the exact same levels of (in)competence. And the fan base has the same level of happiness/misery index.
I love the whole "Was I the problem all along?" query at the start of this. Every fan can relate. I grew up rooting for the Minnesota Twins, and for most of my teens and twenties they were mediocre to awful. Then in the fall of '87 I moved to Taipei, Taiwan for a year, and of course within a month the Twins won the World Series for the first time ever. Some part of me still thinks it only happened because I was as far away from Minneapolis as you can get without leaving the planet.
I'll be curious to see if a team wins you over with a loss. The Roger Kahn line: You glory in a team triumphant but you fall in love with a team in defeat. Or is that only baseball?
One of the first football games I ever watched was Super Bowl 13, the Steelers got off to a big lead and then Roger Staubach brought the Cowboys back. They ended up losing 35–31, the difference being the dropped pass in the end zone by Jackie Smith. I was hooked on the Cowboys for a long time after that.
Maybe you should be a fan of whoever the Browns are playing each week. That way, those of us who came to JoeBlogs to get the Cleveland Browns Diary will, actually, at least indirectly, get the Cleveland Browns Diary. And - you hit the nail on the head - watching Nick Chubb run actually brings joy; why would you give that up?
I switched teams once. I grew up a big fan of the MIlwaukee Braves, the ones with Eddie Mathews, Warren Spahn and Henry Aaron. Then they left and I left baseball for a while. WHen I came back I needed a team. I had some criteria: old established team, not expansion, NL, good history, some chance of winning. I picked the Cardinals. At first it felt artificial but after a few years I was a real fan. As a bonus I got to root for both Aaron and Albert Pujols, one as a boy, one as an old man. Not too shabby.
I hope you intentionally left in the typo (Freudian slip?) in the below description. Feels like it captures something about being a fan.
"The Panthers got the ball back, down by two with 2:14 left, and Mayfield found D.J. Moore for 26, and then everybody remembered that McCaffrey existed, and the Browns had the ball on the Cleveland 15 with 1:27 left."
It's time for an unpopular decision: The Washington Football Team aka the Commanders aka the Commies. Yes, it's the worst owner in the league, overseeing a team with a newly uncovered legacy of (still more, somehow) unethical behavior. But wasn't the ploy where he bought unsold peanuts from a canceled airline and resold them, stale and at a markup, at the stadium the best villain move you've ever heard?! And now you can say the name without being a racist! Progress! Plus, you can join me in calling them the Commies (better red than dead) which is a great subversion for their dumb new name. Terry McLaurin is also legitimately fun, and you get a front-row seat in rooting against the Cowboys.
Also, only one instance of rivers of fecal matter pouring into the stands. ONLY ONE! That's gotta be the lowest (non-zero) number of rivers of fecal matter pouring into the stands in the whole NFL!
Question for you Joe. You said “ I thought maybe there would be some leftover warmth for the Browns. But, Chubb aside, there really wasn’t.” I’m curious if you think you’d feel this way if we were talking about Browns 1.0, the original franchise that moved away to Baltimore. If they’d never left, and this was still that original team that never abandoned their fans in Cleveland, do you think the leftover warmth would still be there? Would you be able to cut ties, even if they’d done the same monstrous move with Watson?
You cannot have a complete quest to find a new football team until you at least acknowledge that there is one team that does not have an awful, immoral owner: the Green Bay Packers. I know we Packers fans can be pretentious and preachy and there are plenty of reasons not be a Packers fan. But a community owned sports team is pretty amazing and you need to at least acknowledge its existence.
For those questioning the legitimacy of the community owned description of the Packers, I think this article lays it out fairly unambiguously: https://www.acmepackingcompany.com/2021/11/16/22786120/packer-stock-is-not-a-scam-murphy-lafleur-florio-rovell-goodness-gracious
Um, according to the most recent estimate, over 537,000 people own shares of the Packers. In pretty much any population of that size, it’s extremely likely that there’s at least one “awful, immoral” person (i.e., in this case, someone whose expressions, acts, behavior, and general philosophy are at least akin to, say, any one of several NFL owners, or would be if they had the necessary wealth), and odds are good that “one” is a severe undercount.* Whether that’s an audience worth joining and/or an ownership group worth tolerating for a newly nomadic NFL fan … really isn’t for me to decide.
*Please note that I’m not trying to cast aspersions on you. I’m just discussing probabilities.
Fun to see this experiment kick off! You have inspired me to abandon my childhood team, the every-it-as-hateable-if-not-more Washington Commanders. My Dad was in the air force, so we moved around quite a bit, but I spent my formative years in DC rooting for the '89 "why nOt?" Orioles (No Nats back then) and the Washington [lower case] football team. Gibbs and Washington seemed unbeatable back then. It didn't matter who the QB was. We would just have the best O-line and Art Monk would do his thing and we would win. If you told me then that the Orioles would be the prouder of the two franchises, I would have never believed you.
My family moved to Philadelphia when I was in high school. I kept on rooting for Washington, donning the burgundy and gold, at risk of life and limb, in Veterans Stadium and then at the Linc. I got married and moved to Minnesota, but kept on supporting Washington. But now I've lived in Minnesota for over 10 years. The team is a disaster, not just on the field, but off it too. Dan Snyder seems like a truly reprehensible human being. The whole franchise just has a gross stink to it. I'll never forgive them for putting RGIII out there in that playoff game, clearly injured. Half (or more) of the team headlines now involve congressional committees.
I've thought for a few years that it's stupid to keep rooting for this team. I mean hey, I can still root AGAINST the Eagles, no rule against that! And now I decided to make the switch. I'm going with the Vikings, because I live here, and it's my wife's team, and the new SKOL chant is actually kinda cool.
My only request for you - do not become a Commanders fan. Not even for a week. They aren't worth your time.
Let’s just be sure to keep track of your record as a fan this season. 0-1 so far ...
The answer is obvious, Joe.
How many years did you spend in KC?
As pleased as I am with Da Bears Week 1 victory, I hope you don’t pick them in Week 2. It never ends well against the Packers, especially in a night game. You’ll find more joy Sunday night in Chicago at Douglass Park, listening to the upbeat cheerful music of Nine Inch Nails, than you would watching football.
Joe, I have a couple suggestions: the Chargers seem like fun, but I think you'd really be happiest/most properly miserable with the Lions. I mean, for the last 20 years, I have been living in Lions country, and long ago came to the conclusion that the Browns and the Lions are *the same guys* - players, coaches, front office, ownership - the exact same levels of (in)competence. And the fan base has the same level of happiness/misery index.
Come on home to KC, Joe. You know Mahomes is fun to watch and the Chiefs fans have earned his brilliance through so many years of heartbreak
I love all the riff-raff coming out in the comments to make sure everyone knows how upset they are by this.
I love the whole "Was I the problem all along?" query at the start of this. Every fan can relate. I grew up rooting for the Minnesota Twins, and for most of my teens and twenties they were mediocre to awful. Then in the fall of '87 I moved to Taipei, Taiwan for a year, and of course within a month the Twins won the World Series for the first time ever. Some part of me still thinks it only happened because I was as far away from Minneapolis as you can get without leaving the planet.
I'll be curious to see if a team wins you over with a loss. The Roger Kahn line: You glory in a team triumphant but you fall in love with a team in defeat. Or is that only baseball?
One of the first football games I ever watched was Super Bowl 13, the Steelers got off to a big lead and then Roger Staubach brought the Cowboys back. They ended up losing 35–31, the difference being the dropped pass in the end zone by Jackie Smith. I was hooked on the Cowboys for a long time after that.
Hey Joe,
Maybe you should be a fan of whoever the Browns are playing each week. That way, those of us who came to JoeBlogs to get the Cleveland Browns Diary will, actually, at least indirectly, get the Cleveland Browns Diary. And - you hit the nail on the head - watching Nick Chubb run actually brings joy; why would you give that up?
I thought the same thing as I read this article!
Maybe I'll care about the next column's subject.
If you feel that way, here's a tip: Don't bother to check in on Mondays during the football season...
I switched teams once. I grew up a big fan of the MIlwaukee Braves, the ones with Eddie Mathews, Warren Spahn and Henry Aaron. Then they left and I left baseball for a while. WHen I came back I needed a team. I had some criteria: old established team, not expansion, NL, good history, some chance of winning. I picked the Cardinals. At first it felt artificial but after a few years I was a real fan. As a bonus I got to root for both Aaron and Albert Pujols, one as a boy, one as an old man. Not too shabby.
Explore options but sure would be more fun if you were Going to write about Kansas City, Kansas City here I come!
While the band name was trivia enough, appreciate the deep trivia nugget in Timbuk 3