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Slapping Faces in Cleveland
Headline in Cleveland
One of my favorite things about being a traveling newspaper sports columnist was tracking how differently each team’s paper would cover each game. It was endlessly funny. Let’s say the Chiefs were playing the Chargers, and the Chiefs won 24-10.
in Kansas City, we’d write about how the offense finally started clicking or how well the defense played or a standout performance from Priest Holmes or Donnie Edwards or something.
And in San Diego, they’d write about three missed field goals, a questionable official’s call, how the Chargers missed too many tackles or something.
It was always like that, and it was so fun. Few things made me happier than reading the Kansas City Star and then reading the San Diego Union Tribune … or the Denver Post … or the St. Louis Post-Dispatch … and just marveling that we were all writing about the same game.
Today, I ran across the above headline over at Cleveland.com … it’s the headline of a podcast of two Cleveland writers who are simply shocked and dismayed that the Browns were not given a prime-time game this season. The story is significantly longer than you would expect and it contains this paragraph:
For a franchise that appeared to be turning the corner after making the playoffs in 2020 and staying competitive despite quarterback issues in 2023, this schedule treatment suggests the NFL sees the Browns as regressing rather than progressing.
That’s what the schedule suggests? That the NFL sees the 3-14 Cleveland Browns, who are bringing an Island of Misfit Toys collection of quarterbacks to training camp and are in salary cap jail because of their big-brain decision to trade for He Who Shall Not Be Named might be regressing?
What I love about it, though, is that in Northeast Ohio, this story actually makes sense. That’s the beauty of local sports coverage. Yeah! How dare the NFL not give us a prime time game! We’re the Cleveland Browns! We were in the playoffs, like just two years ago, and also like five years ago! How dare they!
From the story:
The Browns must now fight their way back into national relevance the hard way — by winning enough games to force the league to take notice in 2025.
Yes. That would be the hard way, wouldn’t it?
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