Doesn't even make cold, rational, football/business sense. He's an expiring contract. He's obviously not the QB of the future. You drafted TWO qb's last year. You expect to be awful this year.
Its actually quite impressively stupid. There's simply no rational explanation for the decision. Not a shred of upside.
Joe,please don't give up on the morally bankrupt Browns. We fellow heart broken fans need you-your realism,your gallows humor,but,especially your HOPE.You are our Jerry McGuire in this cynical,bizarro world.
Anybody can say anything nowadays, oppressors cast themselves as victims. We need you to keep telling the truth, even when all our hearts are broken.I have been waiting for your post.As always, you have come through, with a shot straight to Berea.Thank You.
So sad. I feel for you, Joe. I grew up near Chicago in the 60s and suffered endlessly (except for the 63 Bears, of course). Forget about the Browns. Root for a winner. There is no shame in rooting for a winner. You’re a winner. Why shouldn’t you root for one?
It certainly is among the small handful of the worst ones.
Here is a contender: Cincinnati traded 19-year-old Christy Mathewson to the New York Giants for the rights to Amos Rusie who had been retired for two years at that point. Matty went on to win 372 games for the Giants while Rusie's return resulted in 0-1 record, 8.59 ERA and 22 ignoble innings for the Reds. Making the deal worse is that it was utterly corrupt: Reds owner John Brush was in the process of buying the Giants and the deal was engineered to save New York $900. Yes, that is the right number of zeroes.
Of course when one has to go back a dozen decades for comparitors, that suggests that the Watson deal was just a wee bit less than great
While I do have a few championships as a fan, being from Philadelphia, I know what it's like to have that passion, but have a tortured history with my teams.
The first half of that essay was so beautifully written, and captured what it truly means to be a fan. I'd say even more then the Big Fan book. And I think that relentless optimism shows in your writing constantly.
Which is what makes the second half of that essay so heartbreaking.
I doubt you'll do this again, but if you want to look for other teams us Eagles fans would be proud to call you one of us!
This is where I'm at with MLB baseball. I'm a lifelong Cubs fan, a giant baseball nerd whether that was looking at the back of baseball cards as a kid, reading Bill James's Historical Baseball Abstract in high school, running a fantasy league where I tried to use Yahoo's point system to recreate Runs Created... but if we miss next season, I'm done.
The damage the 1994 strike did was enormous. Baseball was a growing part of culture, regaining some of its standing--how many of the best baseball movies were between 1988 and 1994? That period gave us 4 of Joe's top 5 best baseball movies (all except Moneyball), plus Eight Men Out and the Sandlot within the top 10, not to mention fun kid movies like Rookie of the Year, Angels in the Outfield, Little Big League. How many good baseball movies came out in the next ten years? 61*?
It's because the love of baseball in society is something organic, emergent, like biodiversity in an old growth forest. In 1994, the people we've entrusted this to, the owners, the commissioner, the union (distribute blame however you like), decided to clear cut the forest. What grew back was more sterile, maybe more economically advantageous to those in baseball (but I doubt it) but it certainly didn't inspire romance and was less of a thing kids imagined themselves being when they grew up. We stopped myth making because you don't make myths about things after they remind you about the crass business side of it. Between the rule changes and the WBC, and with the memory of the strike behind us, we're finally seeing some of the popularity return.
A lockout would be a decision to, again, clear cut a forest that's finally regaining its biodiversity after 30 years of growing. I'll still love baseball, but I'll follow my local independent league team, or the Women's Pro Ball League, but I'll be done with the MLB, which will have decided to hold our love of the game hostage just to get more of the money that fans spend directed to owners. And if there is a lockout, I hope some more people try to wrest baseball away from the MLB cartel and we end up with something more like European soccer leagues.
I finally quit the Browns when they traded for and signed HWSNBN. It helped that I hadn't live in Ohio for decades, and had moved to Kansas City (going on 23 years now!) where my kids were Chiefs fans-- and that the arrival of Andy Reid made for some fun, winning football. But I always stuck with the Browns until they did that last, unspeakable thing. I've had a couple of minor pangs of regret, but the Browns do an excellent job of erasing those very quickly with their actions.
With this news and the news from Cleveland adjacent Youngstown this week, should we ask the question as to whether there is any group of people more odious, both individually and as a group, than NFL owners?
Well.... Taps everyone:
Day is done,
Gone the sun,
From the hills,
From the lake,
From the skies.
All is well,
Safely rest,
God is nigh
Ok. Get it.
At least one column for Chubb.
In fact, it’s why many read this one.
Great Player.
We’re waiting for it.
After that?
Shovel the soil
Doesn't even make cold, rational, football/business sense. He's an expiring contract. He's obviously not the QB of the future. You drafted TWO qb's last year. You expect to be awful this year.
Its actually quite impressively stupid. There's simply no rational explanation for the decision. Not a shred of upside.
Joe,please don't give up on the morally bankrupt Browns. We fellow heart broken fans need you-your realism,your gallows humor,but,especially your HOPE.You are our Jerry McGuire in this cynical,bizarro world.
Anybody can say anything nowadays, oppressors cast themselves as victims. We need you to keep telling the truth, even when all our hearts are broken.I have been waiting for your post.As always, you have come through, with a shot straight to Berea.Thank You.
So sad. I feel for you, Joe. I grew up near Chicago in the 60s and suffered endlessly (except for the 63 Bears, of course). Forget about the Browns. Root for a winner. There is no shame in rooting for a winner. You’re a winner. Why shouldn’t you root for one?
Yes, like certain politicians in this country, Monken thinks fans are idiots.
The one accurate thing he said about the booing was that it was "disrespectful." Yep. It was.
The HWSNBN trade and extension has got to be the worst trade/move in sports history right?
Herschel Walker
Every team he played for was better before and after he was there.
It certainly is among the small handful of the worst ones.
Here is a contender: Cincinnati traded 19-year-old Christy Mathewson to the New York Giants for the rights to Amos Rusie who had been retired for two years at that point. Matty went on to win 372 games for the Giants while Rusie's return resulted in 0-1 record, 8.59 ERA and 22 ignoble innings for the Reds. Making the deal worse is that it was utterly corrupt: Reds owner John Brush was in the process of buying the Giants and the deal was engineered to save New York $900. Yes, that is the right number of zeroes.
Of course when one has to go back a dozen decades for comparitors, that suggests that the Watson deal was just a wee bit less than great
While I do have a few championships as a fan, being from Philadelphia, I know what it's like to have that passion, but have a tortured history with my teams.
The first half of that essay was so beautifully written, and captured what it truly means to be a fan. I'd say even more then the Big Fan book. And I think that relentless optimism shows in your writing constantly.
Which is what makes the second half of that essay so heartbreaking.
I doubt you'll do this again, but if you want to look for other teams us Eagles fans would be proud to call you one of us!
This is where I'm at with MLB baseball. I'm a lifelong Cubs fan, a giant baseball nerd whether that was looking at the back of baseball cards as a kid, reading Bill James's Historical Baseball Abstract in high school, running a fantasy league where I tried to use Yahoo's point system to recreate Runs Created... but if we miss next season, I'm done.
The damage the 1994 strike did was enormous. Baseball was a growing part of culture, regaining some of its standing--how many of the best baseball movies were between 1988 and 1994? That period gave us 4 of Joe's top 5 best baseball movies (all except Moneyball), plus Eight Men Out and the Sandlot within the top 10, not to mention fun kid movies like Rookie of the Year, Angels in the Outfield, Little Big League. How many good baseball movies came out in the next ten years? 61*?
It's because the love of baseball in society is something organic, emergent, like biodiversity in an old growth forest. In 1994, the people we've entrusted this to, the owners, the commissioner, the union (distribute blame however you like), decided to clear cut the forest. What grew back was more sterile, maybe more economically advantageous to those in baseball (but I doubt it) but it certainly didn't inspire romance and was less of a thing kids imagined themselves being when they grew up. We stopped myth making because you don't make myths about things after they remind you about the crass business side of it. Between the rule changes and the WBC, and with the memory of the strike behind us, we're finally seeing some of the popularity return.
A lockout would be a decision to, again, clear cut a forest that's finally regaining its biodiversity after 30 years of growing. I'll still love baseball, but I'll follow my local independent league team, or the Women's Pro Ball League, but I'll be done with the MLB, which will have decided to hold our love of the game hostage just to get more of the money that fans spend directed to owners. And if there is a lockout, I hope some more people try to wrest baseball away from the MLB cartel and we end up with something more like European soccer leagues.
Plastic bread bags. From store-brand white bread.
Please don’t stop being a Browns fan and please don’t stop writing the Browns Diary. I love reading the diary. It’s wonderful fandom stuff
Joe say it ain’t so
I disavowed THE CLOWNS in 2015. Nothing regardless of how stupid should stop you from telling JimmyDee and their minions about their malfeasance.
Your Clowns Diary brings joy and chuckles every Monday morning in the fall.
Hear that Jimmy is headed to East Palestine soon to get the winning formula?
I finally quit the Browns when they traded for and signed HWSNBN. It helped that I hadn't live in Ohio for decades, and had moved to Kansas City (going on 23 years now!) where my kids were Chiefs fans-- and that the arrival of Andy Reid made for some fun, winning football. But I always stuck with the Browns until they did that last, unspeakable thing. I've had a couple of minor pangs of regret, but the Browns do an excellent job of erasing those very quickly with their actions.
With this news and the news from Cleveland adjacent Youngstown this week, should we ask the question as to whether there is any group of people more odious, both individually and as a group, than NFL owners?
The current administration would be improved by adding HWSNBN.
I hope this doesn't preclude Joe from writing a Nick Chubb appreciation piece now that he recently retired.