DawgTalkers.net Forums DawgTalk Tailgate Forum Why do we remain so loyal to the Browns?

I have a very honest and serious question for all of us on this board. Why do we remain such loyal fans of the Cleveland Browns? What do we get out of it?

This season has openend my eyes and has me questioning the amount of money I dump into this franchise through tickets, hotel, travel, jerseys, NFL Sunday Ticket, and msc Browns items. I enjoy the trip up, visiting family in NE OH, and going to Winking Lizard, but then Sunday rolls around.

After the Steeler game this year I made my way back to the Holiday Inn bar with my older bro and sat there and we were outnumbered by raunchy Steeler Fans. I couldn't even enjoy myself in the bar and drown my sorrows in beer without putting up with the BS being slung our way.

So instead I went back to the room and looked forward to my flight back to Raleigh.

In our 10 years of existance as the "New" Browns our team has lost 103 games (104 including our lone playoff appearance). That is an average of 10 games per season with 3 REMAINING games in 2008. If we lose out, which would not shock me, we would have lost 106 regular season games in 10 years. Nearly 11 losses per year. That is very Detoitish, Bengalish, etc...Detroit has 109 losses, Cinci 97 losses.

I am 32 years of age and was born in Willoughby, OH. My family has followed the Browns as long as I can remember. But I'm starting to realize the only thing I have to hold onto are my memories of the 1980's and the run we had in the early 90's. Those memories are becoming very distant and my desire to continue to root for this current franchise is becoming very weak.

I really hope that Lerner either starts to put forth more effort in improving this franchise, or sell it to someone who really truly will entrench themselves into improving our team.

The fans of Cleveland deserve better. With the flailing economy, high unemployment rate, and the impact on the public's retirement accounts, I don't see a reason to continue to shell out money for this team.

Ultimately because I am a diehard fan, I will see this season through. But next year I think I will need to really consider plopping down the dough for this team. I don't think they deserve my money because ultimately the owner does not seem to appreciate it.

Sorry for the long rant and hopefully I won't get flamed too much for laying this out there. I'm really interested in hearing from my fellow Dawg Talkers on your feelings regarding the "New Browns" and the last 10 years.

Did any of us think that in 1999, that we would only have 1 winning season in our first 10?

Well, what else are we supposed to do?

As long as the Browns are committed to winning, I'll be here. And I believe we are committed to winning. I believe we're not as inept as our record says we are. I think we'll have the ability to bounce back in one year from this. This will NOT be a "start all over" rebuild. The closet is NOT bare.

If they become a dysfunctional franchise a la Detroit, Oakland and Cinci that has no commitment to winning...then I'd have to take a hard look at things.

But I don't even want to envision such a scenario...that's armageddon to me.

Ammo, it's funny you ask that. I don't plan on becoming a Panther fan, though that's for sure! If they continue to make a mockery of Browns football, then I'll personally stop watching the NFL as I did when the team moved away.

Luckily for me I have a 1 year old daughter to keep me busy and I enjoy working on my Mustang. Part of me says it would be nice to get an extra 4 hours out of my Sundays instead of waisting it watching a 10-12 loss football team year in and year out!

I'll probably never abandon them, but I certainly might take a vacation!

lol...

might as well ask why guys chase chicks......its the way it is....

were fans.....thats short for "fanatical"

to me, i grew up watching sipe, and then kosar...i saw the drive and fumble.....we were so close....

then we were gone....

then we came back as an expansion team....i can't help but watch....but i don't go to games often (because i can't afford to) and i don't buy jerseys...just stuff that says "cleveland browns"


i wouldn't blame ya for letting tickets go, or not buying merchandise...just watch....

my dad used to tell me after a bad day hunting...."that the bad days make the good days better"..

this team will turn it around...its bound to happen...hang in there


i've got a similar problem with my 9 year old....he doesn't even watch....neither do my 3 daughters....it used to bother me, but i now realize they have to wonder why i cheer for this team....i keep hoping for a turn-around, because i want my kids to be a part of what i had when i was a kid....a solid team....who knows....i know i can't stop watching....

heck i check this board every day.....lol...

The NFL is my crack cocaine, I'll continue to consume the product no matter how pitiful, costly or foolish it is. I need help.

Dude - I could not possibly agree more with everything you just wrote. I've never nodded my head in agreement more than I did reading that.

Blind ignorance my freind and fear that if we "turn it down a notch" as fans that'll be the year they go bat-you-know-what crazy and win it all. That's it - FEAR.

I'm going through the same thing you are considering tickets going forward. My dad bought PSL's and season tix in '99 - I've been paying for half of the ticket cost for the last 4 years. I've talked to my dad about it and I'm pretty damned confident in my resolve right now that if they do not MAKE the playoffs NEXT season, I'm done as a season ticket holder. Not compete in the division - MAKE THE PLAYOFFS.

There has to come a time where enough is enough. A DECADE seems to be enough for me - I gave it a good run lol, but at some time you've got to think with your head and not your heart.

I've got a damn nice 50" tv here at the house and last time I checked, the games are on TV. I live 3 miles from the PA line - it's not like it's not an effort to go to the games and far FAR too often I have driven home questioning everything about this issue. Sorry you had to deal with what you dealt with at the bar - I live in it and work in it and it's the reason I quit going to the bar a couple seasons ago when I wasn't at the game.

I'll never stop loving the BROWNS - I'll never stop rooting for them; I'm ignorant lol. But, the time is getting real close to the season ticket dream coming to an end.

Hell it was nice when I was a kid and we'd make it to a couple games a year by just buying tickets for that game. It was a treat - not an eternal beatdown that's it's become in recent years.

How do you turn off an emotional attachment?

It started as a child for me. I was in my early teens in the late 80s. My grandfather used to take me to training camp. That combined with the success they were having ... and Bernie Kosar ... and I was hooked. As I got older, the fanaticism grew, and they became more than the Browns ... they became a link to my childhood and my family in Ohio ... of which I did not live. When the Browns were moved to Baltimore I was crushed ... to the point I didn't watch football again for 7 or 8 years, including their return to the league. I just couldn't bring myself to do it. They were not the same Browns that I grew up with. I invested myself heavily in basketball, watching and playing, and that became my sport.

The first game I watched of the new Browns was the "run William, run" game. That was kind of a magical moment for me. In Ohio for the holidays, I was at my cousin's house and the game was on. I knew nothing about the Browns at that point except that Tim Couch played for the team. Yet seeing those orange helmets on the field brought back a lot of memories. Living in California at the time, their games were just never on TV. But watching them that day ... there was something magical about it to me. And then to have the game turn out the way it did ... man, I was cheering with my cousins like I had cheered growing up ... like I knew this team ... like I had something invested in them. All those memories started flooding back.

I haven't missed a game since. And I'm mad at myself for missing the previous ones, but I just lost interest after they left the NFL. I just thought it was such a great injustice to such a great fanbase ... I just turned my back on the game the way I felt it turned it's back on me. It was just the way I dealt with it.

But the feeling I got that day was like no other feeling, and I remembered what I had been missing. I'm more hooked today than I was growing up.

They are like a first love. That feeling never goes away, but sometimes just needs to be reignited.

I have, however, wondered what it would be like if we had an organization like the Bengals or the Lions or the Clippers of the NBA. Can you blame their fans for walking away? I don't think you can. If we ever became that dysfunctional, I could see myself becoming disinterested to the point of detachment, but I will never take another team as my own. It will always be the Browns for me.

My hardcore attachment came when the Browns made the playoffs. I was getting more entrenched into football and understanding the ins and outs of the game (beyond "line up and block somebody" like I had been taught in middle school ball).

I was at the "run William run" game and the atmosphere was amazing. I was hooked then.

I didn't become "The guy who's identified as being" the Browns fan"" until I got to OU. The first year of the Savage/Crennel era. The year the Bengals were good and the Steelers won the Superbowl. That was the year I got extremely defensive and aggressive in the defense of my team and my city. It's personal to me and is a matter of city pride, IMO.

I often think if the Browns players cared as much about the rivalry games as I do, we wouldn't lose as many.

I worry about the day I lose that passion, and I feel it happening right now with this team, especially when I look east and see them so happy. It's like walking in the cold alone on Christmas Eve and looking into someone's happy home as the Christmas goose is being carved and the presents are being open.

*sigh* I need this team to win consistently...

i have read through 0 replies, i will qoute,

why do you ask questions to which you know the answer?

because i love football and could never see myself being dedicated to another franchise. i was a toddler during the heartbreak years, a teenager during the years we didn't have a team, and a young adult during these crap years of the new browns, why quit now?

with that said, because the browns never make the playoffs, i always adopt a team when the playoffs start, i try and find the best story...

i don't buy jerseys or shirts of the team or anything, i simply root for them to win...

last year i actually wanted to see new england take it all, because it was history, the year before that i wanted to see san diego win, because i like marty, and he deserves better...

this year, i wouldn't mind seeing the titans go far, because they're that great team that constantly gets overlooked because they don't have a manning, or a T.O. or really any kind of "flash" player... they play good solid football, old school, run the ball, play defense, don't do anything stupid, i can respect that.

to be completely honest, if i didn't have such easy sources to wagering, i probably wouldn't be that much into the nfl if the browns weren't going to the playoffs...

I was born in 1982 and one of my earliest memories, not just of football but in life was The Fumble, I remember it so vividly because I had no idea what a fumble was and my dad had to keep explaining to me why we didnt score... I thought it was a touchdown, it looked like one to me as a little kid...

I remember waking up on sundays in gradeschool in the fall and waiting anxiously all morning for the Browns games...those were great times..."Bernie Bernie oh baby you can throw." When I was 10 I got a paper route with the News Herald and remember walking the streets thinking about the weeks game.

As Ive gotten older the Browns, and to a lesser extent the Indians and Cavs have been benchmarks for the story of my life. The Browns move was announced over the load speaker on a saturday morning while I was in my middle school gym at wrestling practice. High school years are devoid of Browns memories... Then college years like 2002 when a group of us would get together every sunday and watch at the fraternity house. I remember Couch's hail mary because I had walked back to my room thinking we'd lost when my buddy came in screaming.... and dwayne rudd's game where there is a picture my buddies celebrating in those few seconds where we thought we'd gotten a W.

I could just go on and on...

Last year a buddy got married and for his bachelor party we started at a Browns game.

it just seems that each chapter of my life has a corresponding Browns story to go with it. Its like that book where nick hornby writes his autobiography through his fanhood of his favorite soccer team.

I married them as a very, very, small child. I vowed to hang in there through sickness, and health. For richer or for poorer, to remain faithful to them till death do us part, and well I AIN'T DEAD YET.

I grew up watching (kind of) the Browns with my dad and brother. I saw how into the game they were, so I figured it must be important so I pretended to pay attention and care. It wasn't until I was ten (around the time we got Winslow) that I became an actual fan. That is the time I started going on the original Dawg Talk.

To this day I have no idea what got me hooked. I was born while the Browns didn't have a team and I remember no good times to speak of. For me the Browns have always been an awful team with nothing to be proud of, yet I am. You can ask anyone; I am proud to be a Browns fan and proud to represent Cleveland. My only guess as to why, is that it is in my DNA.

Despite the bad years we've had, I don't find my fanship or loyalty to the Browns swaying. I'm a Browns fan through and through, and nothing will change that.

Just the way it is.... I haven't watched as many games this season 1. because I'm engaged now but also 2. because they suck.... but I'll still love them, read as much as possible about them, and watch them any chance I get.

As Ammo said... as long as I feel the team is commited to winning (which I think Lerner still is) I'll watch them.

I remain loyal because hope is a strange and beutiful thing. I get my face kicked in every sunday by the Browns but hope is what keeps me loyal. I've come this far why give up now? They can't be terrible forever and i'm still young.

I grew up liking the Browns, then fell in love with them during the Kardiac Kids years (I was 10 years old during the 1980 season).

Sometimes you just can't let go. Even when you know better.

Quote:

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I often think if the Browns players cared as much about the rivalry games as I do, we wouldn't lose as many.

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That was one of my 1st problems with RAC. He comes in and says Pittsburgh is just another game. Au Contrare Mon Fraire. Pittsburgh week is not just another week. Not to me, not to you, not to most true Browns fans. This was the 1st clue that RAC didn't understand Cleveland Browns football.

(FYI - my other 1st big issue with RAC was when Braylon disobeyed a direct order not to go to the OSU-Mich game and went anyway, comes back late for practice then doesn't get punished. If you ask me that was the point he lost this team.)

Why? Because once you are....you are.

I was Christmas shopping with my wife Sunday and saw a pair of warm up pants that I am sure Adidas did not make for Browns fans (I did not see an accompanying top). The colors were just right though and I snatched up an early present (my wife and I haven't bought for each other in years). There is just something about that color scheme..... it feels like home.

I was in line at Taco Bell Saturday night when a gentlemen noticed my hoodie and immediately struck up a conversation with me. All it takes is a hat, hoodie, jersey, whatever. It's like family.

There is a great book by Dan McGraw...

"First and last seasons : a father, a son, and Sunday afternoon football"

... grew up in Cleveland and went on to be an editor with US News and World Report. His book is about taking a leave of absence from there to be with his dying dad and cover the Browns in '99. He notes that while he attends camp, MBNA continually tries to peddle a credit card to him. His disdain is honest, but his loyalty is unwavering.

.....because once you are....you are.

Slightly off topic, but you know what cracks me up is when people say that they would rather have no team than the team we have now. That is such BS!!! The 3 years without Browns football lead to the most depressing period of time when September came. Hell, the first day of the season in 1996 was a day when I felt the worst in my life.

We have a team that is playing like crap. But I would rather have this crap than not having any team at all. It makes the off-season exciting. It makes April exciting. For those of you who deny this, then I'm sorry you are just BSing yourselves.

Why, becuase it's a part of me, the Browns are part of my family to lose them or forget them is like part of my childhood never happened. Being a Browns fan is something that is passed down in my family it's a love of something it's a Sunday get together, it's a venue to forget about the problems we as families go thru Monday - saturday, it's a bond betwwen family memebers that no matter what happens we still have that on Sunday, Were loyal becuase we are the Browns, players come & go every year, some are rememebered for what ever reason more than others but still they all come & go, We fans stay, year after year, after year. We stay loyal becuase it's a part of us, it's like one of our kids, no matter what they do we still love them, sometimes we yell at them, sometimes we need to get away from them but no matter what they do, we still love them and we will always take them back.

I remember as a child my dad taking us to a Cleveland Indians game one summer when I was seven. I will never forget the awe I had when I walked out from the tunnel and saw the inside of the stadium and some 60K plus people there.

I literally thought I was going to some ballpark like the ones I played at.

WOW! I can't for the life of me remember who they played but I will never forget the feeling of being in some cathedral housing a sporting event. . . .

I am because I am . . . .

I'm not sure I could really formulate a *reason* per se. My dad is a big fan, so I became a big fan. I could never imagine rooting for another team like I do with the Browns. I'll always remain loyal to them, even through the worst of times.

I could never root for another NFL team and I have pretty much minimized my following of the pro game as I just think that college football surpasses it on many levels including the fanbases.



The hardest thing about being a browns fan to me is watching the team Ihate most embody everything that I want for the browns.


The Steelers do things they way they are supposed to be done and every year their success magnifies our folly as an organization.


I almost find it comical that we as browns fans loathe them so much considering they are everything we want out of our team.



Pretty ironic huh?

On a long enough timeline, everyone wins. It will be all the sweeter when it finally happens.

Try not to focus on how bad we are....remember, we could be without a team to root for. Count your NFL blessings where you can. And the NFL is a league of parity, we could be 14-2 next year.

Our time is finite here on this planet and I am pretty much to the point where I no longer care if I ever see it....I just hope my dad does,

Check your PM's bro...