The 2009 Cleveland Browns Really Suck

I have lots of things I can blog about and will in the coming weeks. Today, the subject of the day is the Cleveland Browns.



I have been a Browns fan since 1985, and I've been a student of the game and Browns history ever since. I know about the good years - decades before my birth. I have lived through some very bad years. I have faithfully supported my team through thick and thin. Simply put: the 2009 Cleveland Browns are the very WORST Browns team they have ever fielded. Brady Quinn, DA, Eric Mangini, Wimbley, Mr. Lerner, name your Browns employee. Basically everyone but Shaun Rogers needs to go. I deserve better than this. We all deserve better than this.

Today, the Browns made me watch them loose to the Baltimore Ravens again, and it's insulting to all of us.

Like all businesses, the Browns trouble starts at the top with the leadership in the front office. The Rooney family is a model for great NFL ownership. They hire the right people, support the organization, enforce the right culture - a professional and honorable culture, and they draft so stinkin' well.

Until the city of Cleveland demands a level of commitment from the team equal to OUR commitment to the Browns, we'll always be the bottom feeders. People don't make fun of me for being a Browns fan. They just feel sorry for me. I feel sorry for me too.

Cheers - cause I'm so British,
tango

The Replacements

Every once in a while, someone has an idea so good, you have to tell people about it. This is one such occasion.



Last Saturday night was our annual fantasy football live draft, held every year in my living room. Our league commissioner is one of my dear friends since college, Kyle Letner. He works for an A/V company as an engineer and always brings a projector along to show the big board on our massive living room wall. Over the years (as is the case throughout this great land), we have come to love Draft Night. It's reaching high holiday status as one of my top-5 favorite nights of the year.

So at the end of the draft - an evening full of laughter and pain as we made good and bad moves, my wife Cre remarks how she wishes we could do it all over again, but maybe this time with the leftover players....

Thus, The Replacements was born

The premise is simple, for a second league, the members of our first league will redraft. But this time, we're taking all the top players off the board: the Lock Outs (ah la 1987), leaving us to draft the replacements - players who are good, but not stellar. So this Monday night, we'll be drafting again in my living room for our second draft minus...

• The Top 10 QB's


• The Top 25 RB's


• The Top 25 WR's


• The Top 10 TE's


• The Top 10 Kickers


• The Top 10 Defenses

...as rated by ESPN's pre-season fantasy board.

I'll report back on how I did and how it went.

Btw, for those interested, my first fantasy team (Onside Kick League) can we seen here, and my Replacements team can we found here.

Cheers - cause I'm so British,
tango