Haters please do something else

The Internet is a good thing when all things are considered. It has done a lot to improve the world and to make it smaller for all of us. The Internet also has a dark side especially if people attack something you like. Those kind of people I call “haters”. They don’t like something so much they spend their time online letting everyone know it. I can’t understand why they must tell me they are a hater. I just wish they would go do something else.

I was watching the Cleveland Browns vs the Baltimore Ravens on Monday Night Football and decided to do something different and read tweets during the game. I had to stop. I know the Browns suck this season (oh man do I KNOW) and MNF games are usually boring but this game was better than some of the others this season for the Browns. Tweet after tweet cracked on the Browns and the game. I understand tweets complaining about certain plays or ref calls but most were just mean toward the team itself. One person tweeted that the Browns shouldn’t be allowed to play on Monday night.

Why waste time typing a tweet to tell all of us you hate the team? Shut up and do something else.

The haters also seem to show up in comment sections of web site articles.

I am a fan of Saturday Night Live and have been since the 1st season in 1976. There are times the jokes are flat, the host stinks, and other times when it is laugh out loud funny. For a live show the cast and crew do a good job overall.

There was an article this week complaining about the previous week’s host and to be honest the show was flatter than usual. Fine, offer some complaints and others will defend or support those comments. Instead there were many who posted comments along the lines of:

Is that show still on? I stopped watching in 1988. Thanks for the recap letting me know it still sucks.

or

Mad TV did the same thing in season 8 and it was funny

Basically if you are not a fan or have never watched the show why waste time posting a comment.

I can think of many things to do if I don’t like something. One is to avoid it. Telling everyone how much I hated it would be wasting time.

Why real life sports reporting is like my fantasy football team

This past week the Cleveland Browns traded Braylon Edwards to the Jets. Edwards was formerly the 3rd pick overall in the NFL draft and was a Pro Bowl selection is 2007. It seems some experts in sports reporting let that fact cloud their analysis of the trade.

Bob Hunter, a sports columnist for The Columbus Dispatch wrote in his Friday column:

Many of the Browns were concerned about how trading a potential game-breaking receiver, who was a former No. 3 overall draft pick, for a so-so receiver, a special-teams player and two draft picks, believed to be third- and fifth-rounders, makes a bad team better.

Bob Hunter commentary: Rumblings 

Those of us who follow the team on a regular basis know why he was traded and this fan is glad they did something with Edwards. In 2008, he had the league top spot in dropped passes at 16. It was excruciating watching time after time Edwards drop a pass. This season he seemed to be improving but he still lacked the supposed game-breaking potential and he then got into trouble at a nightclub at 2:30 in the morning the day after the team lost their last game.

I’m glad Edwards had time to party after the loss…. 

It reminded me of a long bus trip home when I was on our high school football team as a senior. We had just lost the game but from the laughs and high jinks by the lads on the bus that night you wouldn’t think we did. One of the coaches had enough he stood up and yelled “You just lost a game! Act like it…”

So how is the Edwards situation and Hunter’s reaction to it like my fantasy football team?

Well I have a habit of drafting big names from the previous season who then do squat this season and then I can’t bring myself to dump them because “they scored 10 TDs in 2008!” as if their lack of stats this season will turn around. I can’t waste time on dead weight. Its “what have you done lately” that most coaches operate on and Edwards had his chance through the preseason and 4 games to show he could do better. He didn’t and the team decided to get what they could for him on the market.

Such tunnel vision can effect even TV people paid to watch the games.

During one Browns game one of the CBS commentators complained when Brady Quinn was pulled from the game – “he’s 6 of 8 for 34 yards!” seeming to forget that 6 of 8 for 34 yards before half time is almost the same as being 0 for 8 for a quarterback. Those stats aren’t going to win the game and the coaches were right to pull Quinn from the game. The team still lost the game but Derrick Anderson seemed to spark the team a little bit more than before.

Sometimes, changing teams is better for the player. If Edwards returns to his game-breaking potential we saw in 2007 while on the Jets then good for him, but I still wouldn’t feel bad for the Browns because he wasn’t the same player he was in 2007 and it didn’t look like that Edwards was going to show up this season either.

Cleveland Browns: At least we aren’t the Detroit Lions

Well this picture from Sunday’s game says it all. Cleveland Browns fans have had a bad year following our favorite team but at least we aren’t fans of the Detroit Lions. Our team seemed to have gained momentum after the 10-6 season last year but this year it started off bad and got worse.

I kind of knew things were going to be bad when they had so many injuries during preseason. The team just couldn’t get back on track. Starting 0-3 was bad. Having Pro Bowl QB Derrick Anderson either throwing an interception, into the ground, or having his wide outs drop everything – that was bad.

The offense just stunk up the place aside from lineman Joe Thomas. When an opposing team can stack the box knowing the passing game sucks then the running game stinks. After Sunday’s game the announcers said Cleveland has gone 20 quarters without an offensive TD.

Even Phil Dawson has had off year kicking field goals.

There is a clamoring for coach Romeo Crennel to be fired and that may happen but they also need to get rid of some dead weight.

In one game Braylon Edwards was dropping every pass coming his way and they still threw to him several more times after that. If I was coach I would bench Edwards for the dropped passes until he showed he could hang on to them.

The defense has been the only bright spot for the team but the offense needs to put points on the board.

Oh, well… maybe next year…

Philly Dawg – It’s GOOD!

After being the goat in missing a 52 yard field goal at the end of regulation against Pittsburgh, the Browns’ Phil Dawson makes a 51 yarder that hit the upright and then hit the neck of the post supporting the uprights.

Game officials at first said it was no good and the Baltimore Ravens celebrated a come from behind victory, but the Browns protested After a long conference the Refs made the right call and reversed their previous call and ruled the attempt good. That sent the game into overtime.

The Browns got the ball in OT and marched down the field and Philly Dawg kicked a 33-yard field goal to win the game.

It also helped that kick returner Joshua Cribs had 306 yards in kick and punt returns in the game including a 41-yard kickoff return that led to the game winning field goal by Dawson nine plays later. It moved the Browns to 6-4 on the season

Here we go Brownies here we go!

Here we go Brownies here we go!

See the tying kick that bounced off the goal post support bar

Cleveland Browns

I want my NFL please

I am a long, long, long time fan of the Cleveland Browns football team. Since the days of Brian Sipe and the Kardiac Kids I have ridden that roller coaster and have come close to tasting the ultimate prize of getting to the Super Bowl. The lowest points have been “Red Right 88”, “The Drive”, “The Fumble”, and the move of the team to Baltimore at the end of the 1995 season.

When I was a kid I had no problem watching the Browns games on TV. The AFC was on NBC then and living close to Toledo, Cleveland games were the AFC default. The closest NFL team to our market was Detroit and they played in the NFC.

When I moved to Columbus the issue because troublesome. I am now in the middle of 2 team’s market area (Cleveland and Cincinnati) and also could be included in a 3rd (Pittsburgh) and all of them are in the AFC. Our local CBS station has the thankless job of deciding which team to show each week of the season especially if they are playing at the same time – which seems to be most of the time. The NFL and CBS doesn’t allow WBNS to move the other games to another channel like WWHO which is a broadcast channel or to a dedicated digital cable channel.

Each week one of us group of fans is going to lose out and be forced to listen to the game on radio. With the poor play Cleveland has had the past few years and the improvement of the Bungles, Cleveland fans in Central Ohio lose out most of the time.

Sure there are options if I want to pay a large amount of money to see games I don’t want to see just to see the games I want to see. I do enjoy football but I am less inclined to watch games I have no interest in.

This issue came up again for me with the start of the NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament this week. WBNS is showing not only the regional games for our city since Ohio State is playing, but they are also showing games from the other regions on 3 digital channels on the local cable systems. They do this by splitting the feed from CBS. If the technology is there to do for basketball then CBS should be able to do for football.

I’m NOT talking about a Seattle fan living in Boston being able to watch the Seahawks, I am talking about allowing an affiliate that straddles more than one team market being allowed to show all the nearby teams each Sunday.

I don’t fault the NFL for being particular on the right to watch games as their TV rights money is basically what keeps them in business but they are missing the opportunity of giving some of us what we want and blowing the opportunity of getting us to buy more merchandise, going to a game in person, and breeding another generation of fans.

The NFL

Cleveland Browns

WBNS 10 TV