Football

I love football. I mean really love it. I usually start getting antsy about football before the baseball All-Star break. I watch the draft. I read every NCAA and NFL preview I can find. I'm the assistant sports book for our football pool at work, which has much less to do with football than it does with gambling, but still.

A little background for those of you who are not from Ohio: Ohio Loves Football. We really really do. It's a sickness. We go mad over high school football here, all over the state. People from Cleveland can name you half the players from Cincinnati Moeller and people from Cincinnati can name you half the players from Cleveland's St. Ignatius (who lost to Glenville, BOO-YAH! Take that you recruiting bitches!). A good week for an Ohioan would be a Thursday night NFL game, followed by high school action on Friday night, a Saturday afternoon Buckeyes win, Bengals and Browns split as early/late games so you can watch both, followed by the Sunday Night Game of the Week on ESPN, and a good match up on MNF. Then you sleep for two days straight and swear to God that you will Never Tailgate Again.

I have been a Browns fan my entire life. My birthday is in January, so therefore, during the playoffs. When I was younger and the Browns were actually good, I used to have birthday cakes that read "Happy Birthday Amber! Go Browns!" with orange and brown roses on them. Ah, I remember it like it was 16 years ago. Because it was.

In more recent history the Browns suck balls. This is not unusual for Cleveland teams in general. Even when teams from here are good, they always seem to choke at the end i.e. The Drive, The Fumble, The Shot, and though it has no cool one-word name, the hit that went 2 inches over Joe Table's glove and dropped for a hit in the Indian's World Series loss. Because of this, I feel quite comfortable moving to Chicago and becoming a Cubs fan. I have plenty of practice at rooting for teams that consistently lose when the chips are down, and also both Indians fans and Cubs fans hate the White Sox, so there's some common interest there.

Anyway, my point is, how do you throw for over 400 yards and 5 touchdowns...and lose? Can someone explain this to me? I was cleaning my house during the game yesterday, and it seemed like every time I walked out of the room for 5 seconds, someone else had scored. Did the respective defenses decide to go for a late lunch yesterday at Skyline? I mean really, from that game it almost looked like the Browns had, you know, an offense. Weird game. Weird. Hope nobody bet the under on that.