You have to hand it to the NFL. The annual meat market known as the Combine has started and it’s generating all the excitement that the NFL expected when it decided to invite noodnik reporters inside the ropes to watch anonymous-looking faux student athletes attempt to trade in on their three or four year commitment to do the minimum amount of academic work at various Division I schools while enhancing the athletic budgets of said schools so that they could then get on with their life’s work, a 3-4 year career in the NFL that starts with them getting drafted in the fifth or sixth round and ends with them as another Bill Belichick-inspired salary cap victim.

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As compelling as Sunday’s Super Bowl ended up being, I never lost the sense, not even for a moment, that I'd be conflicted No matter who ever would end up winning. Would it be Baltimore, the city that played a desperate doddering old man like Art Modell like a Spanish guitar as they stole what wasn’t theirs because someone stole what was, or the San Francisco 49ers a team led by a former Michigan quarterback?

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If we’ve learned anything about ourselves along the way, in this seemingly never-ending saga of being Cleveland fans, it’s this.  We don’t like being told how to feel it.  It's like virtually every character on ABC's LOST uttered at one point or another, don't tell me what I can't do.  From “grow up” to “get over it”, we just want everyone to stop telling us what to do or how to feel about certain things because we don’t fit in the line with the status quo.  On those days when we choose not to be doormats, to ignore the criticism of our fans and our city, we are told to know our place.  It’s gotten to the point where we can’t even have the in-fighting amongst ourselves and chalk it up as a family spat of sorts because we don’t have any common ground as a fan base; there are fans and there are critics.

The fans end up being the victims, and the critics are simply an extension of the naysayers from outside the city, county, and state lines.  Any more, it doesn’t make much of a difference who makes the suggestions; don’t tell us how to feel.  We don’t want to hear it about Lebron James, Art Modell, Ray Lewis, Dan Gilbert, or Larry Dolan.  If there’s a legitimate argument to be made, one that can enlighten us and change our minds, feel free to present it.  Otherwise, let us be us, and don’t get pissed because we don’t want anyone walking all over us.  I mean, that’s where I’m at, in a place where I don’t have to take anyone’s crap because I don’t fit in the box they want me to be in.

So, after seeing the Baltimore Ravens win Super Bowl XLVII on Sunday night, I thought I’d share with you exactly where I sit with everything.  Some people may share this sentiment, whereas other may choose not to.  I’m not out to be the person I’ve come to dislike, no one should feel obligated to feel any certain way about things; we’re just out to share some perspective.  I am proud to say that I did not give the Baltimore Ravens the satisfaction of ruining my week, or even my night.

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One of our favorite past times as Clevelanders and as Browns fans is debating the quarterback position. As I watch Colin Kaepernick take on the Ravens in the Super Bowl I can't help but get drawn into that very debate myself and wonder whether the guy Kaepernick replaced, Alex Smith, wouldn't look really good in the brown and orange. 

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