Written by Jeff Rich

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One thing that Browns have that the Ravens don't is a rich history.  I’m too young to have any great stories about the Cleveland Browns, so I end up having to settle for some pretty good anecdotes and a lot of dreadful memories.  That’s just the way it is for someone my age; Jimmy Brown and the vintage Browns just aren’t part of our story.  I don’t know much about Paul Brown football.  I couldn’t offer any original thought on Otto Graham, only what I’ve read in books and seen on television.  Frankly, I think about Milt Plum about as often as I think of Milt Palacio.

I know that, at some point, the Browns went all-in on a guy named Mike Phipps, and that history dictates he was a monumental bust.  By the time I came into this world, towards the end of the 1970s, it was the era of Brian Sipe.  The Browns MVP quarterback was a featured player in one of the earlier moments of the Cleveland sports misery montages, the infamous Red Right 88 play.  There are plenty of moments in that montage that still sting, but the Mike Davis interception doesn’t compute the same way with me; it simply isn’t a part of my history as fan.  Sam Rutigliano is just another name that coached the team, and I wouldn’t even wager a guess as to whether Mike or Greg was the better Pruitt.

My history begins with Bernie Kosar taking over for Gary Danielson, the inception of the Dawg Pound at Cleveland Stadium, Marty Schottenheimer, and the cinematic treat, "Masters of the Gridiron".  The Dawg Pound Era put the Kardiac Kids in the past tense, and Browns fans had an easy time getting behind a local guy who played the system in order to be a Cleveland Brown.  I didn’t have to distinguish between the Pruitts because Kevin Mack and Earnest Byner were memorable in their own right, even though I think it took me a few games get Curtis and Clarence Weathers right.  Don’t even get me started on the guy who played Apollo Creed.  Of course, I also couldn’t remember whether Jack Nicholson was the golfer from Ohio or the “Here’s Johnny” dude from The Shining.  I was just a kid, give me a break on this one.

As everyone knows, they didn’t win anything, but we looked forward to Sunday with that bunch.  Yes, there is only one team who does not lose their last game of the year, and the Browns were never that team, but I wouldn’t have traded being a Browns fan for anything in the world, even the games with less than desirable results.  I remember that 10-9 loss in Pittsburgh, the first Browns game at Three Rivers that I remember seeing, and the final defeat of sixteen straight  (the Browns reeled off four straight after that) in that concrete tomb.  I remember being made to feel bad by my father's friends when the Browns blew a halftime lead in a playoff game at the Orange Bowl because I wasn’t wearing my Hutch Browns helmet when Marino put the final nail in the coffin.  They were obviously messing with me, but what did I know?

Of course, there was Denver, and it’s still difficult to stomach, but I can appreciate the journey to get there; the home playoff wins against the Jets and Bills will remain in my heart forever.  It was a special time, but it didn’t have to be the playoffs.  I lived for the Browns on Sunday, whether it was Ozzie Newsome being great or Eric Zeier being less than great.  Then, almost suddenly, it was all taken away.  I was 17, and that was literally a half a lifetime ago, but I never got it back.

It was devastating, even to sit here and think about it 17 years later.  We lost our team, and really, we lost that 1995 season because of the distraction, but there were consolation prizes.  We’d get a new stadium and a team to play in it four years later, and Cleveland was insistent on keeping the Browns name, the colors, and the records.  I question how consoling those things are; so, the only thing we lost was the team that won the Super Bowl.

What was the point?  Why not let Modell take it all with him?  They weren’t taking any Super Bowl wins with them, and while the Super Bowl brand doesn’t mean anything more to me than the NFL Championships of the pre-merger days, the lack of Super Bowl appearances lingered with even the pre-Raven Browns.  The Houston Oilers hadn’t been to a Super Bowl either and they watched their freshly re-branded franchise participate in Super Bowl XXXIV as the Titans, but the NFL didn’t reboot itself in Houston.  The Texans franchise is probably better off that way.

So, here we have this history that begins with All-American Football Conference domination for every year that the faction existed, followed by a solid decade-plus towards the top of the National Football League.  The Browns do plenty to honor that era with their ring of honor, which includes such notables as Leroy Kelly, Lou Groza, Otto Graham, Bill Willis, Marion Motley, Gene Hickerson, and of course James Nathaniel Brown.

All respect due to Len Ford, Paul Warfield, and Frank Gatski, but Cleveland Browns history starts and ends with Jim Brown.  If he isn’t a part of the story of the Cleveland Browns, the story isn’t worth telling.  This is a dilemma that another professional sports franchise in Cleveland is going to have to deal with sooner or later, except Brown left Cleveland for Hollywood, not South Beach.  I often hear Browns fans my age tell me that Jim Brown doesn’t mean anything to them, and it’s a fair point.  Again, it’s our parents’ history, not ours.

To be blunt, there’s no difference between the Browns drought dating back to Super Bowl XXII or 1964 on a personal level.  I wouldn't have been able to see either one, not that it stops Steelers fans who were born in the early 80s for claiming that team of the 70s.  With the way that today’s game has rendered the past irrelevant, history, especially the meat and potatoes of the Browns success (the Championships), is just a bunch of stuff that happened a long time ago.  Jim Brown’s absence with the current Browns would be an afterthought if Brown chose to stay away, but there’s an issue with image in Cleveland that goes far beyond the scope of losing a lot of games.

It starts with the staph infections, but continues on to players bad-mouthing the organization on the way out, and malcontent from our legend (not one of the legends, the legendary Jim Brown) is just another thing to add to the list.  I know there are two sides to every story, and there’s been plenty of sentiment on social media and the local call-in radio shows to keep Brown away from the team, so Mike Holmgren might have a good reason to have driven the controversial figure away from the team. 

The problem is that we find ourselves questioning who, if anyone, is “driving the bus” in Berea.  This might soon be a problem of the past, but firing/demoting Jim Brown can be viewed as another questionable Holmgren decision.  Maybe Jim Brown was being overpaid to be a glorified cheerleader, and Holmgren made a justifiable business decision, but the perception is that the Browns don’t take care of their own, and there’s a residual effect from that.  Of course, free agents don’t like signing here anyways, but giving Jim Brown the back of your hand can’t help that situation.

Cleveland fought so hard for these colors, and those records, many which show Brown’s name in the top spot.  Because the history has a gaping hole in it from 1996-1998, and it’s been a dark abyss from 1999 through last Sunday, the more Cleveland’s chapter in the NFL loses as the Cleveland Browns, the farther back the humiliation goes.  The Houston Texans don’t deal with that; they don’t worry about Warren Moon or Earl Campbell’s relationship with the team because they aren’t the Oilers.

If Cleveland and the fans wanted, so desperately, to keep the colors, the records, and the history, then they should respect the past.  I don’t want Brown to be a distraction though, but let’s not be cheap about this.  If it’s about money, then pay the man whatever he wants, but we made our bed in keeping most of the things we loved about the Browns out of Art Modell’s slimy reach.

Being void of so many things, draft dividends from that poor ’95 campaign, a real football role for Bernie Kosar, and our rightful place opposite Pittsburgh in that rivalry (words can't describe how much this angers me), it would nice to have actual history.  I don’t know if I can appreciate it, but Ravens fans sure do like throwing it in our faces, pointing out that Johnny Unitas is an Indianapolis Colt.  From my era, I can only think of one player that belongs anywhere near the name Unitas, and that’s Ozzie Newsome.  Imagine how terrible it would be if Ozzie were recognized as a Baltimore Raven….never mind, I misspoke.

You simply cannot write the History of the Cleveland Browns without mentioning Jim Brown’s name.  He might not matter to you and I, but he means a lot in the grand scheme of thing.  You can’t un-do staph, or expunge Trent Dilfer’s constant unkind words for the Browns from the record.  If there’s an alternative to respecting history, I’m all ears, but for now, bringing Jim Brown back into the told does a lot more good than harm.  If Holmgren is truly a lame duck, as rumored, this is one wrong he might feel he needs to make right after how badly things have been mishandled with this team under his watch.