Written by Jeff Rich

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We aren’t supposed to be picky about certain things, I get it.  We aren’t supposed to look a gift horse in the mouth.  We play the hand we’re dealt, and when something should be perceived as good in any context, we need not spoil the party.  The Cleveland Browns defeated the Pittsburgh Steelers on Sunday, and that statement feels good, all by itself.  It would be great to say it again and again, condensing and limiting history to one wonderful afternoon, the day “we” beat the Steelers.

A lot of people don’t like it when the fans say “we”, I included sometimes, but these otherwise meaningless Browns wins over the Steelers do belong to the long-suffering Browns fans.  If you’re new to this whole thing, all Browns fans are long-suffering because they have to own the history since 1965, regardless of when they got on board.  I know we have guys like Bernie Kosar, Hanford Dixon, and Doug Dieken that have made themselves a part of this thing, but it was the fans that dealt with 1996, 1997, and 1998, and it’s the fans that will be dealing with any anguish that the team deals them after every player on the current 53-man roster is gone.

Sure, it’s easy to say that we won this one, but we also wear all of the losses in what used to be this rivalry, 24 out of 28 to be exact.  We lose the important ones; in the playoffs, when we need just one to get there, and when the most people are watching, we lose.  Well, there was that one time under the lights in 2009, and before that in 2003, but what did that get us?  What it got us was a few moments to hold our heads high in a rivalry series that no one really recognizes as a rivalry series.  So, we should be thrilled when we end up on the winning end, even though it equals next to nothing in the big picture.

So here we sit, more than 24 hours removed from a fairly dominating performance on the part of the good guys.  For about three hours on Sunday, they turned into us, and not in a good way.  Well, it wasn’t a good way for them; we would all agree that it was wonderful to see them limp into town with their taxi squad.  Our only regrets were that it wasn’t our guys that put their key personnel in the sick bay, not this time around.  It was their team that turned the ball over eight times, their offense that couldn’t get anything done, and their fans beginning the walk of shame before the final gun had sounded.

Yet, it is us with the feeling of emptiness.  We’re looking the gift horse in the mouth, yearning for some style points (Sunday would yield very few), and killing the buzz.  It was about the way we really did it and how we were lucky that won.  There’s no denying it; we were.  We celebrated because we don’t get many chances to that, not with this team, but this should feel better.  We should be on Cloud 9, but I’m very much grounded to the ground here.

What I saw was a defense, full of men with the hearts of lions, play an inspired sixty minutes of football.  They went out there and gave us everything they had, show us that nothing was going to stop them from winning this football game.  Speaking of nothing, it was virtually nothing that had our defense’s back that afternoon.  The coaching staff laid their usual egg, and the offense made sure to maintain the balance between good and bad they’ve had with their defensive counterparts.  This wasn’t their week to show up, apparently; they almost did enough damage to deny the defense their well-deserved victory, but the Pittsburgh Steelers would have none of it.  To gain proper perspective, we can look back to the last time the Browns took the ball from the Steelers offense eight times; the year was 1989, and the Browns won that game 51-0 in Pittsburgh.  You would have believed it if someone told you that most of the visiting players had money on the Browns; it was that bad.

Maybe our enthusiasm is curbed by the nuisance of math.  We are going to wake up every day this week, while our beloved Browns are 3-8, and have the same problems we’d be having if they were 2-9.  It’s true; it sucks to be a regular person.  More than that, when our peers speak of the NFL playoffs, we hope they’ll change the subject so we can work our Browns into the conversation.  I might hold the fullest of half-filled glasses in my hands and get excited about the prospect of winning out, but math gets in the way.  If we are done losing, we can only go 8-8, exceeding expectations with a break-even season, but kept out of the playoff conversation.

I keep hearing about how low the bar is set, and that’s fine for the short term, but the Super Bowl is the big picture goal.  That starts with the playoffs, but getting there isn’t enough; you have to win the whole damn thing or no one cares.  Since that isn’t happening in the present, it has to happen in the future, and we don’t know what the future holds for the Cleveland Browns.

There are bright spots; Joe Thomas and Joe Haden are among the best players in the league.  We like Phil Taylor, Trent Richardson, Josh Gordon, Mitchell Schwartz, and Billy Winn to an extent.  We know that every team that gets to the top of the mountain does so with a great Head Coach/Quarterback combination, and most of us are convinced that the Browns don’t have that element.  Whether we think we might be half-way there, or perhaps none of the way there, very few think that the answer is in place.

It is days like Sunday, even amidst the joy of victory, that raise doubt.  What if that, the uninspiring by-the-skin-of-their-teeth victory over Charlie Batch and the worst effort the 2012 Steelers could have possibly put forth, is as good as it gets?  Of course, this isn’t a case of, on our very best day, being only slightly better than them on their absolute worst day, but it was a day that planted that seed of doubt.  The Head Coach made some questionable decisions, more than some, but why crucify the guy after a win?  The Quarterback, who we so desperately want and need to be “the guy” might be showing signs that he can’t be the guy.

This is so us, isn’t it?  We just wait for the other shoe to drop; didn’t we win the game?  Don’t we spend a lot of time thirsting for them to win just that game, but when we occasionally get to quench our thirst, it only makes us hungry.  And, who am I kidding?  Are we fearing Pat Shurmur’s success more than we’re tolerating his failure?  I mean, what’s the worst thing that could happen?

Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, I present you with Exhibit A; his name is Romeo Crennel.  He seems like a nice enough guy, and by all accounts he is, but when he’s your Head Coach, his bedside manner is a low priority.  In 2006, his second at the helm for the Orange and Brown, Crennel turned in a 4-12 season, a step back from the 6-10 year he had in his first season.  No problem with any of that, a guy needs more than two years to fail; call it having enough rope to sufficiently hang yourself.  I was sure that was coming in 2007.  Crennel was the Head Coach, and Charlie Frye had just edged out a Ravens castoff named Derek Anderson for the Quarterback gig.  The Browns lost to the Steelers 34-7 at home to start the season, and our obvious lame duck season with Crennel was underway.

Except, they shipped Frye out the next day, and Anderson had put together a nice little run, going 10-5 as a starter.  We lost both games to the Steelers, which kept us out of the postseason because we had the same record.  We kept Anderson, even though we just traded future picks to get back in the first round to select some hot-shot from Notre Dame the April before, and we weren’t starting over in 2008.  Crennel got a stay of execution before getting axed after the 2008 season.

Things were similar with Eric Mangini in 2009, his first year as the Head Coach.  The Browns were 1-11 with a new Front Office coming to town.  It would have been ideal to clean house, especially since keeping Mangini was obviously not part of the plan.  Perception is everything, I suppose.  Mangini won his last four game, and was given a second season before the inevitable occurred.  So, here we are, on the doorstep of another new regime.  The assumption is that Pat Shurmur isn’t going to do enough, and I’m not rooting for him to fail.  We should never hope for that.

We have to be hoping that Shurmur has already failed enough.  We worry about certain things, but we shouldn’t fear, or be concerned with, draft position.  Wins are good, even the ones that leave us with feelings of emptiness; we must learn to cope.  We know that these aren’t the types of wins that save jobs, not at this stage in the game.

If we knew we could regularly win games like we did on Sunday, which would mean winning games on a regular basis period, we would get out blood pressure checked often, and we’d be happy.  All hail Shurmur, right?  If it were only that simple, life would be grand.  We know that a 20-14 win over a guy named Charlie isn’t setting any kind of precedent, no team wants a Charlie-In-The-Box as its quarterback.

What we know for sure is, Pat Shurmur can beat bad teams in ugly matches that are generally meaningless, just not regularly, but he’s only had 27 games.  Maybe he can get this bunch, and I think there’s a lot of raw talent, to take down Oakland, Kansas City, and even Washington.  If he can pull that off, he’d be 6-5 after the 0-5 start; just food for thought.

Whether he finishes .500, 6-10, or 3-13, I think the result is the same for Pat Shurmur.  I believe that decision was made when the writing was on the fall for Mr. Haslam to purchase the team.  So, I don’t fear success will keep the wrong guy around, nor do I fear he will impede the development of those who figure to be key contributors down the road.  I’m not worried wins will hurt the Browns next April, and I’m not worried that they’ll all be ugly.  After beating the Steelers in late November, I’m not worried about much of anything, just feeling empty.

I know that we have another shot at the Steelers, the chance to sweep them for the first time since 1988. 

They’ll be at full-strenth, and they’ll be angry.  At Heinz Field, they’ll be playing in front of more of their fans than they were playing at Cleveland Browns Stadium on Sunday.  After that, we can look forward to a pair of matchups with the team from the city with Three Rivers.  Even as the Browns become relevant, the Steelers won’t fade, not in that game.  If the Browns win enough, they put the notion of a rivalry back on the table.

Right now, I’m empty because it isn’t a rivalry.  I’m empty because I know I should be excited by something that should, frankly, happen more often.  I’m empty because I don’t know how long it will be before this happens again, but I am mostly empty because I want this matchup to be important again.  Right now, Sunday’s result notwithstanding, games between these two teams are still about the farthest damn thing from a rivalry.

This is basically real life for a Browns fan.  Isn’t life grand?