Written by Brian McPeek

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The new, updated NFL Playoff scenarios are in! The way I read it, if the Bengals team plane crashes into the Steelers team plane, and the ensuing debris field wipes out the Ravens training facility in Owings Mills, MD, well, Roger Goodell would have almost no choice but to put the Browns in as the AFC Central champs!! There’s still a chance!! Sure, it depends a lot on the whimsy of air traffic controllers, but still!!!

It’s the Weekend Wrap. Chock full of STFU!!!

STFU #1

How do you like your boy today, Brandon Weeden fans? Wasn’t he special on Sunday? Wasn’t he everything the 22^nd pick in the draft should be when facing the 179^th ranked pass defense and facing Kirk Cousins? Wasn’t he just delicious?

I was thrilled, personally, with his 21/35 for 244 yard effort. I was thrilled he threw only two interceptions. And did you see that terrific TD pass to Travis Benjamin?!? That was 69 yards of pure bliss. Almost 30 yards of it were in the air and it brought the team back to within ten points of the ‘Skins after those two pesky interceptions crushed the hopes and dreams of foolish fans everywhere that thought the Browns could and would extend their playoff dreams.

And he’s better than Colt McCoy to boot. Yee haa!!!

Kirk Cousins is equal to or better than Brandon Weeden. Which makes a lot of sense given Cousins was chosen ahead of Weeden in the first round of the NFL draft last April.

Wait…. What?

Careful now. I’m not dumb enough to believe Kirk Cousins or Colt McCoy is the answer to any NFL team’s QB question. But if you think the Brandon Weeden is the answer to any question other than, “What NFL starting QB is most likely to be trapped under an American Flag”, then you’re either misguided or…well, you’re just misguided.

And how about that head coach who gave our first round running back all of 11 carries during a game he was winning at halftime?!? Wasn’t that excellent too? I mean, you traded three picks to move up a spot to get a game changing, top of the draft running back. It’s nice to see that guy get 11 carries while the guy you over-drafted is spinning such a gem of a game at the QB position!

Brilliant!!

My 12-year old daughter, who accompanied me to the shit-fest on the lake front, thought enough of the gameplan to suggest that running Josh Cribbs out of the wildcat a little more often (as opposed to having Weeden drop back, hold the ball too long and then loft something interceptable) may have been better plan. We disagreed on that but it wasn’t an easy point to argue as the game unfolded.

And it was damn near impossible to answer her question as to why Weeden simply looked like a grade school QB who ran out of the pocket, seemingly shrieking in terror, and threw a 4^th down pass away out of bounds before taking a sack when the game was still salvageable. She asked if that was similar to Weeden throwing the ball out of the end zone as time ran out in Baltimore earlier in the season. The point being that my 12-year old daughter remembered a lesson that our 29-year old rookie wunderkind apparently didn’t.

What a joke.

The game, the playoff talk, the lunatics espousing the view that Pat Shurmur had done enough the last three weeks against a 3^rd string QB from Pittsburgh and the Raiders and Chiefs, to save his job for next season.

All of it. It’s embarrassing.

More embarrassing is that we have at least another season of Brandon Weeden to look forward to. One more season (plus the two remaining losses) to watch a 29-year old with no leadership skills and no more than a strong arm faces off against real NFL teams and QBs.

But hey, next year maybe Weeds will pick apart the Saints or Cardinals or someone and we can at least hear the talk radio idiots talk about playoffs when the Browns get to 4-7 on the season.

Dream big.

STFU #2

No one with a pulse is unaware of what happened in Newton, CT this past week. 20 little kids were gunned down by a cold-hearted, sick, twisted, demented PoS who at least had the decency to take his own life and spare us all the disgust of a trial and of seeing his pathetic face on television for the next three years while some PoS lawyer tried to come up with a way to keep PoS #1 alive.

So it’s with no small amount of appreciation that I tell you that going to watch a vile Browns loss with my youngest daughter was a very, very good day, regardless of what the team did to ruin it.

They couldn’t ruin it. We went downtown early, had a good lunch with good friends and then went and watched an NFL game in a beautiful building on a beautiful day.

I am eternally grateful for the opportunity to have Brandon Weeden shit himself in front of me and my daughter.

You know what I’m not eternally grateful for? The people on both sides of the political aisle who couldn’t wait until little kids were buried before starting their “Gun Control” rhetoric. What is wrong with people?

There are parents who at this very minute are walking past a child’s bedroom, looking at clothes folded on the dresser, looking at unmade beds, looking at Christmas or holiday gifts either wrapped or unwrapped that will never be opened, and wondering how in the hell they’re going to make it until tomorrow without coming apart at the seams. There are young brothers and sisters who may have argued with one of those dead children who will never get to say, “Sorry, Doofus” or who will live with that argument resonating in their minds for the next 70 years.  

And yet I look on CNN or Facebook or Twitter not 20 minutes after the news comes down of the shooting and I see people arguing about gun control. You know what? I don’t care what side of the aisle you’re on about the issue. I don’t care if you have a cabinet full of assault rifles or if you’ve never touched a gun before in your life and have no use for anyone that has.

It doesn’t matter today.

It would have mattered on Thursday but it doesn’t matter today.

How about we lend all of our emotional support to the parents burying truly innocent kids this week? How about we table the divisive elephant in the room until after the holidays when it would be more appropriate? How about we don’t use one of the greatest tragedies I can recall to espouse our own views and ram those down the throats of anyone who happens to stumble across your Facebook timeline or your Twitter feed?

Believe me, like the Browns QB miseries, the gun issue will be there in a week or two. How about we talk about it then?

Oh Yeah

I like the Indians recent deal that sent Shin-Soo Choo to the Reds and ultimately landed the Indians highly regarded pitching prospect Trevor Bauer, CF Drew Stubbs and a couple others (and included the Indians also parting with Weekend Wrap favorite Jason Donald).

Choo was as gone as yesterday after this upcoming season and the Indians have done a nice job of dealing for young, nearly Major League-ready players while sucking at pretty much everything else. If Bauer develops and becomes a front of the rotation guy this deal will have been worth it already. If Stubbs puts together an offensive repertoire to accompany his ridiculous defensive game it will be a complete steal.

I’m wondering just how long it takes the Reds to realize they were dealt a decent player who takes terrible routes to the ball and has no stomach for anything on the inner half of the plate. I’m not trying to diminish what kind of player Choo is. He’s decent. He’s a good second OF on a contending team. But if Bauer is what he’s advertised to be and the two bullpen guys the Indians also received are decent, well, we’ll have to tip our cap to Chris Antonetti. At least up until the time Bauer dominates and leaves for greener pastures in free agency himself.

And with that, Merry Christmas everyone!!

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