Written by Brian McPeek

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How long 'till Cavs season? Cause these weekend's are getting harder to harder to endure. If the rain and temperatures in the thirties weren't enough to depress you this weekend, surely the Buckeyes' 26-18 loss to the 1-5 Purdue Boilermakers and the Browns twelfth straight spanking at the hands of the Steelers were. Brian McPeek checks in to help us cope with what we saw this weekend, and uses Flush Master 3000 and Juice Williams metaphors to help us get past our post-weekend depression and get on with our weeks. Bartender!

Apropos 

My brother and I swapped out the toilet in the master bathroom while the Browns-Steelers played on the TV a few feet away. The original flange was messed up and a 30 minute job turned into a 3 hour ordeal. Hanging over the sewage drain, muscling a new Kohler ‘Flush Master 3000" (or whatever the hell it's called) all over the room and getting really frustrated and pissed when things didn't go well was easily the highlight of the afternoon. 

At least after three hours of doing that you can flush the crap away. 

We're not going to be able to avoid the crap on the field every Sunday. At least not for the next 11 weeks or so. No matter how much we might wish it was so, we can't flush Derek Anderson away. We can't flush Jamal Lewis, Brandon McDonald or Robert Royal away. And we also can't flush the undying hope and eternal devotion we have to this club down any drain. 

We're completely stuck with this load of crap. There is no Flush Master 3000. Roll up your pant legs and put on your old shoes. This franchise is in deep sh.... 

Treasure it Always 

Remember that one series after halftime when the Browns were trailing 17-7? It was the first possession after the half and the Browns received the kick and started at their 34-yard line. Does that ring a bell? Remember when they methodically drove the length of the field and looked like they knew what they were doing? I think they drove those 66 yards in about six or seven plays and scored what the announcers called a touchdown on a pass from Derek Anderson to Lawrence Vickers? 

That was cool. 

I wonder how much of the 2009 Cleveland Browns highlight video will be devoted to that drive and to Josh Cribbs? Maybe they can run that drive and all Josh Cribbs kick and punt returns in super slow motion and it'll fill up the allotted 30 minutes. 

The Other 55 Minutes 

I made it a couple of hundred words before mentioning the Steelers beat the Browns 27-14 on Sunday. Aside from the drive noted above and the 98-yard kickoff return for a touchdown by Cribbs the Browns were what we thought they were; overmatched on both sides of the ball. 

The Steelers even tried to keep it close by turning the football over four times but the Browns would have none of that generosity. Every time Pittsburgh coughed up the football Derek Anderson and the offense sputtered, wheezed and refused to take advantage of the Steelers gifts. Anderson finished 9-22 for 122 yards, with the TD pass to Vickers and, of course, his weekly interception. That makes DA 11-39 for damn near almost 150 yards in his last two football games. Woo-Hoo!! Someone towel that guy off.

In a word Anderson was again pa-freaking-thetic yet again as his QB rating of 51.0 will attest.  

It'd be at this point that normally I would also make mention of Cribbs's awful throw in the red zone that resulted in a turnover deep in Pittsburgh when it appeared that the Browns just might draw first blood. But I was one of the idiots calling for the Browns to have Cribbs throw out of that wildcat formation a time or two just to keep defense from jamming the line of scrimmage in anticipation of a run. Now I remember why Cribbs wasn't the Davey O'Brien winner at Kent State. And now I won't be begging for any more pass attempts from Cribbs when the Browns utilize the wildcat. 

Anyways, Jamal Lewis looked old, slow and ineffective, there were more balls dropped by the Browns receivers than on an ordinary day at a urologist's office and Brandon McDonald still seems bent on turning the NFL into a two-hand touch league. McDonald is what I might call ‘tackling averse'. 

In other words, it was a typical fall Sunday for Cleveland Browns fans. 

At Least We Have the Buckeyes 

What a miserable day in West Lafayette for Ohio State QB Juice Williams...err...Terrelle Pryor. Not only was Pryor a DA-esque 17-32 for 221 yards and two interceptions but he also fumbled away two other possessions to completely destroy any chances of the Buckeye's defense winning another football game. 

One-win Purdue earned win number two on the season, 24-16, by taking advantage of Pryor's miscues and the inability of Ohio State to get any semblance of a running game going (28 carries for 66 yards).  

The Buckeyes are now 5-2 on the season and playing for 2010 regardless of what you hear about the importance of Big Ten championship. 

And again one can reasonably question Buckeye Head Coach Jim Tressel for not pulling the plug on Pryor Saturday afternoon in favor of backup Joe Bauserman. Pryor was not only ineffective, he was downright 'Terrelle-able' and his frustrations were evident in each and camera shot of the sophomore on the sideline.  

Pryor's progression from raw freshman starter to sophomore has hit a wall. In fact, if anything, he's regressed from where he was a year ago. The Buckeyes can win with a QB of far less physical skill and ability than Pryor just managing the game and hitting open receivers. Their defense and special teams are capable of getting the job done. The one thing they can't overcome is a QB turning the ball over multiple times each Saturday.  

You'd like to think Coach Tressel is smart enough not to go down with Pryor's ship. But after Saturday's performance by the Buckeye offense you really have to wonder. You can understand his devotion to a kid he sold his soul to recruit to OSU. But there are 84 other scholarship athletes on the team who deserve better than what Pryor and Tressel are giving them right now. 
 
Etcetera 

• Let me make this perfectly clear: I respect tried and true Pittsburgh Steelers fans. The men and women who have lived and died with the Steelers over the last 40 years or so more than deserve that respect. Many embrace their football team like we do ours and they have been rewarded for that devotion more than a handful of times while we still wait for the payoff for our own support.

A lot of those folks were born and raised Steelers fans and they come by their allegiances naturally and honestly. Some of them are amongst the people I would consider my closest friends. So I know plenty of them and I love them except on autumn Sundays. 

But you know who makes me sick? The pseudo-fans who lack enough self-worth and self-esteem to pick a side and who instead take the convenient and easy way out.  

As I walked through Home Depot and Wal Mart in Mentor, OH to pick up yet more plumbing supplies on Sunday morning I was sickened by the number of Steelers jerseys I saw. I don't usually pay attention to such trivial things but Sunday was like Christmas for these frauds and phonies.  

A lot of those jerseys were worn by the typical 20-something male tool boxes whose self-image is so poor that they cling like rats to floating debris to anything that elevates them from their own miserable lives (in this case the Steelers would be that debris). You know the type: the guys who blame everyone except themselves for their sorry lot in life including their rotten jobs, their failed athletic careers, and their loneliness and who judge a weekend by how many beers they can throw down and whether or not they won their beer pong match on Thursday night.


And they had to wear those jerseys on Sunday.If you're that guy you take advantage of any day when you can, for a few short hours, feel superior to somebody. Especially in your own neck of the woods. 

Those guys like Uncle Rico from ‘Napoleon Dynamite'. You can't fall out of a chair without landing on one of those guys.  

And they are pathetic. Often laughably so. 

But they're not as pathetic in my mind as are the women who sport those Steelers jerseys and blindly declare their loyalty to players whose names they don't know and have no interest in learning. 

If I had a dollar for every 200lb-plus skank or 82lb methed-out looking waif with daddy issues who took the morning walk/hop of shame into Wal Mart and Home Depot with mismatched shoes and one of her heels still stuck in one of her ugly hoop earrings I could have bought enough toilets to fill a stadium restroom.  

Some of these chicks are Steelers fans only because they woke up hung over in Uncle Rico's bedroom (in a house owned and also occupied by his mom and dad) after apparently being impressed by his stories of leading an on-line platoon of  "Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2" warriors.  

Look, I know I'm already taken and Brad Pitt ain't walking through your door girls. You're on your own as far as the guys you ‘relate' with. But have some respect for yourself. If you can't find Pittsburgh on a map of Allegheny County you don't need to wear a Steelers jersey to tell us anything about you.  

The fact Rico can't remember your name in the check out line when he sheepishly asks if you want to get breakfast before he drops you at your car, and that you're wearing the wrinkled jeans skirt you picked off his bedroom floor an hour ago, well, that tells us all we need to know.