Re-Sign or Release: Joey Graham
May 25, 2011While We’re Waiting… Giving Up Season Tickets, Tribe Respect and DiamondView?
May 26, 2011It shouldn’t come as much of a surprise that the Cleveland Browns aren’t one of the foremost names hitting the headlines as the NFL lockout persists. Other than a few quotes from Scott Fujita and an occasional avoidance response from Mike Holmgren, you get the feeling that the Browns are interested in painting themselves almost as innocent bystanders in the process. They seemed more worried about football than splitting up any proverbial financial pies when the playbook rumors were floating around with Colt McCoy. I kind of enjoy it that way.
Granted, we all know the real reasons the Browns aren’t heavily involved in the NFL labor dispute. Randy Lerner’s style is more of a hands-off approach, shall we say? Even still, while many Browns fans want to continue to harp on Lerner for his style, I am happy to give him whatever latitude he wants as long as he hires the appropriate staff to run the team. In the case of the Mike Holmgren hiring, I find it reasonable to assume that Lerner has hired someone who can run the Browns better than he could personally.
It does mean that the Browns end up taking a tertiary role in terms of the venomous labor dispute. I am fine with that too. As this thing has moved along, I have found the lockout to be mostly a game of posturing. Both sides use the fans as pawns. The fans themselves feign indignation and outrage while they themselves just use the millionaires and billionaires to fill up Sundays so they don’t have to think about important things.
The Browns have spent their time mostly working the draft, allegedly sneaking playbooks to players, and hopefully working illegal back-channels to line up undrafted free agents. In the end, as much as all of us are being led to believe that we should care about the issues of the lockout, all any of us truly care about is watching football.
That goes for the Browns too. Mike Holmgren was hired as president because he is a football guy. Randy Lerner apparently doesn’t care much about the Browns as a business entity, so why should we get too wrapped up in it? Unless you think Randy Lerner’s involvement in the process would somehow enable a deal that would get football started back up sooner rather than later, I am unsure why anyone should long for the Browns’ involvement in the process. Maybe they are smart to stay out of it.
16 Comments
The fans themselves feign indignation and outrage while they themselves just use the millionaires and billionaires to fill up Sundays so they don’t have to think about important things.
I think that’s a cheap shot at fans. Certainly the fans care most about their own entertainment here, and for those of us who are season ticket holders, their investment, but to say it’s “so they don’t have to think about important things” is an unnecessary and false dig at people for no good reason.
@ezzie
That line stuck out as off-putting to me too.
agreed, was going to comment on it as well. glad im not alone on this one.
Do the fans also read WFNY so that we don’t have to think about important things?
Low blow, that.
Just imagine how much more time all the WFNY writing staff could spend thinking about important things and spending more time with their girlfriends, wives, and children. Clearly they’re all trying to avoid these things in maintaining this blog site.
*This is intended to be tongue-in-cheek*
Lighten up people. It’s pretty much true. When watching a game, any sport, it takes you away somewhere else for a little while. Are you conducting rocket science calculations while the Browns are playing?
Craig’s right, though a bit unwise to bite the hand that feeds. Maybe he should take a cue from the Browns and steer clear from putting a mirror up to peoples’ faces in the future.
I really don’t get these cheap shots at Lerner. He brought in football guys to run the team. Would you rather he be more like Jerry Jones? No thanks.
Some of the writers on this site need to mix in a writing class or two. Just sayin
I haven’t seen this much animosity since the Michigan State Journalism School graced us with their presense.
Didn’t mean to offend you all. Just was pointing out as much as we all love sports it is a distraction and secondary to real life. You guys read my posts during Browns season. You know how seriously I take this all.
It was more a commentary on those who are making wide-reaching statements that sound more akin to a political debate when talking about the owners vs. the players. As some media outlets also point out how “dire” the situation is, I think it is important to remember that we would all survive a season without football.
We prefer not to, but come on. It is, in the end, just a distraction as much as we love it. These are truly first world problems, right?
@Craig Lyndall: U sir r tex suxxors!!! Teh reel suxxors!
Nah, it’s kind of funny when you ruffle commenters’ feathers with a sentence that is, well, based in fact. Entertainment is a release, sports is entertainment that we assign undue value to because of the difficulties inherent in it and our substitution of an internal desire for gladiatorial combat with point-based objectives instead of, well, decapitation.
Heck, sports and entertainment are part of America’s biggest problem, and I’ll shout it from the rooftops…then go watch a Tribe game.
Thanks Craig for clearing that up.
Ummm, I don’t know about the rest of you but the Browns are just about THE most important thing I can think of come Sunday. In fact, I spend most of the weekend on pins and needles thinking about it.
@14: having a release is important; tradition is important. I think sometimes that the Browns, the Indians, the [Insert Team Here] means more to us than it ever did to those who passed on their passion to us. Maybe not, maybe it was passed on to them by their fathers. I grew up loving sports because of my father. I love it because of all the reasons I do, but I loved it because of my dad. I don’t hold any illusions, though, that at its core, sports are a release from reality, like any form of entertainment. That’s the attraction of sitting still and watching someone else do something that’s pretty fun, instead of doing it yourself. Sports let you get away from what sucks in life.
Heck, that in and of itself can be pretty important, too.
guess getting rid of the braylon Edwards/Sean Roger types is paying dividends. You gotta like “I forgot to take the gun out of my suitcase” excuse at the airport