Remembering the Josh McCown Era through The Big Lebowski and The Wire

The Josh McCown era is over. The Browns have announced that Johnny Manziel will be under center for the season’s remaining six games of the 2015 season. It feels like the right move. It isn’t that McCown played badly. Au contraire; he was exceedingly competent in his six-plus games at the helm: Nearly 1,900 yards, 11 touchdowns, four interceptions, and he completed 65 percent of his passes. (There were also three fumbles, two of which were lost.) Were he ten years younger, he might still have the starting job. But he’s 36 years old, and that matters. The Browns owe it to themselves to figure out if Johnny is worth hanging on to. If he is, great. If he isn’t, let’s have another spin on the roulette wheel.

But I first want to take a moment to remember Josh McCown. He ain’t dead, and we may well see him play again this season — or next; he’s under contract through 2017 — but for all intents and purposes his time as Browns starter has come to a close. He moves on to his next life as a nameplate on the quarterback jersey and a trivia answer at your local ale house.

He deserves a bit better than that, however. Numbers and performance aside, Josh McCown took to his role as veteran caretaker as well as anyone could have hoped. He spoke like a team-first guy time and again, and he actually seemed to mean it. He had no delusions, no compulsion to be the guy. He understood when fans rooted for his backup. Even (some of) his mistakes were endearing. While his dive-turned-fumblecopter against the Jets was ill-advised for any number of reasons, it’s hard not to pull for a guy who treats the first game of the season like the Super Bowl.

I don’t think there was ever a way that the Browns were going to pull off a winning season. In that case, I’m glad they had a well-mannered professional for at least half the year. Josh made things fun. Josh was a grown up. In his own special way, Josh was the right man for the job, for this team and this season. None of these are pure compliments, but some of them are at least back-handed ones. It felt like Josh McCown fit in with the Browns, which reminded me of Sam Elliott’s narration at the beginning of The Big Lebowski.

A gently edited version to fit the McCown-Browns experience:

…I’ll tell you what — after seeing Los Angeles the Cleveland Browns, and this here story I’m season that’s about to unfold, well, I guess I seen somethin’ every bit as stupefyin’ as you’d see in any of them other places. And in English, too. So I can die with a smile on my face, without feelin’ like the good Lord gypped me. Now this here story I’m about to unfold took place back in the early ’90s mid 2010s — just about the time of our conflict with Saddam and the Iraqis ISIS.

I only mention it because sometimes there’s a man…I won’t say a hero, ’cause what’s a hero? But sometimes, there’s a man — and I’m talkin’ about the Dude Josh McCown here. Sometimes, there’s a man, well, he’s the man for his time and place. He fits right in there. And that’s the Dude Josh McCown, in Los Angeles with the Cleveland Browns. And even if he’s a lazy man an also-ran — and the Dude McCown was most certainly that; quite possibly the laziest in Los Angeles County also-rannest in Browns history, which would place him high in the runnin’ for laziest also-rannest worldwide.

But sometimes there’s a man…sometimes, there’s a man. Aw. I lost my train of thought here. But… aw, hell. I’ve done introduced him enough.

Part of why McCown was the man for his time and place was his very fallibility. For all the pipe dreams about getting a true Pro Bowl quarterback on the Browns (“true” in this case meaning “not Derek Anderson”), the prospect is kinda frightening. You can’t drive a Chevy Nova for 15 years and suddenly hop behind the wheel of a McLaren. It would be too much of a shock to the system. The ups and downs of Josh McCown were fitting. His time coming to a close brought another scene to mind: Ray Cole’s wake from Season 3 of The Wire.

(The video sadly does not allow for embedding, so I point you to this link if you’re not familiar with the scene.)

We are police Browns fans. So no lies between us. He wasn’t the greatest detective quarterback, and he wasn’t the worst. He put down up some good cases games and he dogged a few bad ones. But the motherfucker had his moments, yes he fucking did. You remember the Mississippi extradition, the arson murders Ravens game, the 457 yards? He brought that case game home. And the triple? At the after hours over on Hudson Street The 1,154 yards in three games? That was Ray Cole Josh McCown at his best. And Fayette Street, ’93; the drug wars the Jets game, Week 1; the helicopter. He took attacked a lot of hot cornerbacks and cooled them. Yes indeed.

He won as much as he lost — as much as any of us. Did he piss off a wife or three? No fuckin’ doubt. I think the last one actually kinda got used to him, thank god. Did he say the wrong shit now and then? Did he bust balls and cheat on his taxes and forget to call his mother and fuck the wrong broad for the wrong fuckin’ reason every now and then? Who fuckin’ doesn’t? Christ. Was he as full of shit as every other sad sack motherfucker wearing a badge of Baltimore City Police uniform of the Cleveland Browns? Abso-fuckin-lutely. His shit was as rank as ours, no question. But Ray Cole Josh McCown stood with us. All of us. In Baltimore Cleveland. Working. Sharing a dark corner of the American football experiment.

He was called. He served. He is counted. To Old King Cole Josh McCown.