For all you Cleveland Browns fans out there

If anyone ever defined bulldog tenacity, it is Cleveland Browns fans.  One of the most storied and celebrated sports franchises ever, sporting some of the greatest athletes to ever play the game of football, the Browns ran into, shall we say, rough times.  Well, rough years.  OK, rough decades.  Over more than a half century of rough.  In fact, my wife wasn't born the last time they looked this good.

That's been tough for some of the craziest fans this side of Liverpool.  True, there have been times when the Browns almost looked like they might recaptures some of their ancient glories.  Nonetheless, the Browns had an almost divine ability to make sow's ears out of silk purses.  From unimaginable fumbles to blown leads, losing became as much a tradition for Cleveland as tailgating. 

This culminated in the great sell out in 1995, in which Art Modell became the most hated man in Cleveland by selling the franchise to Baltimore.  Normally, that's that.  If the city gets another franchise to replace a lost one, it usually gets another franchise.  But the fans would have none of it.  Against all odds, they pushed, pulled, prodded, bit, scratched and kicked to not only get another football franchise in the city, but to make sure it was the Cleveland Browns, part deux. 

I won't kid and pretend it has been wonderful.  In fact, Cleveland Browns and hopeless losers had almost become synonymous in the sports world.  If you wanted an analogy for someone destined to lose because they wouldn't do what it took to win, you used Cleveland.  Season after season the owners, staff and coaches almost seemed hell-bent on losing.  Fans began to wonder if there wasn't money under the table or some desire to pack up and leave.  Nobody could be this bad.  

And then they pulled the Baker Mayfield card.  Mayfield was a hotshot, and I won't say he's the most personable figure in sports.  He is, after all, the one who arrogantly planted a flag in the middle of OSU's famed Horseshoe Stadium after a stunning victory over the Buckeyes.  But he's good.  He's clever, quick and commands a certain level of leadership that has been missing in Cleveland for many years.  

Then Cleveland fired its coach, Hue Jackson - a regular occurrence.  Despite charges of racism, it likely had more to do with his 3 and 36 record.  That Mayfield was rumored to be behind the push to get a more capable coach might have caused enough controversy to derail his career.  But that hasn't happened.  Stacking the team with even more offensive talent, particularly running back phenom Nick Chubb, the Browns have done what nobody imagined possible only a few years ago.  

Remember, just a couple years back before Mayfield, many were saying it was time to put the franchise out of tis misery.  Talk was circulating of the Browns leaving Cleveland for good.  One more failed season, and locals felt it was inevitable that their beloved team would finally be a thing of the past.  So that we now sit in the playoffs, heading into the  second round, is as unlikely as, well, 2020.  We know Cleveland, and we know our ability to squander the greatest chances, but we're still hoping. 

So in tribute to the many times Cleveland looked like it might be on the move, only to pull a Browns and lose it all, here's one of the all time best novelty songs from back in the day.  It was written by a songwriter who did little novelty songs, often parodies of songs before Weird Al did it better.  But in the Christmas season of 1980, when the Brown's earned the moniker 'the Kardiac Kids' due to a string of last second, impossible wins, it was the song everyone was requesting.  

May these things bring us a little happiness and togetherness in these troubled times.  After all, pundits were assuring us in December of 1980 that America's great blunder in electing a half-baked, monkey movie, war mongering cowboy was going to plunge us into nuclear annihilation as sure as Norman Lear was liberal, so it was a breath of fresh air back then, too: