Baker Mayfield’s Browns Beat the Jets

The non-winning steak is finally over in Cleveland. This streak which stretched over six hundred days and dated back to the final game of the 2016 regular season is over as in done. These Cleveland Browns might actually be headed in the right direction.

I know…it’s the Cleveland Browns, perhaps the most hapless franchise in any of the four major league sports, but there is hope in Cleveland with new general manager Jim Dorsey who cut his teeth with the Green Bay Packers and Kansas City Chiefs.

I like what he’s done with the team. He added Jarvis Landry. He added Carlos Hyde. He’s taken a chance with Antonio Calloway. He’s drafted some nice pieces on the defensive side of the football. He finally got rid of Josh Gordon. But most of all he took Baker Mayfield with the No. 1 pick in the NFL draft and sent a signal that the entire culture of losing in Cleveland is going to end.

Some people hate Mayfield, but I watched this kid at OU and he’s the real deal as far being the kind of quarterback they need in Cleveland. The Browns need a guy with swagger. They need the guy who turned the OU football program back in the right direction. They need that type of player who just wins. Who makes others around permeate with the same type of inner confidence which Baker Mayfield exudes. To me…Mayfield is kind of a cross of Brett Fauve and Tony Romo. A tough quarterback who finds a way. Romo never had a chance in Dallas. Don’t hold that against him. Hold that against Jerry Jones.

Now I know the moral guardian types who love the moral high ground football played at places like Oklahoma State University, which seemingly will be in the Alamo Bowl from now until the end of mankind, despise Baker Mayfield for his arrogance, flag planting, and crotch grabbing. Yes, all of us OU fans know Mike Gundy walks on Mr. Rogers Neighborhood water…sigh. But here’s the thing…winning matters in sports. Winning really matters. You obviously want to try and not cross the line. You don’t want your players assaulting women like Joe Mixon, Tyreke Hill, and Ben Rothlisberger did, but winning matters or else you find yourself as somewhat irrelevant and find yourself in the Alamo Bowl every year playing the third or fourth best team in the PAC 12 needing your wrestling and golf programs to do the heavy lifting as far as winning. You see, even Jim Traber’s Steelers and the Rooney family will sometimes look the other way in order to win.

Truth hurts. Winning matters….especially in college and pro football. If winning doesn’t matter then why is Urban Meyer still the head coach at Ohio State? So all you moral guardians should stop watching football on focus on college golf and wrestling. But heck–even Patrick Reed had some issues at Georgia.

I know this is only one game and the New York football Jets are hapless, but these Browns could be different and they have the advantage that the current version of the Pittsburgh Steelers are in disarray and quite frankly the most underachieving team in the glorious history in the modern era of Steeler football. Figures they’d draft the O State kid who could never beat Mayfield in Bedlam in either Stillwater or Norman. That might be a cheap shot by me, but it is what it is.

The Steelers with this Le’Veon Bell debacle have shown themselves to be on the cusp of not being the Steelers cut from the mold of Rooney family. This is a team which plays stupid. They play lazy. They waste their talent. They can’t beat Tom Brady whenever it matters and now it appears they don’t even make the pretense of listening to head coach Mike Tomlin.

The Bengals are still the Bengals and the Baltimore Ravens are headed in the wrong direction.

If ever a Cleveland Brown fan could feel some hope it might be right now.

I don’t really have a favorite team in the AFC. The Packers have always had my heart since the days of Lombardi, Bart Starr, Jerry Kramer, and Camelot. With my son living in Denver the Broncos have my attention in the AFC. I used to love the Chargers when they played in my birthplace city San Diego, but they don’t do anything for me anymore.

Could I become a Cleveland Brown fan?

Maybe.

I think I might watch the fiction sports film Draft Day again tonight just to tell myself there is the possibility the Cleveland Browns could perhaps in real life make a sequence of good decisions.

We’ll see.

BY the way, I think Mike Gundy is a good coach. I’d love to see him coach some day at a place like Miami or LSU to see how he’d do in relation to Jimmy Johnson and Les Miles.

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