Sports fans of Northeast Ohio know they should lower their expectations in an act of self-preservation. 2017 has been a very up and down year for Cleveland’s big three professional sports teams.
It would be hard to beat 2016. That was the year when the Cavs won a championship, the Indians got to the World Series, and the Browns won a game.
So when the Tribe lost to the evil New York Yankees in this year’s divisional playoffs, it was a serious letdown. After all, they set a record with a glorious 22-game win streak late in the season.
The Cavaliers were not expected to beat the Warriors after Golden State added MVP Kevin Durant to their roster but the Cavs looked like they had a shot after leading Game 3. Durant killed their chance by making a last-minute three point shot.
Cavs fan Chrissie O’Neil nicely described the outcome of that disappointing game.
“I thought it was amazing until the very end,” O’Neil said. “I was pumped! And then I wasn’t.”
And that left us with the Browns, who with a rookie quarterback ripped through the summer undefeated in 4 preseason games and then lost every game since. Earlier this month, the team fired its young General Manager and hired veteran John Dorsey.
“Let’s reawake this sleeping giant, the Cleveland Browns,” Dorsey said. “I’m kind of excited about that.”
But so-called fans are planning to form a parade around the stadium on January 6 if the Browns lose every game this year. Coach Hue Jackson says he gets that, but he’s working hard to prevent it.
“I’m disappointed,” Jackson said. “I’m pissed off because I never saw this being this way in my 2 years here, ever.”
Nonetheless, Jackson said he will follow through with an offhand remark he made last year that he would jump in the lake if the team had another 1-15 season.
“It is going to be at my convenience, and hopefully, I could get a lot of people to come out,” he said. “It would be something that we are going to make special. I don’t like it. I don’t like to do it for the reason I am having to do it, but I have to make do on my word. I just think that is what you do.”
If the Browns wants to prevent the parade and the national ridicule it will provoke, they’ll have to win their last game against the Pittsburgh Steelers, a team tied with the best record in the league.
