Chris Cooley Doesn’t Hate Cleveland, Has Funny Way of Showing It

Chris Cooley is more heavily involved with Browns fans right now than anyone who is working in Berea.  Cooley came under fire from Browns fans in the know when he posted this on his blog.

Trade talk is a weird wake up at 6:30.  Obviously something was said between teams to cause this internet trading s*** storm.  I would be pissed if I got my a** shipped to Cleveland.  But seriously, when the internet is the first news I hear about something this big I would hope it to be speculation.

Now, while not the most obvious slight aimed at Cleveland, Cooley certainly left his statement open to interpretation that he doesn’t like Cleveland.  Being that Clevelanders are protective of their city and more importantly their NFL team, Cooley obviously got a lot of messages regarding this.

Cooley comes out and says that we Clevelanders are all stupid for thinking that what he said was a slight against Cleveland.  He says what he really meant to say was that he would be pissed if he got traded anywhere.  He then goes on to post probably the dumbest of all the responses he received from some guy named Dennis who used all sorts of colorful language.  Cooley uses Dennis to project a negative image of this one knuckle-dragger on all of Cleveland.

Dennis, by your brilliant writing style and obvious intelligence I should be surprised that you took my comment out of context, but I guess you just never know.  So for you I will clarify, really all I was saying was that I do not want to leave DC.  Any team or city could have been interchanged and I would have made the same statement.  “I would be pissed to go to San Diego, Baltimore, or even New England.” Nothing wrong with any of their teams, fans, or cities, I’m just happy where I am.   Your, wait, (you’re) kinda idiotic.

I will admit that maybe we are a bit too defensive as Clevelanders.  We might fly off the handle a little too quickly.  Certainly when the mob starts rolling the cream doesn’t necessarily rise to the top as Dennis plainly showed.  At the same time, I refuse to let Cooley sit all high and mighty like he has some kind of moral high ground.  He certainly didn’t deserve all the profanity-laced emails and other general ugliness from Cleveland fans, but that doesn’t mean he can deny what he said.

What Cooley said might not have been a direct insult, but Cooley wasn’t taken “out of context.”  He, in his “brilliant writing style and obvious intelligence” failed miserably in conveying his point that he wanted to stay in DC and not go anywhere else via trade.  He, instead, said he would be pissed if he was sent to Cleveland.  He had a clear opportunity to say exactly what he meant and apparently he failed miserably as the clear and obvious interpretation of his statement was one of negativity toward Cleveland.  Then, he takes the absolute worst email he received (probably) and used that as an example to project a certain image on all of us Clevelanders.

To Cooley’s credit he also posted the apology email that Dennis sent, but Dennis really screwed up his apology.  He apologizes for misunderstanding Cooley’s email and taking offense and sending the profanity laced email.  He was right to apologize for sending the profanity laced email, but he shouldn’t have apologized for the misunderstanding because as far as I am concerned Cooley insulted Cleveland whether he meant to do so or not.

In the big scheme of things, this internet drama is really dumb and doesn’t deserve as much time as I have spent on it.  But as long as it is out there, I just figured I would point out Cooley’s mistake. Again, I will not defend the horrendous emails that some Clevelanders sent to Chris Cooley.  He may not have meant it that way, but that is absolutely what he put out there by not conveying his point effectively.

And instead of taking ownership for his own deficiencies in communication and accidentally offending a city full of people, he takes it as an opportunity to say, “Oh! I almost forgot.  John Elway wanted me to ask you how it felt almost getting to the Super Bowl?  That must have been awesome!”

Hey Chris, I just talked to Matt Hasselbeck and he wants to know what it felt like to get knocked out of the divisional round in 2006.  See how stupid this is, Chris?