Cavs sign Jordan McRae for rest of season, with team option for 2016-17
March 9, 2016LeBron says he was willing to slide to PF in order to sign Joe Johnson
March 10, 2016Hey WFNY, it’s Thursday, which is pretty cool. Thursday is perfectly satisfactory, as far as days of the week ago (definitely in the top seven). And if you have one of those bummers known colloquially as a “job,” it may very well be the second-to-last day you need to work this week, depending on what line of work has you in shackles.
The Cavaliers continue to shrug their way through the regular season, the Cleveland Indians are hacking away in Arizona as Ohio continues to thaw (and sooner than usual, mercifully), and the Cleveland Browns continue to do … whatever it is they do. No championships today, but while we’re waiting… .
Entering this week the Browns had … what? Seven competent players? Nine? Whatever it was, I didn’t need to call my toes for backup to count them all. In any event, they lost four of those competent players yesterday to NFL free agency. I … don’t have anything to say about it. It just is.
The Browns hard at work in free agency. pic.twitter.com/Ntfb1bdj5y
— Kyle (@kcwelch330) March 9, 2016
Peyton Manning retired this week. I don’t even want to talk about Peyton Manning, since the pious Manning-worship is a little nauseating, and I feel like a sap for even bringing this up. But this isn’t really about Peyton Manning. This (like everything else) is about me, damn it.1
Let me explain. From before the time we mastered things like bipedal motion or how to use a spoon, humans have been able to play with a ball. It’s instinctive almost. Like golden retrievers, humans like to mess around with balls. You can throw ’em. You can bounce them off stuff. They’re pretty cool. With any luck, you can learn how to play games involving a ball with a complex system of rules within a few years (though you will question this possibility if you’ve ever seen a mob of five-year-olds chase around a soccer ball for an hour).
But, for a long time, no one really knows what the hell they’re doing. The same is true for watching sports. Sure, an infant can “watch” a football game as much as it can “listen to” a lecture on organic chemistry. But there’s no real appreciation for what’s going on. Even at the age of eight or nine, most kids can only appreciate that points are good, touchdowns are cool, and winning is better than losing. Eventually (this is going somewhere, I promise), one can watch a sport enough and nurture the intellectual capacity to learn a game’s intricacies, its nuances, its subtleties: he’s leaving the ball up in the strike zone, my team’s allowing too much dribble penetration, the midfielder has a tremendous first touch.2
In my life, Joe Montana and Michael Jordan weren’t really a quarterback or a shooting guard — they were mythical figures. I was too young to comprehend any of it. They might as well have been Superman or The Incredible Hulk. I knew they played quarterback and I knew they were “good,” but that meant very little to me. Peyton Manning is one of the first legendary players whose entire career I will remember in some capacity. When old people reminisce about “Pistol” Pete Maravich or Pete Rose or Johnny Unitas or Magic Johnson — I’ll be like that with Peyton Manning. “Listen here son, you should have seen Peyton Manning back in the day!”
Manning’s career blossomed as I finally began to understand football. I mean, I don’t even like the guy. But as he was tearing the league to shreds in the 2000s, it coincided with me appreciating the game of football for the first time. In that season when Manning threw for 49 touchdowns in 2004 (still the third highest total in one season), every game was like taking a lesson in astrophysics from Stephen Hawking. It was like seeing football for the first time — to watch the things he was doing before the snap, and how he would just mess with linebackers and defenses. It was tremendously cool to witness. He transformed football from a post-snap to a pre-snap game. It was like he was the only one in the league playing with an Xbox controller.
There have been plenty of great passers since Manning, and they’ll be many more. I mean, the guy was a corpse in the Super Bowl, and Tom Brady will probably be remembered by everyone as having the better career. But Manning started it. And every great quarterback and athlete I watch in the future will be viewed through the lens with which I viewed and understood Manning. That bullet pass over the middle when the quarterback throws between the safeties the instant the slot clears the linebackers? That will always be the Manning pass to me, and I’ll always associate my coming of age as a sports viewer with Manning and comprehending his mastery of the game. Again, I don’t even like the guy.
Also, Manning’s career started nearly 18 years ago — and I remember the whole thing. I’m just like everyone else now: old and dying. I’ll relive some of the same feelings on Thursday night, when the Cleveland Cavaliers face Kobe Bryant for the final time, the generation-defining athlete that I grew up watching in another sport. (See what I did there?)
Punditry hasn’t always been the primary way people digest information in media and on television. It’s a relatively new innovation (at least in its current form). The documentary Best of Enemies (available on Netflix and even on Youtube) suggests that punditry (usually a pejorative term to describe when a supposed “expert” gives his opinion or provides commentary, often in the form of a simulated debate with another pundit) started to come of age with the 1968 ABC debates between Gore Vidal and William F. Buckley, Jr. I like to fall asleep to interesting, halfway-boring documentaries — and Best of Enemies was one of the recent entries.
In an attempt to stir some national attention and try something different, then-flailing network ABC decided to air a series of ten debates between Vidal (a hyper-liberal) and Buckley (an arch-conservative) during the Republican and Democratic National Conventions. The two men openly despised each other. The debates were a huge success and riveting television for parts, until Buckley erupted during the ninth debate and insulted Vidal in an unbecoming manner after Vidal basically goaded him into doing so — with the terrible violence of the DNC in Chicago as the backdrop.
Anyway, there were some incredibly perceptive comments in the epilogue that demonstrated how the Vidal-Buckley debates were a “harbinger of an unhappy future.” I don’t think I can watch one of those Hollywood Squares-style political yelling matches or Skip and Stephen A. spewing nonsense (both of which I already avoid at all costs, by the way) without thinking of the following comments, as well as Jon Stewart’s quip from his Crossfire outburst, “You’re doing theater, when you should be doing debate.” Anyway, it’s an excellent documentary, and I think the thoughts from the epilogue are things that all media consumers should be mindful of, especially in this time and place — regardless of your political affiliation or favorite sports team.
Gore Vidal: “I think these great debates are absolutely nonsense. The way they’re set up there’s almost no interchange of ideas, very little even of personality. There’s also a very terrible thing about this medium — hardly anyone listens. They sort of get an impression of somebody, and they think they figure out just what he’s like by seeing him on television.”
…
William F. Buckley, Jr.: “Does television run America? There is an implicit conflict of interest between that which is highly viewable, and that which is highly illuminating.”
Some woman whose name I don’t know: “[1968] was a time when television was still a public square, where Americans gathered and pretty much saw the same thing. There’s nothing like that now.”
Some dude whose name I don’t know: “The ability to talk the same language is gone. More and more, we’re divided into communities of concern. One side can ignore the other side. And live in its own world. It makes us less of a nation. Because what binds us together are the pictures in our heads. But if those people are not sharing those ideas, they’re not living in the same place.”
Your Calvin and Hobbes strip of the day. [Mental image of a group of people in Berea standing and staring in awe at a toaster.]
And now for the random ’90s song of the day. Sometimes I need to put an awful song as the R90sSotD. Why, Kyle, why? you ask? To slow ’90s nostalgia’s rampant spread. Sure, the 90s were great for many reasons, including some great music and delightfully tacky music. But some of it was awful, too. So let’s pump the brakes a little bit.
Today’s R90sSotD is Sugar Ray’s “Every Morning.” It’s an incredibly annoying song.3 The music video is a balloon-filled, glittery piece of garbage at a roller skating rink (which is double nostalgia for being ’90s nostalgia about ‘70s nostalgia) that’s kind of entertaining. The bassist looks vaguely like John Leguizamo.
I think lead singer Mark McGrath was a heartthrob at the time. It was surprising to see him gain all that weight and host that Food Network show where he visits those diners, drive-ins, and dives. Wait, that’s not Mark McGrath? It’s Guy Fieri? Never mind. Lastly, nine-year-old me loved this song. The lesson, as always: children have appalling taste.
Something’s got me reeling
Stopped me from believing
Turn me around again
50 Comments
Welcome to Berea.
And that was only Day One!
http://gifrific.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/08/Christoph-Waltz-Dancing-in-Chair-Inglourious-Basterds.gif
seems manning may’ve been headed for trouble for supposed PED use / possesion … will they still pursue it & will it tarnish his image / accomplishments ??
well , i guess we have the let the HBT’s plan run it’s course from free-agency , through the draft & the bringing-in of un-drafted / un-signed rookie free-agents before we can put a grade on their work … it was only the first day … yes , a rough first day , but i think most of us thought this would happen … i was hoping retain at least one of the guys … i liked keeping schwartz , if it was doable.
I’m not a Manning fan. Didnt like him in college. Seemed like Archie’s spoiled kid to me. Then in ’97 I found any reason to dislike him, because he was an impediment to Charles Woodson making history (it worked out they way it should have, thankfully). Never have liked him. I always liked Brady more. I appreciated the moments where Peyton let his sense of humor come through, but even that seemed a bit contrived.
BUT, I have seen commercials on TV for women to go to their doctors and get this certain anti wrinkle miracle formula. THEY SAY RIGHT IN THE COMMERCIAL THAT IT IS HGH. First time I saw it, I thought maybe my 90’s lifestyle decisions were resulting in flashbacks (speaking of which..Sugar Ray? Damn you Kyle). So, I guess what I’m saying is apparently there are doctors out there giving HGH to women as a beauty aid. This is a real thing. So, Ill give him the benefit of the doubt on that (probably only to be proved wrong in short order, but still).
yeah, Mack was a goner. Benjamin…meh. Gipson…do we have objective evidence Tashaun was “good” last year? Was he J.A.G.? Are we all upset because he had a bunch of picks two years ago? Im not really sure.
But Schwartz, that hurts. Now, the rumor is Schwartz’ agents immediately took the Browns offer to other teams and were basically using the Browns as leverage. Some say they had no intention of ever coming back to CLE and thats why the Browns pulled their offer, because they didnt want to be “used”. Unfortunately, we will never know the real story, but yeah, that one hurt a bit
hi MAX … and how about Eli refusing to play for the chargers if they drafted him ?? and yet they both do have 2 super bowl rings each. maybe after archie played on so many bad teams , and took a beating , in new orleans , he may’ve tried to steer them down a better path … i don’t know.
it is what it is … movin’ on.
I think thats exactly what happened, and I cant say I blame him. Just thinking about the Eli draft gives me heartburn. We didnt need a QB because we had Jeff Garcia, so we drafted a freaking TE at 6. A TE with his head firmly implanted in his rectum, and no idea how to ride a motorcycle.
Eventually, dumb luck has to go our way, right?
difference is I think you can sell that rebar for scrap and get something out of it
If anyone has photoshop skills, please please please put someones head on there…Sashi, or Jimbo…Ray wouldve been the best, but he gone
It’s my theory that the Cleveland Browns are not actually an NFL Football Team but a social experiment to examine the affect of futility on the human psyche and everyone is in on it except the fans.
The latest example:
4 of the top 10 players on the team don’t last more than 4 hours on the open market in the first day of Free Agency.
Browns beat writer: Good riddance to those bums, we’ll sure miss the 3-13 seasons they put together.
Browns fans: HEY, YEAH, HE’S RIGHT. NOT LIKE THOSE LOSERS EVER WON A SUPERBOWL, GOOD RIDDANCE.
It’s truly amazing to sit back and watch as the casual observer.
I’m expecting to see some moves by the Browns either today or tomorrow. I think Jacksonville’s former center Wisniewski is still a strong possibility. He’s still pretty young at 27 and he’s a good player. I expect that we would see similar types of guys being brought in by the Browns… players who are still young and have good upside, but probably aren’t known outside of their former team’s city.
Some of us reached that conclusion on our own. I don’t even know what beat writer you’re referring to, but I also happen to agree that there’s no need to hang onto a roster that never achieved more than 7 wins in a season. At this point, I’m just as fine with 0-16 as I am with 3-13, if it means that they might actually rebuild the team without overpaying “halfway decent” guys on second contracts.
Do we have any Vegas peeps here?
I’m totally ready to drop a C-Note on 0-16.
Yesterday was a rough day for me, and it wasn’t because we didn’t sign 4 free agents who were coveted by other teams… it was because I suddenly realized “oh crap, the front office thinks we need a complete reboot rather than a patch”. I know the defense was one of the worst in the league last year, but they were actually pretty good the year before that with almost exactly the same players with the exception of a couple of guys who we thought were upgrades like Danny Shelton and Tramon Williams. Because of that logic, I fully blamed Jim O’Neil for their incompetence as he took over full-time defensive coordinating duties from Mike Pettine. Offensively, the Browns couldn’t run the ball for most of the season, but they were passing the ball well with an aging QB and a bunch of mites running around at WR and they starting to get the running game going in the last 4 games of the season when they made a switch to more of a power run blocking scheme. I thought there were plenty of reasons to think that they could draft either Goff or Wentz, re-sign 2 or 3 of our own free agents, sign a couple more mid-level free agents to plug holes, and draft some players for depth. I’m just terribly disappointed that the Harvard brain trust evaluated the current team and thought they needed to blow it all up… tough day for me… I’m not sure if I have the patience for another 3-4 year plan.
“there’s no need to hang onto a roster that never achieved more than 7 wins in a season.”
Interesting then why other competent NFL teams sought the services of those roster pieces making them priorities to sign on Day 1.
Did any of those guys get you to a Superbowl? Nope.
Have the coaches of those guys been fired three times over? Yep.
I mean, maybe JUST MAYBE it’s not the players?
……cept for Manziel, he’s definitely a bum.
Browns fans got Red Weddinged yesterday.
Sure, it’s not the players; but it’s also the players. If all the Browns need to be a playoff contender next year is to re-sign a C, RT, S, and WR, then sure, I’d say that those guys are worth keeping. That’s the difference between the Browns and the Falcons, et al.
Besides, our pitchforks and torches notwithstanding, I have yet to hear a logical argument proving that yesterday was the FO’s fault. I’m willing to chalk it up to them and either their “strategy” or “incompetence,” but there is not a scrap of evidence to support either claim. What it looks like is a bunch of guys that don’t want to play for a crap team. Can’t blame them. After all, it’s “not the players.” Right?
There’s no way Mack had any intention to stay. That decision was clear a year ago.
Same for Gipson. Apparently, based on “rumors,” same for Schwartz. Benjamin is an unknown, but he’s the last guy I thought we really needed to re-sign.
It’s too early for a forensics conclusion. The folks that blew up the roster yesterday might not have been the brain trust. I’m willing to credit (or discredit) them with it, but at this point, the trail appears to lead to the players and the players alone. It’ll be okay; but yes, it might take 4 years. As such, at this point – and as someone said here last night – I’m all about “best player available” and rolling with McCown for 2016. We’ll certainly be in position to draft the QB of our choice next year.
Sounds like Bode needs to get ahead of the rest of the pack and start telling us which QB we should draft #1 overall next year.
My commentary is not as to whose fault the players leaving falls on; because that’s clear, it’s the sins of the past regimes causing no faith in the current one. I don’t fault the players for leaving and I don’t fault the current FO for losing them.
What I do fault is the mentality of someone to look at that as a whole and say, “yeah well not like we won with those guys anyways”.
That’s Ludacris.
http://media.giphy.com/media/RUSu65EOMX2PS/giphy.gif
Meh. In my opinion, Mack was the only real loss of the bunch (and maybe Schwartz?). The other guys are eminently replaceable. We didn’t win with those guys. We might have won with them next year, but probably not. As you said to me yesterday, let ’em go. Why cry over spilled milk?
We’ll get Stannised today just to make sure.
That dude’s been absolutely AWOL. I hope, and expect, that this is exactly what he’s been doing.
Just so long as we don’t get Greyjoyed.
Live camera feed from Mack, Schwartz, Benjamin, Gipson’s house:
https://youtu.be/_u-S7JUYOMo
Yeah, but he did get to lay the greatest splat in TV history on Ramsay’s b*tch.
Am I wrong for loving that movie?
hi PAT … i also like wisniewski & hope he is at the top of the to do list. there are a couple of other serviceable free-agents in wendell & sendlein as well.
Then sir, we shall part ways. I actually love both Goff and Wentz and think they both have a chance to be a Superbowl-caliber QB. You never know what next year will bring… one year ago the draft gurus thought Christian Hackenberg was the rising stud of this class.
They used to play “Mean Machine” on 88.9 (?) back when it was a heavy metal station. I really liked that song in high school.
Then a couple years later when Sugar Ray got famous the sound was so far and away different I thought it was a different band with the same name (although to be fair Mean Machine was an outlier, even on the first album).
Don’t part ways just yet. Bear with me: If, either by design or by default, the Browns are starting a complete overhaul rebuild, why draft a stud QB that will just be the next Tim Couch, through no fault of his own? Why not draft the best guys that you can to build up the team so that you know your QB, when you get him, will survive?
Not saying you’re wrong. it could go either way. At the end of the day, if they take one of those guys, I won’t be too disappointed (I’m a Wentz guy – shh, don’t tell Bode); but I’d love to see a bona fide champion taken to fill another position first, particularly as we’re looking at a pretty dismal 2016 season.
You believe the egg came first, but I sir… I am all about the chicken. You can’t pass up an opportunity to get a stud QB at the top of the draft. The Browns may go a reasonably terrible 4-12 or 5-11 next season and be too low in the draft to grab the top QB(s). I don’t like leaving it to chance… I want the QB and then you build up that offensive line around him as quickly as possible. The Browns will (theoretically) still have Joe Thomas and Joel Bitonio keeping his blind side clean. I don’t think the offensive line will be any way comparable to that of the expansion Browns… especially if they pick up Wisniewski at center, he’s actually rated as a better pass-blocker than Alex Mack. Let’s go get Wentz and get this train rolling!
I think we just disagree on what’s the chicken and what’s the egg. I still say history, as far back as 1999, demonstrates that the QB is an egg. A very fragile, delicate, easily scrambled egg.
But, tomato, yadda yadda. We’re both right. The Browns are doomed.
hi GARRY … i’d look at what some of the teams have done recently : the raiders building around derek carr & the jags building around blake bortles … i guess you can go about it both ways.
I really like what the Raiders have done. I’m not sure that it fits with the Browns, but I do like it.
i actually wanted mack & carr in 2014 & the raiders ended-up with both of them & they are both the main reason in their resurgence.
Especially now that they are apparently in the mix to obtain Colin Kaepernick. Who was the last great QB who was made available in free agency at 28 years old???
you are absolutely right on getting the BPA’s & we have many holes to fill … especially after yesterday. but you just know Hue wants a good QB to run his show & i think that will trump everything else.
did i just say “Trump” ?? … *smile*
Welcome to the dark side.
At least he’s younger than a guy that we once drafted!
no way, it’s perfect and seriously Tom Cruise’s best performance ever.
Goff is year 1 Troy Aikman for Cowboys. We might go 1-15, but the Hershey Walker trade is right around the corner.
I hear Vikings paid so much cuz Walker was like getting 5 players in one
I scoff at your disregard of Goff.
Oh! There you are!
http://stream1.gifsoup.com/view4/20160106/5283147/oh-there-you-are-peter-o.gif
Rooooooooooooooo-Beeeeeeeeeee-Ooooooooohhhhhhhhhhhh
Rubio? I took you for a Cruz man.