Browns at Raiders: Week 4 Preview
September 29, 2018Dwayne Haskins, Ohio State comeback to beat Penn State, 27-26
September 30, 2018It had to be a late game. Not a repeat of last Thursday, when it would be the first course of the week’s football meal. Not Sunday or Monday night, when it would get full national coverage with all the trimmings. Nor in the early-afternoon slot, so we could dispense with the pleasantries and just get to it already. No, it had to be a 4:05 kickoff. We had to wait those extra three hours before we could savor Baker Mayfield’s first start.
There’s something poetic about that, I think. We’ve been hunting for a quarterback for some 20 years and 30 names, and now we have to wait that extra bit. It’s just a few hours, but it’ll seem like an eternity. We’re like Red from Shawshank, making our way down to Mexico: If you’ve come this far, maybe you’re willing to come a little further.
We’ve tried every type of guy in the search for a Browns quarterback. Young and old, tall and short, fast and slow, rookie and veteran. When none of those archetypes worked, we tried ordering off the menu, going for combinations like Old Slow Rookie (Brandon Weeden) and Short Fast Veteran (Seneca Wallace). No dice.
Now we got one, but circumstances have conspired to make us wait until the late afternoon to watch him work. We think we got one, anyway. There’s only so much you can tell from six drives and change. But everyone seems to agree that enough was seen to believe Baker Mayfield is legit. (That, frankly, feels like the scariest part of all.) The future is now, it seems. The next big thing is upon is.
The Browns having a real quarterback—knock on wood a million times—is a momentous occasion.
The Browns having a real quarterback—knock on wood a million times—is a momentous occasion.
The Browns having a real quarterback—knock on wood a million times—is a momentous occasion. It’s gotten me thinking. Pondering. Looking for meaning anywhere I can find it, anything that might offer some insight as to how to handle this whole thing, how to understand it.
I can’t claim to be well versed in the ways of English poet Philip Larkin, but I can claim to have recently flipped through a book of his. A poem called “Next, Please” caught my eye. It brought to mind the fevered anticipation, the everlasting combination of belief and impatience, that accompanies life as a Browns fan. It felt appropriate.
Always too eager for the future, we
Pick up bad habits of expectancy.
Something is always approaching; every day
Till then we say,
Watching from a bluff the tiny, clear,
Sparkling armada of promises draw near.
How slow they are! And how much time they waste,
Refusing to make haste!
Alas, we can’t get too excited too soon. It would be absurd to do so. We should really know better by now. If you had a run of 29 straight bad relationships, most of which petered out after one lame date, it would be right to think you’re nuts if you came home from a cup of coffee with No. 30 saying, this is the one! Sports-as-romance is a tired trope, but sometimes it’s too apt to ignore.
Yet still they leave us holding wretched stalks
Of disappointment, for, though nothing balks
Each big approach, leaning with brasswork prinked,
Each rope distinct,
Flagged, and the figurehead with golden tits
Arching our way, it never anchors; it’s
No sooner present than it turns to past.
Right to the last
Waiting is hard. It’s hard when you’re young and it’s supposed to build character, and it’s hard when you’re less young and you think you have it. Whether waiting in traffic, at the doctor’s office, or for pizza, waiting is humbling. It’s a reminder that, while it’s easy to focus only on that which affects you directly, there’s a whole lot of shit going on out there other than you. We’re specks on a rock, gang. Never forget it.
We think each one will heave to and unload
All good into our lives, all we are owed
For waiting so devoutly and so long.
But we are wrong:
Only one ship is seeking us, a black-
Sailed unfamiliar, towing at her back
A huge and birdless silence. In her wake
No waters breed or break.
Everybody has their own ideal of Baker’s First Start.
Everybody has their own ideal of Baker’s First Start.
This is an awfully dark line of thinking, I grant you, to having to wait a little longer than usual to watch a football game. I’m feeling impatient is all. I don’t want to wait one more second than is absolutely necessary. I want to see how Baker commands the huddle, manipulates the defense, controls the game, for a full 60 minutes. That early-Sunday slate is going to feel impossibly long. I feel very Veruca Salt about this whole Baker thing. I want the golden goose, and I want it now.
At the same time, I want to soak in everything leading up to that 4:05 kickoff in Oakland—because this, frankly, is the best part. The anticipation. The hope. The possibility. Watching all sorts of best-case scenarios play out in the theatre of the mind. That pesky thing called reality can’t tarnish that which hasn’t happened yet.
Whatever version of Sunday’s game would most titillate you, odds are you’ve already imagined it in some form. The specifics thereof, whether Mayfield throws for five TDs in a blowout or leads a game-winning drive in the dying moments, are immaterial. Everybody has their own ideal of Baker’s First Start. It’s deeply personal—if only skin-deep, this being a football game and all. Soon the real thing will be here, and all we can do is hope that it matches up to our vision.
Beginnings are exciting times. The first day of school is better than graduation.
At risk of jumping even further ahead: We won’t have to go through this kind of ordeal in Week 5. That will be Baker’s not-first start, and we’ll have a better sense of who he is and what he can do. The Browns will be back at home, battling those bastards from Baltimore. There’s a chance we’ll be celebrating an over-.500 record. (Go ahead and knock on that wood again.) It will be the first time Bakermania can overtake the Muni Lot in earnest.
And the best part? It’s a one o’clock kick.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hugY9CwhfzE