“While thinking about what it would take for me to get back into supporting an NFL team, I came up with this idea. I want to be a Cleveland Browns fan.”
Even before the NFL pushed millions of fans into boycotting its games, merchandise, and advertisers this season, how many times have you have heard someone say they prefer college football as opposed to the pros? I’ve been hearing it for years. They’re the same people who prefer that NBA and NHL players stay out of the Olympic Games or favor the grittiness of a slugfest between two amateur boxers fighting for pride over a tactical and risk-minimizing professional bout with a seven-figure prize on the line. As the NFL is finding out through double-digit ratings slides, there’s millions of us out there—and many of us are finding something else to do on Sundays and Monday nights.
The sentiment of this type of fan hinges on many things, but there are two main prongs. The first one is relatability. Football has arguably been America’s favorite pastime for half a century now. In that time, entire generations of fans have grown up on the game, playing in youth recreation leagues, on high school and college teams, in intramural leagues with flag belts instead of shoulder pads, and on semi-pro teams all over the country. Many fans see the game as an extension of themselves, a nod paying homage to a better time in their lives when they sustained injuries, made sacrifices, and probably got in the best shape of their lives to work with a team of other men like themselves in search of gridiron glory.
Even if they’ve never played on an organized team, what fan hasn’t engaged in countless sandlot tackle or friendly two hand touch games while counting, “one Mississippi, two Mississippi, three Mississippi” before rushing the quarterback? Football ranges from being a simple kids’ game to an outlet where a band of brothers can come together to achieve something far greater than themselves by working as one. For a time, football was synonymous with America—but the relatability factor is all but gone in today’s NFL.
The biggest stars consistently put self over team by holding out for as long as it takes so they can be the new “highest paid player in the league” at their position. The average fan could never dream of getting away with this. Domestic violence, drug arrests, DUIs, and other crimes are committed, but players are usually able to get back on the field in short order with the help of public relations spin doctors. Again, the average fan can’t relate.
Even if they’ve never played on an organized team, what fan hasn’t engaged in countless sandlot tackle or friendly two hand touch games while counting, “one Mississippi, two Mississippi, three Mississippi” before rushing the quarterback?
Don’t even get me started on players sitting on the bench laughing it up as their team is down 35-7 in the fourth quarter. These guys know they’ll be rolling up to the club in their Bentley to pop bottles with groupies after the game regardless of whether they win or lose. To the average fan, this cavalier attitude in the face of a bad day’s work can be utterly perplexing.
If there weren’t already enough obstacles in the way of fans connecting with the game and its players, we’ve seen the politicking on behalf of the players bring things to a tipping point. This also brings me to my second point.
The other main prong of the NFL’s downfall for fans like me was the moment they decided to bow down at the altar of social justice. Before all this police- and America-bashing we’re seeing today, the social justice movement first infected the NFL when it made its expansion into the female market. While I can’t blame the businessmen behind the decision to make inroads into a demographic of over 50% of the US population, they achieved a short-term boon at the expense of selling their souls.
Once, everything about the league was geared toward a demographic of mainly working- to middle-class men—but then the marketing became tailor-made to appeal to women. Male fans became grossly taken for granted. This meant fewer ads for Wrangler jeans and more ads for pink rhinestone encrusted Tony Romo jerseys, fewer ads inspiring young boys to grow up into strong men and more ads inspiring boys to be more like girls. It meant less football—traditionally a celebration of masculinity—and more gender-inclusive fluff in the form of conciliatory handouts to those of the XX chromosome in the form of an overnight army of female Xs and Os analysts, game casters, and sideline reporters who had never played football before.
If I’m sexist for preferring a seasoned expert to call the game I spent 12 years of my life playing over a woman who never played, then so be it, but anyone can talk about how they read that a 3-4 defense is better against the run than a 4-3. I want the guy who lived it to explain it. It’s funny, though. By the true double standards of social justice, a man claiming to be an expert in a woman’s pastime such as cosmetics would either be ridiculed for “mansplaining” or he’d have to be gay to be accepted—just another quirky social justice loophole.
Truth be told, I miss the days when football was something the men watched in the basement while the women stayed upstairs, drank wine, and had their own fun. I’m not saying this applies 100% of the time. My mom loved football, and growing up on Sundays watching the New York Giants play wouldn’t have been the same without her. Of course it’s okay for women to love football, but I really just miss the days when most women didn’t get it and didn’t care to—those days before the NFL began to change the inherently masculine nature of football culture to appeal to them.
Many fans have been willing to put up with the NFL in recent years, even as the game became less recognizable to what it once was and the players less relatable than they once were. Watching games with friends on Sundays and Monday nights is an escape from reality for most, but the infusion of personal identity politics by entitled and SJW indoctrinated players has proven to be too big a pill to swallow for so many of them.
Stop wasting money and stop drafting players with physical talent but no redeemable qualities to their character. It’s a zero-sum game
While thinking about what it would take for me to get back into supporting an NFL team, I came up with this idea. I want to be a Cleveland Browns fan. I’m aware that no one else outside of Cleveland has ever said this before, but bear with me. The Browns are the 4th most unpopular team in the league according to this metric. Hell, their record is 20 wins and 63 losses over the past 6 seasons, and half their team either hates the police, won’t stand for the national anthem, or both. The Browns are more fitting for a big poop emoji as the logo on their helmets than any other team in the history of the sport, and it’s not only because of the team name. Yet despite all this, it’s because they’re so bad, so dysfunctional, and so unworthy of saving that I picked them.
Starting with the 2018-2019 season, I believe the Browns could become the darlings of the NFL and the American people by making a few radical changes. Sure, the suicidal NFL would have to step off the ledge it’s standing on and allow it to happen, but let’s dream big.
First, fire every player on the team who has gotten arrested, sat/kneeled for the anthem, bashes the police, can’t string together a decipherable sentence on social media, or makes over a million annually. They can play for one of those other teams. The small fanbase you do have is used to losing, and they’re still faithful. Stop wasting money and stop drafting players with physical talent but no redeemable qualities to their character. It’s a zero-sum game.
Next, your maximum annual salary per player is now a cool million. Opt out of the draft and build your new team with undrafted free agents no one else picked up. People love college football because these kids are pouring their hearts and souls into every game in order to make it. Everything they’ve ever worked for is to prove themselves worthy of making it to the big show. That’s America, baby. If your second-chance team loses every game, is it really any worse than last season’s 1-15 season? You haven’t had a 10-win season since 2007; you’ll be fine.
Your new team policy on personal expression of politics and protest on the field is now zero-tolerance, just as it is for most employers. We can all relate to that. Politics has no place on the football field. In this area, your franchise will be a winner.
A smart and courageous owner could implement this plan with great success and collect money hand over fist as the underdog Browns—a team not all that different than the American people who pay to see them play—become America’s team. I’d love to see the day.
