The Remote Report: Thinking About Cleveland Browns Trivia
By Kevin Nye
It’s the holiday season. That means two things: you’ve spent some time in the last two weeks avoiding a family member or friend who you didn’t really want to see, and the Browns have been eliminated from playoff contention. Granted, the latter usually happens closer to Thanksgiving, but it’s still notable as playoff time is just around the corner.
This Christmas featured a nice array of gifts from my parents, per usual. One of the interesting bits was a book of Cleveland sports trivia. Nice, right? I get to read up and relearn things that have been squashed in my brain by Katy Perry lyrics and other important things.
The kicker is that the book was published in 1995, so I’ve got a heck of a lot of brushing up to do.
But as I leafed through the pages of long-forgotten seasons and names, I came to an odd thought: Is there anything about this season, and I mean anything, that will be noteworthy enough to be in a Cleveland trivia book?
Think about it – what trivia question would come up that would involve this year’s team?
We can look back to even recent years when the Browns weren’t very good and scrounge up a trivia question like “What season saw the Browns win 10 games for the first time in over a decade but still miss the playoffs?” or something depressing like that, but there is almost nothing of note this season.
If you really want to dig for it, you start to find some things that can almost maybe be kind of positives…sort of.
“What Browns player was named to his fifth straight Pro Bowl?” Of course, we’re not making a big deal out of Joe Thomas because the rest of the line is giraffe-esque (really big and famously spotty…get it?).
If the rest of it were good, people would be saying “Joe Thomas, the anchor on the Browns’ solid offensive line, will be taking his annual spot on the AFC Pro Bowl roster – no surprise there.” But people don’t say that. Because they don’t care. Because there’s nothing notable about it if the team isn’t worthwhile.
Truly, the only other questions I can come up with would be something about Greg Little leading the team in receiving stats as a rookie and Jabaal Sheard having a bunch of sacks.
If you’ve been reading my articles, you know that I really do favor optimism and letting things work themselves out. I’m also a big believer in not getting worked up over things that I have no control over.
It’s just hard to constantly stay unfazed by what’s going on with the Browns. Everyone will be saying they need to scramble to draft Robert Griffin III because he just put up more insane numbers in the Alamo Bowl against a team that was definitely not the Baltimore Ravens or Pittsburgh Steelers.
Don’t get me wrong, the kid can play, but I don’t really care about what someone did in college. For every Peyton Manning and Matt Ryan, there’s a Tom Brady and Matt Schaub (not to mention a Vince Young or Joey Harrington). I mean, at this point in their careers, Matt Leinart (10th pick in ’06) is pretty much even with Bruce Gradkowski (194th pick in ’06).
My point is that the quarterback position is a complete crapshoot. It always has been and it always will be.
That was a bit of a digression, but I’m going to right the ship here. I’m going to try it again. I’ll look on the bright side: despite knowing that there will be clamoring for new quarterbacks, gripes about who should be drafted where and what picks the Browns should trade, and an overall sweeping-under-the-rug of this horrendous season, I’m painting a very thin silver lining.
At least the Browns aren’t trivia-worthy in futility this year. It sure hasn’t been pretty, but we’ve seen worse.
Go Browns.