Cleveland Browns Fans: Let’s never forget that sweet winning high

The Cleveland Browns may have been dominated by the Houston Texans, but don’t forget about that winning feeling before the Week 13 game.

For two glorious weeks in 2018, Cleveland Browns fans got an extended taste of backing a winner. Between Week 11 and Week 13, the Dorsey-Williams-Kitchens-Baker Browns were on a two-game winning streak and the team still had a chance to make the playoffs.

Dawg Pounders, let’s never forget how sweet those 13 days felt.

Man, those two weeks of hope and confidence were a deep snort of Brazilian espresso compared to the 1-31 ether blast of the last two seasons.

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It must be how high Rams and Chiefs and Patriots fans feel all the time.

To put it in historical perspective, last time Browns fans felt a two-win-in-a-row high was back in 2014.

Jonesin’, buddy boi.

Leading the most recent winning streak was rookie quarterback Baker Mayfield, who admitted he was feeling “dangerous,” and then totally backed it up on the field. Much of the football world confused his confidence with cockiness, but their judgment mattered very little to Browns fans. Baker’s a winner, their winner, and for Browns fans used to losing, his wins gave them wings and he could do no wrong.

And then he did wrong.

Reality in the form of the Houston Texans showed up in Week 13 cracking skulls and embarrassing the Browns 2018 playoff hopes. Against a ‘real’ defense, Baker threw interceptions instead of touchdown passes and the Browns played like penalty-loving, tackle-hating losers instead of heading-to-the-post-season winners.

All of a sudden, season win-out dreams crashed as the Browns playoff hopes were eliminated and just as quickly as it appeared, confidence in the new Browns scurried away into the darkness.

Cue sound effects: Wah wah waaaaaaah.

Really, Browns fans?

Yeah, really. Predictably (and hilariously), some online reactions to Baker’s 3-pick first-half meltdown began to quickly reek of panic and desperation.

A few Baker-bandwagoners bailed, some actually called for Mayfield to be benched, while many took the ‘I told you so’ angle popular among hindsighters.

The professional talking heads did the same.

On his Fox Sports 1 show Undisputed, former NFL player and current Hall-of-Famer Shannon Sharpe couldn’t hold back his pleasure at seeing the ‘cocky’ Mayfield temporarily fail.

After the loss, renown chatter-piggy and Mayfield doubter Colin Cowherd  gleefully repeated on his show The Herd that he still doesn’t think Mayfield should have been the number one pick.

Really?

How quickly some football folks forget where the Browns were this time last season.

Winless. Hopeless. Baker-less.

Never forget how it felt to lose 31 out of 32 times. Never forget how it felt to not have faith in your quarterback, your team and its owners, your general manager, your head coach and offensive coordinator. Never forget how the losing low feels compared to that sweet winning high.

Skip Bayless gets it. On the same show that Sharpe was dogging Mayfield, Bayless, as he usually does, points out the rookie’s positives, this time against the Texans.

Bayless rates Mayfield’s Week 13 play a B+, pointing out his second half accomplishments, like completing his first ten passes for 219 yards and going 24-of-30 for 351 yards and a touchdown.

Bayless reminds Sharpe that that’s the most passing yards in any half for any NFL quarterback this season and contends that Mayfield’s “arm is getting stronger.”

To reinforce his point, Bayless rattles off the impressive yardage of some of Mayfield’s pass completions: 28 yards, 25, 24, 23, 22, 21, 19, 19, 19, 17.

Then Bayless reminds Sharpe that commentator and quarterback guru Bruce Arians was raving about Mayfield being “so deadly accurate on the run.”

Really.

Point is, the 2018 Cleveland Browns season was never about dominating the NFL and making the playoffs.

It’s about a young, rebuilding football team and their rookie franchise quarterback trying on their brand new winning shoes and taking a stroll around the store to see how they fit.

From this point forward, there will be more wins involved, maybe more rookie records broken and awards received, and it could even end up being a winning season for the Browns at 8-7-1.

But it ain’t about that.

It’s about the team evolving into winners. It’s about Browns fans beginning to believe that victory is always possible. It’s about expecting to feel more of that feeling every Browns fan felt between Week 11 and Week 13, when for a brief period we began backing a winner, an actual playoff contender.

Let’s never forget that feeling or settle for anything less.

Because the Browns are winners now, and Dorsey willing from this point forward, fans will be feeling a lot more of those winning highs and way less of those losing lows.

Really.