“I can’t get no satisfaction,” the Rolling Stones once sang, and, as a professional football fan living just outside Columbus, Ohio, I know what he means.
According to recent data, Columbus is just behind Fort Worth and San Francisco as the nation’s 14th-largest city. Yet, excluding the Columbus Panhandles (later the Columbus Tigers), which were in operation from 1901 to 1926, our state capital has no tradition of professional football — unless you count the “tradition” of native Columbusites choosing to align with one of three teams in nearby cities: the Cleveland Browns, Cincinnati Bengals, and Pittsburgh Steelers.
Actually, my pro football rootlessness goes deeper than even this. I was born in Columbus but spent most of my formative years in a suburb of New Orleans — which, believe it or not, was the football equivalent of the Phantom Zone in the Superman comics for a good chunk of the 1980s and ‘90s. The Saints enjoyed a few stirring seasons thanks to the leadership of quarterback Bobby Hebert, but lodged more firmly in my memory are the years of interminable play that followed. Let’s just say that the template for Drew Brees was not established by Hebert’s successors, among them Jim Everett and Billy Joe Hobert.
Upon returning home to Columbus, I had no preconception about whether to follow the Browns or Bengals, although the Steelers were out of the question: As bad as the in-state teams were, I, having already felt like a stranger in a strange land while following the Saints in New Orleans, didn’t want to further complicate matters by throwing in with another team located outside of my home state. Native Ohioan, former New Orleanian, Pittsburgh-ian at heart? Nuh-uh.
Eventually, I picked the Browns in the same way that I might have chosen a necktie at Brooks Brothers: with head more than heart. I was impressed with the team’s outward characteristics, including its status as the lone NFL club whose helmet bears no logo or graphic, and its inarguably rich history. The innovations of founding coach Paul Brown, not to mention the gridiron feats of superstars such as running back Jim Brown, quarterback Bernie Kosar, and tight end Ozzie Newsome, made for great reading. And I had plenty of time to read, since the current incarnation of the club was nothing special.
Even so, for about 15 years, I have more or less loyally watched the Browns. Early on, my hopes were not only sincere but reasonably well-founded: In 2007, coach Romeo Crennel and quarterback Derek Anderson marshaled a 10-6 record. There were some genuinely fun players during those days, including kick-returner Josh Cribb, receiver Joe Jurevicius, and place-kicker Phil Dawson. Even after Crennel was given the heave-ho, his successor, Eric Mangini, so successfully emulated the manner of his mentor, Patriots coach Bill Belichick, that I was temporarily blinded to the fairly pitiful results attained during his two-season stint: 5-11 records in both 2009 and 2010.
I date my increased interest in the behind-the-scenes escapades of the Browns (and my simultaneously decreased investment in the on-field exploits of the team itself) to 2012, when Jimmy Haslam, head honcho of the truck stop chain Pilot Flying J, emerged as the new owner. Can you blame me? Among the quarterbacks to have tossed occasional touchdowns for the Browns in the last decade are the likes of Brandon Weeden, Johnny Manziel, and Josh McCown. If the on-field action tended to be predictable, the shakeups after each season were anything but.
A truck stop magnate at the helm was bound to be different, and Haslam did not disappoint. I came to look forward not to the annual Browns-Steelers matchups but to the almost-annual press conferences in which Haslam reflected on assorted hirings and firings, which occurred with predictable regularity. Two Haslam-hired coaches, Rob Chudzinski in 2013 and Freddie Kitchens in 2019, were given the boot after only 16 games. On the other hand, the comical futility of coach Hue Jackson’s tenure — during which the team won 3 games, lost 36, and managed a tie once — was itself something to behold.
I expected to be ecstatic when Kitchens was (of course) shown the door in late December, but Haslam’s selection of his successor, former Vikings offensive coordinator Kevin Stefanski, proved a bridge too far. To my surprise, I realized that I actually cared enough about the team to be annoyed at such a bland pick, especially when more inspiring candidates, including Patriots offensive coordinator Josh McDaniels or Chiefs offensive coordinator Eric Bieniemy, were up for consideration. I needed more than entertaining badness to keep watching.
Years earlier, I had rejected the Bengals because, while they were just as bad as the Browns, they seemed flashier than their traditionalist cousins on Lake Erie. Now, I have started to reconsider. After all, Paul Brown’s son, Mike Brown, owns the Bengals. A Dartmouth graduate, Mike comes in for a lot of criticism, but he gives the team a unique Ivy League pedigree; earlier in his NFL journey, ex-Harvard quarterback Ryan Fitzpatrick made a stop here. Any team with a player as brilliant as receiver A.J. Green can’t be all bad, right? Fox News host Bill Hemmer is a Bengals fan, and he seems like a good guy, too. There are worse reasons to follow a team, aren’t there?
At least I can say that I am not trading the Browns for the Bengals out of a desire to hitch my wagon to a winner. Why do the Bengals have a chance to grab Heisman Trophy-winning LSU quarterback Joe Burrow in the draft? Their record last season, of course: 2-14.
Peter Tonguette writes for many publications, including the Wall Street Journal, National Review, and Humanities.
