Why should I still be an Indians fan?

Manny Acta, scapegoat for the
2012 Cleveland Indians.
Photo Courtesy of
Wikimedia Commons 

Seriously, why?

Where should my motivation come from to continue to support this team?

The 90s? A period of time I barely remember because I've only been living for 21 years.

The promise of Jason Kipnis and...who else on this current roster?

Certainly not Justin Masterson—not after he's going to finish the year with an ERA hovering around 5.00. Not Chris Perez either—if they almost designated him for assignment after he criticized the Dolans for not spending money in August, you can bet your fanny they'll trade him this offseason. Not Asdrubal Cabrera either—he can't stay healthy through a second half.

Vinnie Pestano perhaps? Sure let's get behind a guy who's an unproven closer.

Or maybe Carlos Santana? He can sure hit a garbage time home run.

Ah, I know—Sandy Alomar. Of course, the Indians current interm manager (who'll probably lose that "interm" tag sooner than later) will keep my fandom because this season's historic collapse was all Manny Acta's fault. That's it.

Give me a freaking break.

I don't know that I've ever been so mad at a Cleveland sports team in my life. It's not that I thought Acta should keep his job—I certainly didn't. Any team that goes through a month with a record of 5-24 deserves to have its leader canned. No doubt Acta knew this, and was prepared for it.

But what I don't understand—and what I'll perhaps never understand—is how General Manager Chris Antonetti is going to keep his job. His horrendous offseason last winter cost the Indians a chance to contend this year. And his poor talent evaluation has cost the Indians mightily in both the CC Sabathia and Cliff Lee trades.

It doesn't matter how many people were clamoring for Matt LaPorta. He's been a nothing short of a collosal failure, and that blame has to lie somewhere.

Oh, and by the way, not that it directly falls on him, but the team can't draft players either. Or sign them in Asia and Latin America for that matter.

Antonetti said it himself in today's press conference, "We all share in the responsibility of how things turned out this year—myself, the players, Manny and the coaches."

But when it comes down to it, who put together this roster that lost 24 games in August and has lost 91 so far with six games left to go?

I wrote about this in August, and it's more apparent to me today than ever before—the Dolans care far more about loyalty than results.

I'm not going to sit here and write that they don't care about winning. I believe that they do. But facts are facts. This regime of Mark Shapiro and Antonetti have combined for two playoff appearances since 2001. We can make it sound worse and say one playoff appearance in the last 10 years. And yes, I know the '05 team could've made the playoffs this year with this weak division, but the bottom line is it didn't happen. That team flamed out in the last week of the season instead of winning the Wild Card.

92.3 The Fan's Daryl Ruiter pointed this out today and I think it's the strongest argument I have for just giving up on this team.

With Shapiro & Antonetti in charge, #Indians are 849-927 (.478);2 winning seasons over that span. 0 since 2007; Yep Acta was the problem

— Daryl Ruiter (@RuiterWrongFAN) September 27, 2012

By keeping Shapiro & Antonetti, ownership is telling an already angry fan base that .478 baseball is OK w/ them

— Daryl Ruiter (@RuiterWrongFAN) September 27, 2012

A winning percentage under .500. No winning seasons since the year the team probably should've won the world series. What am I suposed to hang on to?

And I don't want to hear, "Well, the Royals and the Pirates haven't had a winning season in 20 years!" Does Cleveland look like Kansas City or Pukesburgh? Are we supposed to lower our standards just because someone else isn't good?

Neither of those places are my city. I don't follow those teams. I don't care about their standards for winning, or not winning. And if you think I'm going to sit here and be complacent after this team fires its manager for losing 90+ games in a year during the, "Window of Contention" then you're out of your mind.

Where are the Indians going? What's the plan? Rince, ring out, repeat? Is the front office really going to try to put together another team with shoe strings and gum and then tell me it's going to contend?

Really?

I've written it before, but apparently I've got to write it again:

Blow it up.

Everything.

Perez, Masterson, Asdrubal, Joe Smith—anyone with any kind of value should be traded this winter. The cupbords are bare. There are literally no prospects in the upper echelons of the minors. The best you can hope for with the team as its currently built is .500. And I feel the need to emphasize this, that's at best.

If the Indians front office honestly thinks the team can reload or retool with some free agents, a new manager (if you honestly think Terry Francona is going to come here, you're lost), and maybe a trade, all its members need to take a look in the mirror and ask themselves, how?

I understand wanting to keep this front office together, but at some point, results have to start to matter more to the Dolans. Winning has to start being the #1 priority.

And until that happens, I just don't know if there's any reason for me to be an Indians fan.

~MAS

Start Me Up: Browns @ Bengals

Let's hope Brandon Weeden will have a better
rating than 5.1 today.

Sunday, Sunday, Sunday—the second Browns Sunday in the 2012 season.

Straight up, I'm having a very hard time finding positive reasons that the Browns will win this one.

Let me explain. Obviously, the Browns offense still isn't very good. Brandon Weeden is a rookie, and he's going to need some time to adjust to the NFL. I think the game speed overwhelmed him last week—something that isn't entirely unexpected since he only played five quarters in the preseason. Trent Richardson also played too much last week, as even head coach Pat Shurmur admitted he played probably 10-12 more snaps than he was prepared for. But irrespective of the snaps, you can't convince me Richardson should've had 19 carries after not taking a live snap since the National Championship Game in January.

Okay, yes I do expect Richardson to be better this week after getting his feet wet against the Eagles, but who knows what to expect from Weeden? Even if he stinks again, they have to keep him in there. He's a first round pick. If you think he should be taken out in favor of McCoy, you're lost.

I have more confidence in the other side of the ball, but not much. Joe Haden's immaturity got the best of him and now the Browns won't have him for four pretty key games. The other starting cornerback, Sheldon Brown, is reportedly going to play, but won't be at 100 percent after sustaining a shoulder injury last week. With an elite caliber receiver in AJ Green on the Bengals offense, how will Dimitri Patterson, Buster Skrine, and 2012 7th round pick Trevin Wade do against the pass?

Also, lost in the shuffle last week was that the Browns allowed 110 yards on 20 carries to LeSean McCoy. That's 5.5 yards a carry. Why Andy Reid had Michael Vick throw the ball 56 times when he had a running game that effective will always be a mystery to me, but the Browns are going to have to do a better job against the run if they want to win today. Despite getting demolished by Baltimore last week, Bengals RB Benjarvus Green-Ellis rushed the ball 18 times for 91 yards—that's 5.1 yards a carry.

I'm not really a betting man, but if I were I'd put money on the Bengals pounding the run today with the Law Firm and trying to play ball control offense.

But despite all of that negativity surrounding the Browns this week, let's think about what we know about the Bengals. They always have these flash-in-the-pan years, and then go back down to earth. It's happened plenty of times before—they won the AFC North in 2005, then went 8-8 in 2006. Then they won the division again in 2009, and went 4-12 in 2010. They really weren't even competitive against Baltimore on Monday night, and with the short week who knows how they'll look today?

So what's going to happen in this game? Honestly, I have no clue. I think it'll once again be a low scoring affair, with Dick Jauron once again doing a bang up job with the "Bend but don't break" defense. I think both teams will try to establish a solid running game early and often. And I think the Browns will probably struggle trying to cover AJ Green.

But without further ado...

The Prediction: Bengals 20 - Browns 17

It'll be close, the Browns will once again be winning in the fourth quarter because the defense has kept the team in the game, but a tired D will once again lead to a heart breaking loss.

Can you really see this one playing out any other way?

Well, no matter what happens, I'll see you after.
~MAS

The Final Word: Only in Cleveland

It would've been more surprising had they actually held on to win the game.

That's what I thought to myself as I sat watching the Eagles offense take a knee after Brandon Weeden threw his fourth interception of the day to seal a 17-16 victory.

Ah yes, Weeden's fourth interception.

Wow.

This morning, I prepared myself to sit down and write a post defending the 28-year-old quarterback if his debut didn't exactly go well. But now...

I mean, the numbers speak for themselves. Shield your children's eyes: 12/35 for 118 yards. 3.4 yards per completion. Four interceptions. And—the kicker—a horrific 5.1 quarterback rating.

Now we can all talk about how bad Weeden was, how Colt McCoy is better and should be playing, and to be honest, I really can't make an argument to counter that other than let's give Weeden a few more games. But to me, the bigger concern was the Browns startling lack of a running game.

I wrote in the Start Me Up today that Trent Richardson really is the key to all the Browns offensive hopes and dreams, and if you look at his numbers from today you can easily see why the good guys lost.

Richardson carried the ball 19 times for just 39 yards. His longest run was just nine yards, and it came on the play to the right were he truck sticked an Eagles defender into next week.

Obviously 2.1 yards per carry is not ever going to get the job done. And on a team that traded up to draft Richardson 3rd overall, 39 yards on 19 carries in an entire game is simply unacceptable.

To be honest, however, I really wasn't expecting Richardson to get the ball so much. I'm not sure why Pat Shurmur didn't spell him a little bit with Brandon Jackson for some carries. Yes, Jackson did make a key catch for a first down, but Richardson hadn't taken a handoff in a live game since the National Championship Game in January when he was still playing for Alabama. You can't tell me he was prepared to go 19 carries in his first NFL action.

That being said, the Browns were embarrassing on short yardage run situations. Yes, Philly loaded up the box constantly when it was 2nd or 3rd and 1, but with a RB like Richardson, you must get to the point where you know, I know, the defense knows—everybody in the NFL knows he's going to get the ball on 3rd and short and he makes it anyway. That's what a dominant running game looks like.

That's what the Browns need to strive for.

I'll kill Shurmur for many things over the course of this season, but I can't be too mad about not going for 2 after D'Qwell Jackson's pick-six. After the touchdown, there was 13:59 left to go in the game. That's a whole lot of time. And honestly, the way the Browns offense was going, was there really a realistic chance that they'd make it? At least because they kicked the extra point, two field goals would've just tied the game, instead of winning it.

Not that it really matters.

In the end, we're stuck with yet another gut wrenching loss. I long for the days when we'll be happy after games like this instead of stuck feeling the same old way game after game, week after week, year after freaking year.

Until next week...
~MAS

Start Me Up: 2012 Cleveland Browns Season

If you ask me, the Browns season hopes are tied
to how well this guy can run the ball.

The return of Start Me Up posts can only mean one thing...

The Browns are back, baby!

This 2012 season is obviously going to be a big one for four men: Jimmy Haslam, Mike Holmgren, Tom Heckert, and Pat Shurmur.

As someone who just bought a franchise for a billion dollas, Haslam has earned the right to do whatever he wants with the Browns. And based on everything I've learned about him in the last month or so, I think he's going to do what it takes to win football games here in Cleveland. Not only is he an extreme lover of football, he's a shrewd businessman. The Browns will be a hobby for him. It's not that owning an NFL franchise won't make him richer, but it also won't be his only source of income.

That's the way I want an owner to operate.

Still, though, this season could—and probably should—be defining for Holmgren, Heckert, and Shurmur's careers in Cleveland. Holmgren is already expected to be packing his bags for Seattle as former Philadelphia Eagles President Joe Banner is presumably going to fill that same role in Cleveland once the sale is finally approved in October.

But for Heckert and Shurmur, things could be different. If the team plays well and shows that what they've begun building over the last few years is making tangible progress, I believe there's a very good chance that both could stay. I can't give a number for wins on that, but if they go 6-10, I think there's more than a reasonable argument that progress has been made.

If they go 1-15 as some "experts" have been predicting...well, let's not even go down that road.

When you think about it, though, the keys to the season pretty much rest in the hands of the supremely young Browns offense.

Obviously the Browns hope Trent Richardson and Brandon Weeden can become stable backfield fixtures in Cleveland for the foreseeable future, but if the season goes south only one of those guys realistically has a chance to be here when a new regime takes over. And his name isn't Brandon Weeden.

To me, if Richardson is healthy and productive, the Browns will have a realistic shot at winning each and every game they play. Yes, I know the NFL has little by little shifted into a passing league, but a running back with speed, power, and agility still has a place in the league—just ask the Texans. I'm not going to pretend it's all about the running back—since I firmly believe Houston lost to the Ravens in the divisional round last year because they were playing their third quarterback in TJ Yates—but if you have a top-notch running game and can control the ball and the clock, you will have a chance to win.

Plus, now opposing defenses have at least one guy that they must gameplan to stop. You literally could not say that about one Browns offensive player last year. As weeks go on, we might even prove to have two or three guys like that—Greg Little has reportedly made some strides, and Josh Gordon is just a supreme physical talent. Hell, maybe even Weeden will progress enough to scare some defenses as well.

For now, we all have to hope that Holmgren's bold prediction that the team will take a "big jump" this year holds true. Will it? I'm not sure. There are just so many unknowns on this team. The lack of depth at the linebacker position scares me—and it should scare you too. At some point, Joe Haden might be out for four games, and that would be terrible. And losing Phil Taylor for half the season at one of the DT spots certainly isn't that good either...

But when it comes down to it, who cares? It's football season yet again, and as of this writing the Browns are undefeated!

And because this is a Start Me Up post, of course we have some predictions to make...

The Season Prediction: 5-11, Fourth Place, AFC North.

I just don't see how the Browns are going to win more than five games with their schedule. I want to be wrong—meaning I want them to win more games—but there are just too many question marks. Like I said, if Richardson is healthy and productive, the Browns will have the ability to be in every game. It's just going to be a matter of making sure those games turn into Ws, and I'm just not sure they have the ability to do it.

And now for today...

The Prediction: Eagles 28 - Browns 17

Okay, here's a bold prediction—the Browns will come out and score a touchdown on their first drive of the season. Trent Richardson will surprise us all and come out looking like a man on a mission, allowing the Browns to run the ball down Philly's throat while Weeden comes up with some big time throws. And then the Eagles will remember that they're playing a worthy opponent, and all the wind will be sucked out of the Browns sails. But I really don't think it's going to be as bad as it looked like it could be in that preseason game just a couple of weeks ago.

For all of you loyal blog followers out there, unfortunately there won't be any halftime blurb today as I've got too many meetings to go to, so I probably won't even see most of the game. But at some point, I'll do what I can to see what I can and there will be a Final Word. So all three of you, don't you worry about a thing.

Enjoy the day, Browns fans!
~MAS

How I'll Remember Art Modell

I’m not going to cheer for Art Modell’s death.

But I’m also not going to pretend like it should be a sad day in Cleveland.

I’ve heard a whole lot in the last 24 hours about how great of a guy Modell was, and how much he loved to laugh, and how he did so much for the game of the NFL, and the city of Cleveland. And I just don’t care.

Yes, he was a human being, and he has died. And I wish his family nothing but peace.

But I can’t sit here and act like every Browns fan should be mourning Modell’s death.

Conversely, I can’t begrudge any Baltimore Ravens fan or any member of that organization for mourning him either. That city and fan base had their team ripped from them as well when the Colts moved to Indianapolis. Modell gave them football again, and did it with a great, stable, storied franchise. With all that, of course they should celebrate his life.

But that doesn’t mean I have to. 

Multiple times Wednesday night, I saw tweets that said “Art Modell was the last one to win a Championship in Cleveland in 1964.”

That means absolutely nothing to me. I wasn’t even a thought in the back of my mother’s mind in 1964, let alone alive to see the city celebrate the win. Hell, I don’t even remember the Browns ever winning a playoff game and I was alive in 1994—yet hardly cognizant of what was going on.  

As far as I’m concerned, Modell stole Cleveland’s football team for no good reason. He took it away from us. He took our franchise, one with a rich winning history, and moved it to Baltimore.

And then he won a Super Bowl.

Modell said that in the end, he had “no choice” but to move the team. I simply don’t see how that’s true.

He could have sold it.

But as former Browns GM Earnie Accorsi said on 92.3 The Fan today with Bull & Fox, Modell “wasn’t going to sell it” because the team was “the love of his life.”

To me, anyone that says the situation “was more complicated than portrayed” is choosing to ignore the fact that the Browns could have been sold. I’ve heard plenty of times that Modell was broke and needed the money. If he loved Cleveland as much as he claimed to, he would’ve sold the team and to someone who would have kept our storied franchise where it belonged. 

Yes, I know we still technically have all those records and colors and whatever else here in Cleveland, but as far as I’m concerned, the Ravens are the old Browns. All our tradition, stability, and everything else we loved about that franchise is in Baltimore. It starts with their front office, as Ozzie Newsome is their General Manager.

Ozzie Newsome is a Cleveland Browns Hall of Fame Tight End. He’s on the Cleveland Browns Stadium Ring of Honor. There’s no good reason he should be the GM of the freaking Baltimore Ravens. The principle of the matter drives me up the wall every time I think about it.

I recently watched this video on YouTube of the NBC telecast of the last Browns game in Cleveland in 1996. To me, that was the day the franchise died. And at the time, even color analyst Mike Ditka said, “If Modell had any sort of sense of dignity, he would have sold the team.”

You know why? Cleveland supported that team through thick and thin. I’m not going to claim I remember Municipal Stadium because I don’t, but I’ve heard enough people say that it was a s— hole, but it was our s— hole. And, from what I understand (do correct me if I’m wrong on this), the city had voted to build a new stadium for Modell and the Browns. With all that, I don’t think I’ll ever understand why Modell chose to move the team instead of just sell it.

And for everyone who says that Modell is such a great guy who was misunderstood, that’s all well and good. But don’t expect me to feel sympathy for someone who was so selfish he claimed he had “no choice” but to move the team just so he could keep his precious NFL franchise. I won’t do it.   

Again, don’t get me wrong—I’m not saying that we should celebrate Modell’s death. That’s both inhumane and absurd. As 92.3 The Fan’s Ken Carman tweeted, “Modell was a poor sports owner. Not a terrorist, child molester, murder. Death is a part of life, and there’s no way I’d cheer for it.”

Carman’s right. It’s not something to celebrate.

But Clevelanders, that doesn’t mean we should ever forget what that man did to our city, our franchise, and us. We went three years without football in a town that lives for it. We love our Browns with a passion that is unmatched by most other fan bases in the NFL. And to take that away, and leave us with what has been a pathetic excuse for an NFL franchise…

To me, at the very least that’s unforgettable. And for many, it’s probably unforgiveable.

So I’ll leave you with this. I know I’m going to remember Art Modell for the villain he was. I don’t care what good he did for the NFL. I don’t care that he was the last owner to win a Championship in Cleveland.

I never lived through any of that.

My only impression of him is the bastard that took the Browns away.

And no matter what anyone might say to try and convince me, I’ll never, ever forget that.