CLEVELAND — Right about the time the Browns’ charter flight was pointed east for Philadelphia over the weekend, Lane Thomas had his own ready-to-launch moment.
One city, two franchises. Two far different trajectories.
Cleveland’s fan base remains cursed with twisted love affairs. The Browns consume 90 percent of the oxygen here despite being the toxic partner that takes and takes and takes and never really loves them back. The Guardians have been perpetually stuck in the friend zone, the ones who are called to dry the tears and mop the floors after the storm.
Here we are again. Six games into the NFL season, the Browns are tied for the worst record in football and sprinting toward the No. 1 pick in the draft, a magnificent display of incompetence. At the same time, the Guardians will face the New York Yankees in the American League Championship Series.
THE ENERGY IN CLEVELAND‼️
The Guardians are going back to the ALCS for the first time since 2016 🔥 pic.twitter.com/CnSq2Rv5Ru
— SportsCenter (@SportsCenter) October 12, 2024
Thomas, Matthew Boyd and Alex Cobb were the Guardians’ big moves around the trade deadline — an anonymous outfielder and two injured pitchers. On a scale of splash moves, they were sand grains tossed in at high tide. The Guardians gave up little for all three, yet all of them contributed to advancing to the ALCS. None more than Thomas, whose Game 5 grand slam in the Division Series is already part of Cleveland lore.
The Browns are one of the league’s highest-spending teams year over year and all it gets them is heartburn and indigestion. They are cap ninjas, thanks in large part to the Haslam family’s liquidity and willingness to pay large signing bonuses up front on reworked contracts. It creates endless opportunities to open new cap crevices, only to fill them with flammable objects.
This week marks 12 years since the Haslams bought the team. They have one playoff victory.
“A season that has left Browns fans dreaming, ‘What could have been…'” pic.twitter.com/5bnBalulMX
— FOX Sports: NFL (@NFLonFOX) October 13, 2024
The Guardians’ payroll routinely ranks in the bottom third in baseball and often among the bottom five teams. The lack of spending can be maddening and is easily the biggest complaint against the franchise. Yet here they are again, postseason participants for the seventh time in the last 12 years. They are four wins from their second World Series under Paul Dolan.
The Haslams and Dolans represent north and south in team building. They couldn’t be more opposite. The way the Guardians construct the franchise is why I have maintained for years they have the best ownership group in town despite the lack of spending. They hire really smart people and, more importantly, get out of the way and let them lead.
The Haslams love hiring smart people, too. Yet it never produces the same results.
Mark Shapiro, for years in charge of the Guardians, graduated from Princeton. Mike Chernoff, the Guardians’ general manager, is also a Princeton grad. Team president Chris Antonetti, while not Ivy League educated, graduated magna cum laude from Georgetown.
Yet Guardians executives are never belittled and derided with the same Ivy League jokes that chase Browns leaders like Paul DePodesta, Andrew Berry and Kevin Stefanski because the Guardians win and the Browns lose.
Hiring smart people is usually a good idea. It’s the empowering them and culture setting the Browns have never figured out.
This NFL season has become a reckoning for this city and its fans. The trade for Deshaun Watson broke a number of the Browns’ most loyal followers. I’ve heard from many who couldn’t stomach watching an alleged sexual predator lead their franchise after so many accusations and lawsuits. Those who remained held their nose through his 11-game suspension in 2022, hopeful for better results last year. When last year came and went with little production and a season-ending shoulder injury, the hope was pushed forward with a little more aggravation and annoyance.
Now the hope is gone. Any belief in Watson regaining the form that made him worth blowing up their franchise to pursue is long gone. Watson is unequivocally the worst starting quarterback in the NFL playing on the worst contract in league history.
I wrote after the Browns acquired Watson that this would be the defining moment of the Haslam family ownership. He would either absolve them of 10 years of mistakes or serve as their tombstone as NFL owners.
It took less than three years for the answer. The only question left is what font looks best on limestone.
Browns fans are in various stages of grief. A dwindling few, though not many, remain in denial. The vast majority have moved on to anger and bargaining, while those who were out in front of all of this are deep into depression and acceptance.
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The Guardians will provide a welcome distraction for at least another week and perhaps longer. A smart franchise that hires the right people and lets them lead. They don’t get every decision correct, but they have far more hits than misses.
The Browns haven’t led in a game yet during the month of October. They’ve outscored the Guardians, 29-19 this month, although the Guardians have the opportunity to play five more games before Sunday and could catch them by the time the Browns kick off at home against Cincinnati.
The Browns have been on the road the last three weeks. The place will look a bit different when they return. Those who show will be ready to boo when they light the grills in the Muni Lot. The tears are dried and the floors have been mopped.
Maybe this time, they should change the locks, too.
(Photo: Nick Cammett / Getty Images)
