a priori/a posteriori

Saturday, January 7, 2017

Fast-forwarding through Browns-Fan-Experience on a snowy Saturday (Dear Damen 2)

Okay I think I am learning a lot.


This was my first season as a proud Browns fan.  Which, more importantly (it seems), means this is my first offseason as a Browns fan.


A big part of it, until this year, sounds like it was the offseason.  Being a Browns fan.


But that was an outsider's view.


Up until this past year, it's been during the season when it sucked to be a Browns fan.


Hmm.  I guess I just don't have the experience, to know one way or the other.  Maybe some years, it goes back and forth.  Between feeling like the offseason is the season, and the regular season is our offseason, filled with evaluating talent and trying to see if a coaching/general manager is "headed in the right direction."


But from what you texted, it sounds like "Browns fan-dom" has evolved.  Even this past year.  Maybe because of the Cavs title.


Do you think that changed the experience of being a Browns fan?  Like, until this year, the Browns represented a chance -- however slim -- of breaking the city out of its "we're not champions" mentality?


But now that the Cavs won, and all Cleveland fans woke up the next day, being a Browns fan is something completely different.


It's like if you had 3 kids, and they were all screw-ups.  And it pained you, because you felt like a failure, as a parent.  "It must be me," the parent thinks.


But now, one of your kids got its act together.  It's working 5 days a week.  It's paying more attention to life.  It works hard.  It has a role in society.


It's a champion.  You have one kid who's a hard-working kid, and some days, it's the best team in the world.


Now, how do you look at the other 2 kids?  You breathe a little sigh of relief, right?  You don't take their failures -- or oh-so-closes -- as personally as you used to.


Is that what it's like to be a Browns fan, now?  You kind of feel more separated from the losing, because you understand it's not about you?


Or am I way off?

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