Now you attack my franchise?! There is no franchise to attack.

Living in Cleveland means root, root, rooting for the home team. Even if the home team is on a embarrassing losing streak, like the Cleveland Browns football team has been experiencing, for the last ten years. Needless to say, loyal Browns fans are fed-up. When Coach Eric Mangini (who has only been on the dawg leash for a season) asked the fans what the team should do, I snidely commented, "Uh, I think they want you to win, Coach. Duh. Maybe get a better mascot than a dog or a brownie elf. Either that or go home where you will be promptly egged." Fans are talking about boycotting the games. Oh and the general manager was fired this week. There is something rotten in the State of Cleveland and for once it's not the Cuyahoga River.

A dawg



The Brownie not to be confused with a Girl Scout

Attending a Browns game was on my "Becoming a Clevelander" to-do list. I had never been to an NFL game and was anxious to see one even if it was for a lousy team. When David learned that the Browns were scheduled to play the Green Bay Packers he was first in line to buy tickets because he is a Green Bay fan. Why David is a Green Bay Packers fan is a very good question. We are not from Wisconsin and we have never been to Wisconsin. We didn't even grow up eating Wisconsin cheese. We ate California cheese. Maybe it's that lovable rascal Brett Favre, their former QB. Maybe it's their current QB, Aaron Rodgers, a California Native (northern, but I guess we can let that slide) and a former Cal State Berkeley QB but David didn't attend Cal. I have no explanation for David being a Cheesehead. So-Cal natives are weird about following NFL teams. Even with three teams in California it's perfectly acceptable to follow a team from across the country. Is it difficult to establish NFL fan bases in California because it's so big? Is basketball more important? Are Californians more preoccupied with paparazzi shots of celebrities shopping in Beverly Hills and hitting cars with umbrellas than professional sports? Maybe all the fair California weather breeds fair weather fans. In Ohio the weather sucks and the sports teams suck, but what else can you do?


Aaron Rodgers (right) tries to throw a ball at Brett Favre (left) in an effort to knock Brett down and get out from underneath Brett's shadow. photo courtesy of the NFL. Please don't sue me, Commish.

Cleveland takes football and drinking very seriously and when you combine the two you get tailgating. Tailgating is an integral part of the Cleveland Browns experience. All the food and alcohol numb the pain of a loss. We were going to the game with a few of David's co-workers and there was talk of tailgating. When this news got back to me I immediately went into panic mode. We aren't Mid-westerners and don't know how to tailgate. Don't you need a truck to tailgate? Can you even tailgate out of a Kia Optima? Tailgating requires organization. Someone has to bring a grill and all the wives bust out Crock-Pots. Someone brings utensils, drinks, chairs with built-in cup holders. I told David if we were going to tailgate we were going to do it right. I had visions of our half-assed tailgate party getting laughed out of the Municipal Lot, which locals call the Muni Lot, the mecca of Browns Tailgating. I had nightmares of standing in the cold for six hours before kickoff with nothing but cold hot dogs and warm beer. Furthermore, David says, "We aren't Browns Fans." Then why were we going to spend the day fraternizing with them? Much to my delight Failgate didn't happen and I slept in the morning of the game.

Cleveland Browns Stadium is a newer, uncovered stadium, located Downtown, on the shore of Lake Erie. (Fun Fact: The old stadium was demolished and pieces were dumped into the lake thus creating an artificial reef.) The stadium is notoriously cold and the fans notoriously colder to visiting opposition. I started to hear horror stories of unruly, beer throwing fans harassing visitors and their own. I was told as long as we weren't Pittsburgh fans we would be relatively safe. I debated attending the game fearing for our safety. I thought about smuggling in pepper spray. Finally, I pushed my fear aside and we decided to dress as a neutral football fans (no Packers beanie or sweatshirt for David). This posed a problem when I dressed for the game. Every time I reached for a jacket it was green. I struggled to strike a balance between staying warm and staying alive by looking generic. I figured it wasn't going to be really cold. After all, it was an afternoon game in October not a night game in December. I skipped the gloves, parka and blanket. I was having a major wardrobe meltdown and the plan to look neutral was deteriorating. I considered sending David to the store for a Browns jersey to speed up the whole dressing process. He refused saying we were never going to attend another Browns game and he wasn't going to waste money. Really, I just saw an excuse to expand my wardrobe.

We were pleasantly surprised when we arrived and saw just as many Cheeseheads (literally, they had the foam cheese on their heads) filing into the stadium with the Browns fans. It seemed David would have been in good company but this was our first game and I felt better getting a feel for the situation rather than running head first into a freight train, like the Browns did. The Packers smacked the Browns and as the gap between the scores widened the Packers fans grew louder and the Browns fans grew sullen leaving in droves after each bad play. By the third quarter the Dawg Pound was silent and the Packers fans were the only fans heard. I politely clapped the entire game when the Browns did something right and did so until the painful last quarter. David grew bold, bolstered by nearby Packers fans, and he cheered along with them. At this point he turned and told me, "It's okay you can stop pretending to be a Browns fan now." I paused and considered this but I'm not a Packers fan either. At that point I realized I was just a football fan.

Being a football fan and not following a team means I don't care who is playing. As long as those players are running into each other in full gear at top speed I am happy. If I can hear the sickening crash and thud of contact as players tackle each other, even better. I like to hear quarterbacks scream audibles. I believe in standing up for the kickoff and screaming CHARGE! I think old pictures of Joe Namath sitting on the sidelines in a fur coat are hilarious. I like knowing what the penalty flag on the field is for even before the ref calls it. Does loving those things make me a bad fan because I have no loyalty to a team? If loving all of that football minutiae is wrong, well then, I guess I don't want to be right.