CLEVELAND, Ohio– The Indians won a ballgame Thursday night, but their postseason dreams ended.
CLEVELAND, Ohio- The Browns lost a heartbreaker on Sunday, but their postseason dreams were over before they began.
CLEVELAND, Ohio- The Cavs started workouts this week, but their season is probably over before it even started.
Why are all teams done, you ask?
September 2: The Day Every Cleveland Team’s Dreams Ended Before They Began.
So let’s start there, September 2nd. It was a nice Friday before Labor Day Weekend. Carlos Carrasco was on the mound for the Indians and he threw 7.1 innings of shutout ball vs. the Marlins. Little did we know that Carlos would be making one of his last starts of the year.
September 2nd was the day before the Browns would be cutting down their roster to 53 players.
September 2nd was the day it was announced on the Internet that Khloe Kardashian and our beloved NBA champion power forward Tristan Thompson were dating. Nothing good would come of this.
See, the Kardashians are kind of like Lupus. One minute you think you’re healthy and everything is going great. You’re happy. You’re loving life. Then BOOM, the next minute you can’t get out of bed, your leg has swollen up like a balloon, and your immune system is attacking your body from within.
And that’s the Kardashians. They sneak up on you like Lupus. No symptoms, no warning signs, nothing. Within a few days or weeks your immune system or your team could be totally fucked. It doesn’t matter how dominant your starting rotation was supposed to be in the playoffs, or how good your stud rookies were looking (even if the team as a whole is a pile of shit), once the Kardashians reach your team and city, it’s a wrap.
Let’s take a look at the numbers. Since Khloe and Tristan were first rumored to be an item, the Indians lost 40% of their starting rotation and their starting catcher. The Browns lost a quarterback. Then another quarterback. And a center. And their rookie starting defensive end. And their rookie first round wide receiver who was coming off of a 5 catch 104 yards and 2 TD game.
Carrasco
Salazar
Gomes
Griffin III
McCown
Erving
Nassib
Coleman
EIGHT starting players in like 2 weeks. That’s absurd.
This isn’t a coincidence, guys. If any Cavalier tweaks something in the preseason I’m writing to our local congressman and starting a Change.org petition to put an end to this relationship. I’m not having THAT family be the reason the Cavs don’t repeat as champions. Hopefully it’s not too late but it probably is.
Lupus has infected our city and we are so, so screwed.
How can a professional sports team suck so bad for so long without showing any signs of progress or competency?
I’ll tell you how.
Quarterbacks that have red hair.
It all started 12 years ago….
2004
After a 5-11 2003 campaign, it was clear the Browns needed a change under center. Tim Couch was cut, Luke McCown was drafted and the man that would surely lead Cleveland to Super Bowl XXXVIII was signed via free agency – 34 year old Jeff Garcia. 4 years, $25 million for at least two, probably 3, maybe 4 rings? No-brainer.
After a week 1 win against the Ravens, the Championship Train’s next stop was Texas, to square off against the Dallas Cowboys. Garcia would complete 8 of 27 passes to the Browns, 3 passes to the Cowboys and record a passer rating of 0.
Like putting your name on a standardized test, I’m pretty sure you get a passer rating of 1 when you put your shoulder pads on.
Garcia would be cut 5 months later.
2011
It took another 6 years but it was finally looking like the Browns had found their quarterback. After Jake Delhomme was released and Seneca Wallace stayed being Seneca Wallace, the decision was made to finally give 2010 3rd round pick Colt McCoy the reigns at QB heading into the 2011 season. After an inspiring 2-6 record as a rookie starter the previous year, McCoy’s emergence freed the Browns front office up to pass on quarterbacks in the draft in order to select talent such as Phil Taylor, Jabaal Sheard and Greg Little. The Cincinnati Bengals would select TCU signal-caller Andy Dalton with the 35th overall pick in the 2nd round. His hair color is red.
WEEK 1 – Bengals 27 Browns 17 Dalton wins his first NFL start vs Browns – 10/15, 81 yards 1 TD. He would leave the game with an injury but would go on to play the following week.
WEEK 12 – Bengals 23 Browns 20 A professional performance from Dalton – 21/31, 270 yards and a touchdown.
2012
DRAFT – The Browns selected quarterback Brandon Weeden 22nd overall, who had already failed at one professional sport and was 28 years old at the time we drafted him. Also, red hair.
Quarterbacks taken after Weeden: Brock Osweiler, Russell Wilson, Nick Foles, Kirk Cousins. None with red hair.
WEEK 2 – Bengals 34 Browns 27 Dalton went toe to toe with Weeden and won, something that doesn’t happen often (it has happened in 19 of 25 career Weeden starts.) He would finish 24/31 with 318 yards and 3 TDs (Weeden 26/37 322 yards 2 TD.)
WEEK 6 – Browns 34 Bengals 24 Running back Trent Richardson, the Browns 3rd overall pick in the 2012 draft, got hurt in this one, so we had a bit of an unfair advantage. Browns 11 game losing streak snapped, but Dalton still 31/46 for 381 yards and 3 TD.
2013
WEEK 4 – Browns 17 Bengals 6 Dalton 23/42 for 206 yards in Brian Hoyer’s first start in Cleveland (due to Weeden injury.) He never stood a chance, we weren’t losing this one.
WEEK 11 – Bengals 41 Browns 20
Coach Chud looked like this at his post game presser:
Dalton was 13/27 for 93 yards and 3 TDs.
2014
WEEK 10 – Browns 24 Bengals 3 More Hoyer magic in a Thursday night prime-timer. The Browns are legally obligated to disappoint us, so they had to take this one to go to 6-3 on the year and set us up for soul-crushing depression later. Our first road division win since 2008.
WEEK 14 – Bengals 30 Browns 0 Aaaaand back down to Earth we go. Dalton was barely even needed (14/24 117 yds), Johnny Manziel arguably played football in his first career start.
WEEK 13 – Bengals 37 Browns 3 – Dalton 14/19 220 yards 2 TDs, rushing TD vs Austin Davis (230 yards, 1 completion to Bengals.)
In his career vs the Browns, Dalton is 7-3 with 1920 passing yards and 16 touchdowns.
Weeden was 5-15 with 23 touchdowns, 26 interceptions and got snuck up on by an American flag the size of a football field once (that we know of) in his 2 seasons in Cleveland.
2016
DRAFT – The Browns had the 2nd overall pick and Josh McCown as a starting quarterback, but didn’t like Carson Wentz out of North Dakota State. Paul DePodesta, new Browns chief strategy officer, said you don’t take a player that early “if you don’t believe he’s one of those top 20 guys.” We opted instead to trade the 2nd overall pick to Philadelphia, outbid everybody (nobody) to sign Robert Griffin III as a free agent and take quarterback Cody Kessler at the end of the third round.
PRESEASON WEEK 1 –
WEEK 1 – Eagles 29 Browns 10
Wentz (not top 20 guy) – 22/37 278 yards 2 touchdowns in his first professional game and start, after taking just 38 snaps in the preseason.
Griffin – 12/26 190 yards 1 INT and 1 sprained shoulder.
Kessler – inactive.
So what now? We’ve already reversed one Cleveland curse this year, how do we take care of this one?
Well let’s see. Garcia in 2004 (even year, free agent) was a bust. Dalton in 2011 (odd year, draft pick, FBS school) has been good. Weeden in 2012 (even year, draft pick, FBS school) sucked. Wentz in 2016 (even year, draft pick, FCS school), the jury is still out on/he’s going to Canton.
It seems that, if you want to acquire a good, red-headed quarterback from an FBS school, an odd-numbered year and the NFL Draft is the way to do it.
Browns fans…
Cooper Rush, motherf***ers.
2012 Central Michigan Offensive Scout Team Player of the Year.
2013 Academic All-MAC team.
2014 Division I CoSIDA Academic All-America Second Team, Academic All-District First Team, Academic All-MAC and MAC Distinguished Scholar-Athlete.
2015 Second team All-MAC, Academic All-MAC, MAC Distinguished Scholar Athlete, team captain, Herb Deromedi Most Valuable Player Award.
Run that resume through your damned analytics.
While the Browns were getting set on fire by the Eagles, what was Cooper up to this weekend? Oh, just beating #22 Oklahoma State with his freaking rocket launching right arm.
And peep his highlight tape from junior year of high school:
Top 20 guy if I’ve ever seen one.
Walter Football has Rush somewhere outside of their Top 20 QB prospects for 2017. I know this because he’s not on their list and their list stops at 20. CBS has him as the 7th best QB and a 4th round projection. Not the highest profile prospect out there, I’ll admit that.
But if there’s one thing the new Browns regime has taught me, it’s that they still stink.
The ESPYS. ESPN’s fake awards show dedicated to sports during the most boring sports week of all year. I’ll be watching. You’ll be watching. We’ll all be begrudgingly watching. There’s not really any hot topics like last year’s show (Caitlyn Jenner) but hopefully something cool happens. I can just picture Steph and Klay being handed some arbitrary award and BAH GOD here comes LeBron in a suit leaping from the crowd and giving Steph one of his patented chasedown blocks as the presenter hands Steph an award. The trophy shatters into a thousand pieces. Klay Thompson leaves the stage without shaking anybody’s hand and then Bron gives everyone this look:
But anyways.
We wanted to add a little flavor and came up with our own Cleveland themed ESPYs
The… CLESPYs? (sorry)
Best Athlete (Besides LeBron)
Mike: Kyrie Irving
Kyrie droped 41 on the road in an elimination game and then in game 7 he hit the franchise’s/city’s/state’s biggest shot ever. He did things during this playoff run that almost made me break my DVR because I rewound my TV so much. He missed a good chunk of the season but is still my pick for best athlete (besides LeBron)
Austin: Francisco Lindor
Kyrie is the easy pick, and he’s certainly deserving. My take is, basically you have a very good point guard who missed 35% of his team’s regular season versus a guy who has been one of the best shortstops in all of baseball from the second he was called up to the big leagues a year ago. Definitely understand taking the guy who hit the biggest shot in Cleveland sports history, but I think there’s a solid argument for Lindor there.
Best Championship Performance The LeBron James Award
Mike: LeBron obviously
Austin: LeBron
Best Breakthrough Athlete
Mike: Stipe Miocic
From being relatively unknown by the general public to winning the UFC Heavyweight championship in Brazil and being the first car in Cleveland’s championship parade. I’d say it was a pretty good year for Stipe.
Austin: Gary Barnidge
Gary Barnidge was a tight end who had 44 receptions and 38 total tackles in his NFL career heading into 2015. 79 catches, 1,043 yards and a Pro Bowl selection later, he’s one of the lone bright spots on the Browns and my Best Breakthrough Athlete.
Best Record Setting Performance
Austin: Indians 14 game winning streak
You play. To win. The game.
They won more consecutive games than any team in the history of the franchise.
No further questions, Your Honor.
Mike: When the Cavs buried and NBA record 25 three pointers vs the Atlanta Hawks.
Is doing something that only 32 teams in the history of professional basketball have tried to do, and something that exactly 0 teams in the history of professional basketball have succeeded in doing, good?
Mike: Cavs over Warriors
This is the obvious pick. I tried my hardest to think of something else but couldn’t. Stipe Miocic knocking out Fabricio Werdum in Brazil to win the heavyweight title is a worthy runner up so here’s a video of that:
The drought-ender after the initial drought-ender that led to the ultimate drought-ender. We’re from Cleveland, people. Beggars can’t be choosers. A ‘ship is a ‘ship is a ‘ship. And this one was won on a last-second game-winner in overtime.
Mike: Browns Monday Night Football vs the Ravens
Nationally televised game. The Browns are lining up for a last second field goal to win the game. The snap is down, the kick is up-
HOLY SHIT. This was just an unreal way to lose a football game. It also gave us this:
I’m a Kevin Love apologist. With all the shit he went through during the Finals and all the criticism he faced, he stepped up in the biggest moment. 1 on 1 vs the back to back unanimous MVP with a city’s championship dreams on the line. A lot of people will probably forget about this routine defensive assignment in the long run, but this play will stick with me forever.
Austin: The Block
When your city wins its first major sports championship in 52 years, that team is a good bet to dominate a list of awards like this just like they dominated the Golden State Warriors in the NBA Finals ahthankyou. Although I’m not sure it would have mattered if this play was Game 7 of the finals or a January scrimmage against the Nets.
But we tend to (never) go above and beyond here at Bottlegate. So for fun, here’s my non-Cavs pick: Francisco Lindor dive and flip to Jose Ramirez
Best Moment
Austin: LeBron after the final buzzer of Game 7
That was about as close as it gets to seeing the actual weight of the Planet Earth lifted off of someone’s shoulders. It was pretty cool to watch when I got home from reacting the exact same way with thousands and thousands of friends in the streets of Downtown Cleveland.
Don’t look now, but seemingly one of the most popular scapegoats of Indians fans over the past couple years is putting together a monster year. Santana’s 20 first-half home runs are already more than his club-leading 19 from 2015 (the first Indians player to hit 20 before the All-Star break in 7 years). He’s also second on the team in RBI (49), OPS (.848) and third in runs (52). The RBI are even more impressive seeing as most of his at-bats have come from the lead-off spot. And oh yeah, his batting average is 18 points, OBP is 8 points, slugging percentage is 31 points, wOBA is 13 points and wRC+ is 10 points higher in the second half during his career.
He’s not underrated at all but I felt there was too much Cavs and Indians love in this blog post so I needed to recognize the best player on our dear football team.
Bottlegate 