Crash course for Johnny Football

Welcome to Cleveland! CleveWin! Believeland! We're so happy you're here and we expect great things from you.

You might have heard that Cleveland is on a bit of a roll. We'll be hosting the 2016 Republican National Convention (we would have preferred the Democrats, but hey, you take what you can get!). And LeBron came back, which of course, you know since you guys are buddies. Even the Indians are still in the wild card race. These days, it seems like everything is coming up Cleveland!

We like to think that the drafting of you will also one day fit into the pantheon of "Great Things that Happened to Cleveland in 2014." We are 100 percent sure you will be the quarterback that will finally get our beloved city's football team over the hump, and by hump, we're talking seven wins (it's a very, very small hump). Only two quarterbacks have done that since 1999 — Tim Couch (twice!) and Derek Anderson — and Couch is the only guy who's been able to get us to the playoffs. He did that once, in 2002, and didn't even get to play in that one wild card game (a loss to the Steelers) because he broke his leg in the regular-season finale.

Did we say "Welcome to Cleveland?"

There is one thing, though, that you need to know before you strap on that orange helmet as a Cleveland Browns starting quarterback (and trust us, you will be a starting quarterback at some point this season).

While we expect great things from you, we are also cognizant of the fact that this, well, might not work out. There. Had to say it. It's important to be upfront and honest when you're starting a new relationship, and that's what this is, isn't it? It's why we act all huffy whenever a new Instagram comes out of you rolling up a $20 bill, or partying with Drake or Justin Bieber or holding a stack of money to your ear and pretending it's a phone (really, that last one is just adorable).

That being said, we have very high hopes for you. We always have high hopes for our newly-drafted quarterbacks.

We're giving you a chance to woo us. We really do want you to succeed, probably more than you want to succeed. After all, if you don't, you've still got $6.7 million in guaranteed money. We've got, well, nothing. Just like the last 50 years. This season will be the 50th anniversary of the last time the Browns won the National Football League championship. The 50th anniversary of the last time any Cleveland sports team won a championship (and no, we're not counting the Cleveland Crunch championships in indoor soccer in the early 1990s).

Not that there's any pressure on you, bro. I mean, LeBron is back, so the Cavs will take the heat off of you for a while.

Before we get started, though, you need a crash course in being a Browns quarterback. And since I'm a professor, the good people of Believeland thought I should create a college-type class for you.

You took a few of those at Texas A&M, right? We heard they were mostly online, but there's nothing wrong with that. It's the way higher education is moving, and we're absolutely sure you did all your own work. And, since this is really just a letter published on a website, we guess you could say this is an online course as well. Maybe we could even make up a syllabus for you — that will work. There's history, both ancient and modern, that you'll need to know. There's also some social sciences (sociology and anthropology and maybe even a little psychology) mixed in. We'll call this an interdisciplinary class titled "Portrait of a Cleveland Browns Quarterback." You can even take it pass/fail. That way it won't hurt your GPA.

As for student learning outcomes, how about this?: By the end of our time here, you will demonstrate an understanding of everything you need to know to be a successful Cleveland Browns quarterback, mostly by avoiding what others have done in the past.

***

Ancient History: The Championship and the Almost Championship Years (1946-65, 1985-93)

Contrary to popular (and current) belief, the Cleveland Browns were once the franchise that all professional football organizations looked up to. They were coached by Paul Brown, perhaps the greatest coach and game innovator who ever lived.

Starting in 1946, the Browns won four consecutive All-America Football Conference championships. During that time, the team won 47 games and lost just four. Then they moved into the NFL in 1950 and promptly won another championship. The team then pulled an almost-Buffalo Bills and lost three straight championship games before rebounding and winning two more titles, in 1954 and 1955. Nine years later, they capped it with the Browns' eighth championship ring in 20 seasons.

Only two quarterbacks have won NFL championships for the Browns. Otto Graham won the first three (plus all four of the AAFC rings). Frank Ryan quarterbacked the team in 1964. While he was the starting quarterback for the Browns, Ryan was also pursuing a Ph.D. in mathematics at Rice University and teaching as an assistant professor in Cleveland. In fact, just one year after he led the Browns to their last championship, he finished his dissertation. It was titled "Characterization of the Set of Asymptotic Values of a Function Holomorphic in the Unit Disc."

Graham, on the other hand, is in the Pro Football Hall of Fame. He played for the Browns back when Paul Brown was the coach, but before Jim Brown was the running back. Graham was just about your size as a player. He stood 6'1 and weighed 196 pounds (throw that at the critics who say you're too small for the league!). The Browns, in his NFL career, were 57-13-1 with Graham as the starter. Talk about your stud!

Now, Johnny, we're actually going to take some liberties with what is considered ancient history (not that we haven't already!), to discuss the one quarterback you will be compared to most often. And no, it's not Graham and it's not Ryan (not with that Ph.D.!) or even Len Dawson, who was a backup for the Browns before going on to a Hall of Fame career with the Chiefs.

It's also not Brian Sipe, who was drafted in the 13th round of the 1972 NFL Draft and went on to be named the league's Most Valuable Player in 1980 when he threw for more than 4,100 yards and 30 touchdowns. He led the Browns to their first playoff appearance in seven years that season. Of course, Sipe is mostly known in Cleveland for a play called "Red Right 88." It happened in those same playoffs, against the Raiders.

Picture this: The Browns, down 14-12 with less than a minute to play. They have the ball on the Raiders' 13-yard line. They could kick a field goal and win the game, but it's cold and windy so they go for the touchdown. And if you know anything at all about Cleveland football, Johnny, it's that the throw into the end zone was intercepted and the Browns lost.

So no, you won't be compared to Brian Sipe (we hope).

No. You will be compared to Bernie Kosar. Number. 19. The Man.

Here's what you also need to know about Kosar: He was barely a .500 quarterback in his career with the Browns (53-51-1). And yet he is beloved! To a fault! Why?

Kosar took the city to three AFC Championship games and nearly won two of them, in the 1980s. That's really all there is to it.

Bernie is so beloved in Cleveland, he had several defenders in the online comments section after a drunken driving charge was bargained down to reckless operation. Those charges stemmed from his being pulled over for speeding in a construction zone and the officer smelling alcohol on his breath.

In fact, these are the types of comments that showed up in the thread related to The Plain Dealer's story about his conviction. People like NoCommentToday talking about how awesome his restaurant is!

We were pissed, too, when he was fired from the broadcast booth earlier this year (Same week as his conviction, actually. That was a really bad week for Bernie). Bernie only called preseason games, but the local NBC affiliate still replaced him with Solomon Wilcots. Even though we couldn't understand a single word Bernie said on the broadcasts (either because he was drunk or suffering the effects of 273 sacks plus other countless hits), we felt like we knew what he was trying to say, mainly because he is one of us. He gets "us."

Bernie's not in the Pro Football Hall of Fame, but if they built a HOF for Cleveland athletes, he would be enshrined in the first class solely for almost taking the Browns to Super Bowls they would have been crushed in.

What does that tell you about this city, Johnny? In fact, this can be your first assignment. Write a 1,000-word response paper tackling this question: Why is a man who never got the Browns to the Super Bowl, a man who only won a little more than half his games as a starter, so beloved in the city of Cleveland? Does it have to do with his working-class roots, coming from a Youngstown family in which his father was a steel worker? Is it because he broke his leg once and kept playing? Is it because he gamed the NFL's supplemental draft system specifically so the Browns could draft him out of Miami? Is it because of the fact that, even though he wasn't the most athletically-gifted quarterback, he found ways to take the Browns to places they hadn't been in a very long time? Is it because he made things happen? Did he have intangibles like you Johnny? Is it because he was unceremoniously dumped by Bill Belichick in 1993 in favor of Vinny Testaverde, and we at that point had come to hate Belichick?

Once you pass this unit, we can move on to our next section of the course.

MODERN HISTORY: The New Browns (1999-Present), aka The Lost Years or The Dark Ages

Welcome to the second part of our crash course, Johnny. First things first ... this part of the class needs to have a trigger warning. A trigger warning is a disclaimer that alerts readers, or in your case a student, that we're venturing into potentially traumatic subject matters. So, FYI ... be prepared. This is not going to be pretty.

This is an important era. These are the Browns you have been anointed to save. The New Browns (the old ones are currently playing in Baltimore as the Ravens, but I'm sure you knew that. Wait. You knew that, right?) have now drafted eight quarterbacks (including yourself) dating back to 1999. Four of you were picked in the first round (three of you were picked with the 22nd pick in the draft!!!). Two of your brethren were chosen in the third round, one in the fourth and one in the sixth.

Now, history is important Johnny, because if you don't know it, you'll be doomed to repeat it. But these seven quarterbacks did not have a great go of it in Cleveland. I know you've said you're eager to compete with Brian Hoyer for the starting job, and that's all well and good, but we're here to tell you right now that even if you lose that competition, you will end up starting a significant number of games. In fact, the only quarterback the Browns have drafted in the last 15 years who didn't get a start in his rookie season was Brady Quinn, and he was named the starter at the beginning of his second season, so it's just a matter of time.

Pretty much all you have to do, Johnny, for this part of the course, is study this average trajectory for a Cleveland Browns-drafted quarterback, post-1999. Study it. Learn it. Because you will most likely live it.

Trajectory

You will come into camp as the clear-cut backup quarterback based on the fact that Brian Hoyer played three good games last year before being hurt and being lost for the season, three games the Browns won after starting 0-2.

Hoyer will struggle. It might not be in the first game or the second game, but he will struggle, and by about the sixth or seventh game, the headlines will shift from "Manziel needs to watch and learn" to "Start Johnny Football: What have we got to lose?"

It's important to consider Charlie Frye here. In 2005, Frye, a rookie from Akron and third-round draft pick, won the backup job in training camp, beating out Doug Johnson. This meant he would be able to stand on the sidelines and learn from Trent Dilfer. In one month, the headlines in The Plain Dealer went from "(Romeo) Crennel in no hurry to get Frey seasoned" (just an aside ... do you get that joke, Johnny? I'm sure the headline writers will come up with some word-play based on your name, too) to "Change could happen: Offensive starters under scrutiny, including Dilfer." That was from September to October. One week after that latter headline came this one: "As offense is grilled, is it time for Frye?" Then, by December, it was "Dilfer limping, so heat turns up on Frye" (all the cooking word play!).

Fans wanted Frye, too, by December:

"He definitely showed the intangibles people have been talking about with his pocket presence and ability to make something out of nothing," said stevenmiller.mac@mac.com in The Plain Dealer.

"I cannot understand why Crennel will not name Frye the starter for the rest of the season. Frye proved that he could succeed with his ‘moxie' despite playing behind an average offensive line (due to injuries) against a great defense," said KrizanskyJP@yahoo.com.

"It's definitely time for the Charlie Frye Era," said Rcummings675@aol.com.

The Charlie Frye Era! How long until we're talking the "Johnny Manziel Era?" Actually, this would make a great online discussion topic, OK Johnny?

Eventually, Hoyer will have a game in which he will be so horribly bad that head coach Mike Pettine will give in and say he's going to try and get you some playing time. That will morph into your being named the starter, all within the span of two to five days.

If you're lucky, as in Colt McCoy lucky, you'll have a couple decent games. McCoy's first start came against the Steelers in October 2010. The Browns lost 28-10, but the headline the next day was "Lose a game, but gain a QB: Rookie McCoy wins respect in his first start." That's because he completed 23 passes in 33 attempts for 281 yards and one touchdown. He also threw two interceptions. The next week, McCoy led the Browns on the road against the defending Super Bowl champion New Orleans Saints, and beat them 30-17. Of course, McCoy threw for just 74 yards, but hey, the Browns won!

That's a lucky start. For an example of an unlucky start, let's look at Spergon Wynn. He came to Cleveland by way of Southwest Texas State University, picked in the sixth round of the 2000 Draft.

Wynn had what was at times described by newspaper reporters as a "cannon" or "bionic" arm. He was compared to John Elway. He threw the ball 81 yards in the air at the NFL Draft Combine, which explains how a guy who completed less than 50 percent of his passes at a Division I-AA school his senior year could be picked in the sixth round, ahead of Tom Brady.

Wynn started exactly one game before getting hurt. It would be his only NFL start. It came against the Jacksonville Jaguars, and, well, the numbers tell you all you need to know. The Browns lost 48-0, and Wynn completed 5 of 16 passes for 17 yards, or 64 yards less than that one pass he threw at the Combine. He was sacked five times for minus-35 yards. He literally went backwards for an entire game.

So you will start, and maybe you'll be lucky and after a couple games, the headlines will gush. They'll say you're the "real deal." They'll say you're going to "save the franchise," that you're "the quarterback of the future." The stories will say it doesn't really matter how tall you are, or that your arm isn't strong enough. It doesn't matter that you refuse to watch game film or would rather party than learn the playbook, because you've got intangibles, and that's really what all these other quarterbacks clearly lacked.

But you'll get sacked. A lot. You won't have your best receiver because he'll either be in drug rehab or prison. And you'll find out that Ben Tate isn't really the answer to a solid running game in the NFL. So it doesn't matter how good the offensive line is. You'll spend a lot of time on your back. Which will make you start throwing really stupid and dangerous passes. Some of them will be picked off and returned for touchdowns. The Browns will lose, three, four, maybe five straight games. You'll start complaining about the play-calling. You'll say your receivers run bad routes. You'll say something about Josh Gordon. You'll say you need a running back. You'll say a lot that you will be forced to apologize for. You'll apologize for hanging out with Bieber. In the final week of the season, you'll get crushed by a linebacker from the Ravens (remember them? The Old Browns), and that will, mercifully, call an end to your season.

Your Browns will win somewhere between four and six games. Pettine won't commit to you as the starter for 2015. After all, Hoyer probably signed a contract extension before the previous season started. Five years. FIVE YEARS! And Hoyer probably rallied the Browns to a come-from-behind victory against the Ravens after you were injured.

Maybe you'll start some in 2015. Maybe you'll win a few. Maybe you'll even beat the Steelers. I mean, Tim Couch did (more on him in a moment!). Three times.

In exactly two and a half years, you'll be traded to another team for a sixth-round pick. It will most definitely be a sixth-round pick. That is what a Browns first or third-round pick is worth two years later. You will have ultimately started about 19 (Bernie Kosar's number!) games for the Browns. You will have won six and lost 13. You will have thrown more interceptions than touchdowns. Your quarterback rating will be in the 50s. The following season, you'll be a backup somewhere, maybe in Dallas or Green Bay or Washington or Minnesota. Who knows? Nobody will really care, because by then, the Browns will have drafted some kid who, right this very second, is sitting in a high school classroom, anxiously waiting for Friday night, so he can lead his team to victory. This kid will have spent two or three years in college playing football, racking up passing yardage and touchdowns and maybe even a Heisman. He will be the savior of the football franchise, and so the cycle will continue.

But enough with this depressing talk. We told you at the start this section could be traumatic. Now it's time for your assignment.

Write a 1,000-word paper on why the Cleveland Browns seemingly continue to make the same mistakes over and over and over again with rookie quarterbacks. Consider the career of Tim Couch (case study included below) as a blueprint for how the Browns have handled their rookie quarterbacks, and try to ascertain how eight different head coaches, six general managers and two ownership groups all followed the same blueprint, despite the fact it has never worked.

Once you complete this assignment, you may move on to the next section of the course.

Sociology/Anthropology: Cleveland Browns Fandom, aka People Who Piss on Art Modell's Grave, aka You Will Be Booed

"Like Charlie Brown with Lucy's football. I keep coming back for more."

"Cold. Very Cold."

"To live your life vicariously through the failures of others."

"It's like pouring lemon juice on a paper cut — every day of your life."

This, Johnny, is your fan base, describing what it's like to be a Browns fan on Facebook. It's time you get to know them a bit, because they are a unique bunch.

Do you remember the last time the Browns won a league championship? Right. It was 50 years ago. In the 1960s, Cleveland was the eighth-largest city in the United States with a population of more than 876,000 people. Today, Cleveland's population is 396,815, making it the 45th largest city in the country. It's not even the biggest city in the state anymore, behind Columbus (you know, the other city in Ohio with a professional football team, aka The Ohio State Buckeyes). By the way, we're ignoring the Cincinnati Bengals. We have, actually, ever since Sam Wyche took that swipe at us in 1989, when he admonished Bengals fans to stop throwing things on the field, saying "You don't live in Cleveland!" The nerve!

You might say the entire Northeast Ohio region has had a rough several decades, spanning all the way back to the 1970s, not just with our sports teams, but with life in general. The manufacturing jobs left and for the most part, they're not coming back. The region has had to change, but through that change, we have clung not to guns and religion, but to the one true thing we love: our sports teams, especially the Browns.

This love may seem irrational given how the team has played, especially since 1999, but that is sort of what makes Cleveland fans so great. They are eternally optimistic even when confronted with overwhelming evidence that their optimism is foolish.

You will be booed by these people, Johnny. That is as certain as the fact that you will start this season. You may also be cheered after getting injured. You'll probably have beer dumped on you at some point, too.

But Johnny, here's the thing; if you succeed, you will be loved. You will be more loved here than anywhere else you could ever play, even in Texas. You have every opportunity to be a God in Cleveland.

One thing you will also notice is that Browns fans have developed a wonderful sense of humor. It most likely evolved over the last 15 years as a way to deal with the weekly tragedies the fans witnessed every Sunday.

But you should meet some of these fans. Let's start with Tim Brokaw, co-owner of the Cleveland ad agency Brokaw. Brokaw has a jersey that he keeps on Shelly the Mannequin in his downtown offices, which are within site of Browns Stadium, wait, sorry, FirstEnergy Stadium. It's a Tim Couch jersey (although we realize, Johnny, that you will probably argue that a No. 2 jersey is in fact a Johnny Football jersey) that was purchased in 1999. On the back of that jersey are 21 names, including yours. All of them, except for you, have started a game as a Browns quarterback since 1999.

It's a sad, sad list. Spergon Wynn and Doug Pederson and Luke McCown and Ken Dorsey and Jeff Garcia and, well, it just goes on and on and on. Brokaw made the jersey in 2007 after Charlie Frye was traded after a season-opening loss to the Steelers. He was traded for a sixth-round pick (see?) to the Seahawks, opening the door for Derek Anderson to start. The Browns won a barnburner of a game against the Bengals that week with Anderson as the starter, and the Browns went on to a 10-6 season (alas, no playoffs). It seemed like the jersey was lucky, until the next year when Anderson came back to real life and was benched in favor of Brady Quinn, who, one day, would also be traded for ... that's right, Johnny, you learn fast! A sixth-round pick.

"I wore it in the Dawg Pound for that game," Brokaw says of the Bengals game, "and people were taking my picture everywhere, even of me in the restroom. Now, after each quarterback change, people email the agency asking us to update it. It's gained a life of it's own. Now it's to the point where, when there's a quarterback change, the news stations are lining up outside the office. It's a buzz machine, but I'd rather burn it and retire it."

Now for Scott O'Brien. He's a Browns fan and Cleveland native who is living in Los Angeles. He used Kickstarter to create a coloring book. Seriously. He raised $24,000 from 820 backers to make the coloring book, "Why Is Daddy Sad On Sunday: A coloring book depicting the most disappointing moments in Cleveland Sports."

The book has colorless pictures of John Elway's drive (that knocked out Kosar's Browns in the AFC Championship) and Earnest Byner's fumble (that knocked Kosar's Browns out of the AFC Championship). There is Art Modell moving the Browns to Baltimore and the infamous "Red Right 88." There's even one page that looks like the "Brady Bunch" screen, and inside each of the boxes is a picture of a quarterback who has started for the Browns since 1999. Of course, the guy on the cover of the book is sad and wearing a Kosar jersey.

O'Brien is optimistic, though. He's using Kickstarter again to make a new coloring book. It will be called "Why Is Daddy Happy On Sunday?" It depicts the greatest moments in Cleveland sports history. Maybe, just maybe, Johnny, you can one day forge a new page in that coloring book by bringing the Browns a championship.

Finally, we've got Mike Polk Jr. Polk is every Browns fans' favorite fan, because he is funny and he gets it. Polk is a local boy through and through, and is also a stand-up comic who, unlike Drew Carey, both remains funny and refuses to leave Cleveland. He's been a Browns fan since the third trimester of his mother's pregnancy.

"This is when the majority of obstetricians agree that a fetus can start to feel both false optimism and shame," he says.

Polk is most well known for a video he posted on YouTube after the Browns lost a road game to the Houston Texans in 2011. He's wearing a Ryan Pontbriand jersey and he's yelling at Browns Stadium. Pontbriand, by the way, was a long snapper the Browns drafted in the fifth round in 2003. He was one of only 12 long snappers ever drafted by an NFL team since 1982, so of course the Browns would be one of those teams.

"It is actually statistically harder for a team to be this consistently bad than it is for them to occasionally accidentally be good," Polk says. "The probability is staggering."

He punctuates the video by yelling, "You are a factory of sadness. I'll see you on Sunday."

The video has been viewed more than 1.5 million times.

That, right there, is all you really need to know about Browns fans, Johnny.

So, quick final assignment: Write a short, 1,000-word paper attempting to understand where Browns fans are coming from in their undying devotion to their historically very bad teams. You really have to dig deep on this one Johnny, but you can do it.

***

Wow. That's a lot to digest, Johnny. We're not sure how much more we can take here in Cleveland, and while LeBron is back and that is awesome, nothing will turn this city upside down like the success of the Browns.

Polk says that all you need to do is win eight games in one season, and if one of those games is against the Steelers, you'll get the key to the city. If you somehow take them to the playoffs and the Super Bowl, we're talking statues of you in Public Square.

But you don't even need to do that. Let's go back to something that Polk says in his "Factory of Sadness" video.

"We don't even expect you to be good," he says. "We just want you to be watchable. Do you have any idea how low our expectations are? We don't expect you to win the Super Bowl. We just want you to look better than a Division III high school team. I know there are way more important things in life than football, but you're supposed to be our pleasant distraction from those things."

There, Johnny, is your mission:

Distract us.

Sincerely,

Believeland, 2014