Were gonna get da Steelers in the playoffs!!!
That horrendous excuse of a sentence was a text message that scrolled across the bottom of the television screen yesterday morning during a Browns pregame show MoneyMike was half watching from his bar perch at the Hard Rock Café. Enjoying my buffet breakfast prior to attending the Browns’ 27-17 win over the Houston Texans, a feeling of dread went through my body when I saw that message.
Forget the grammatical shortcomings that text messaging has made rampant in society and focus on what hubris it is that someone in the greater Cleveland area, prior to the Browns upping their record to a respectable 7-4, believed that this team is not only playoff bound but also on a path to ‘get’ the Steelers once they arrive. At the game, things in section 326 were worse than expected: Super Bowl chants went off late in the third quarter and one fan called for another shot at the Patriots. MoneyMike has long disapproved of ignorant fans, and this so-called playoff run is starting to reach new highs on the ignorant fan chart.
Here’s the deal: A great team has reason to gloat about its regular season accomplishments and opponents felled. A very good team – that is, one with a solid inside track to the playoffs via a division lead – can also get away with some fun fan fodder. But to be 7-4 in an AFC thick with greatness is a nice accomplishment that would earn little more than a noogie from MoneyMike’s old man. Can we not, as Cleveland fans, get excited about this team without the talk of the Super Bowl and beating the Steelers in the playoffs?
From a standpoint of pure reason, it would seem silly to think that far ahead. One, we have not yet guaranteed a winning season. ‘But, MoneyMike’, you shout from your mother’s basement, ‘we have seven wins and a cupcake schedule from here on out.’ While I agree that the rest of the schedule seems rife with beatable opponents, and believe that it is safe to say this team can win 9-10 games, I still say we withhold our Mardi Gras-styled West 6th party for after a 10th win because any less than that will probably leave us at home, text messaging poorly-spelled hate notes to other fans.
Two, if the Browns make it to the playoffs, there will no longer be a chance to post wins against the lame of the NFL landscape. The Rams, Dolphins, Bengals and Ravens (five of the Browns’ seven wins thus far) will not be there for the beating. Instead, a matchup with the Steelers or the Patriots (three of their four losses) is far more likely. While this team has developed into something special to watch offensively, there is still little hope from the defense – and please don’t e-mail me that dispatching the powerhouse talents of Ron Dayne and Matt Schaub yesterday proved otherwise – and the great of the NFL will make bad defenses pay in yardage.
Again, that the Browns are 7-4 is exciting and should be celebrated. What a blessing it is, in a year where the Cavs won the Eastern Conference and the Indians won the Central Division, to be closing out 2007 with a playoff push from what has long been Cleveland’s most helpless son. But let us remember that fan hubris from one regular season’s glory will not later salve wounds caused by failing to meet unrealistic expectations. For now, let’s keep our eyes on this team and our lips filled with words of hope, not hubris.
Brief note on the BCS: National pundits are taking shots at No. 3 Ohio State because while other top ranked teams play – and potentially lose – their conference championship games the Buckeyes are fattening up during their Thanksgiving break, hoping for things to break their way. The popular stance to take nowadays is that the Big 10, which has no conference title game, has an unfair advantage over conferences like the much-ballyhooed Big 12 that pits its two division winners against each other. Case in point: Ohio State has not played since its Nov. 17 dismantling of Michigan while No. 1 Missouri, freshly off a tough win over Kansas, has to face No. 7 Oklahoma in the Big 12 title game.
What most pundits – with the exception of ESPN’s Kirk Herbstreit – fail to realize is that each conference commissioner has a choice about whether or not s/he wants a conference championship game. That means that the Big 12 could easily dismiss it’s annual title game, noting that it often becomes a toe-stubber for a team on its way to a high BCS bid, but would have to give up the television and fan revenue from that title game. Think those commissioners are willing to give up that slice of pie? Not a chance. But they are happy to whine when another team sits at home, revenue-free, and moves up the rankings while other teams fall by the wayside. To use a good friend’s favorite cliché: you may not – nay, cannot – have your cake and eat it, too.
The Clorox Question: Clorox Bleach, long used by MoneyMike’s mother to make his whites whiter, has become a silent killer in the MoneyMike Mansion. Though the laundry duties are equally split between my Resident Lady Friend and me, mystery bleach spots have appeared on more than one of my weather-worn lounging T-shirts. While the mystery goes on, my monthly use of Clorox to whiten my whites – the large pile of non-singing plain white Ts that MoneyMike wears under his very choice work attire – seems to be doing nothing to remove the usual undershirt stains that come with a low-pressure job as a business writer. As a result, the new Clorox slogan at the MoneyMike Mansion has become: Clorox, ruining your favorite clothes while making your whites smell funny.
Perhaps it is user error that has caused the Clorox problems, but I doubt it. My Resident Lady Friend, like me, has a degree from that Ivy League MAC school Ohio University and I believe we both have mastered the art of laundry in our years of independence.
This leads me to believe that Clorox is now working against me because I have long said that if people can complain about the Cleveland Indians logo, then someone should really send a nasty letter (in triplicate) to the Clorox executive suite for claiming to make whites whiter. One, why should color matter? Two, what exactly does that mean? Are we implying some sort of perfect white clothing race here? I’d tread carefully if I were you, Mr. Clorox, you are officially being watched.
MoneyMike’s Green with Irony Watch (New Item): As many of you know, MoneyMike has been fairly slow on the uptake with his efforts to go green and save the polar bears. But recent encounters with global warming activists as well as my own willingness to accept that there is more to life than me have changed things at the MoneyMike Mansion. As a result, there is far more recycling and a much greater emphasis on cutting back on energy. The changes haven’t been stark but they have been efficient. The big difference is an attempt to live the values of the green movement every day, which takes a conscious effort.
While shifting this way, MoneyMike has noticed that there are many other people interested in going green – at least on an aesthetic level. With the popularity behind the movement growing, more and more people and businesses are touting themselves as saviors of the universe while damning the ‘polluter’ next door. While I am all for both saving the universe and damning others, I have long spoken out against hypocrisy (what an easy stance to take, by the way. Start telling people you are against hypocrisy and see if anyone disagrees with you), and there are green hypocrites everywhere. In an effort to put attention to the movement while also entertaining you I have added this feature to the weekly column to chastise those who claim to be green while pollution drips from their back end.
This week’s Green with Irony Watch winner is the man who often drives in front of me on Clifton Boulevard in MoneyMike’s scenic Lakewood neighborhood. Though I still cannot find his origin, he often appears in front of me in the mornings driving his car with a very loud bumper sticker reading: The Answer Comes Up Every Morning! While this reference to solar power seems to scream out for national leaders to fix our energy problems, it comes with terrible irony: The man is driving a mid-‘90s Jeep Wrangler. MoneyMike once owned a ’96 Jeep Wrangler (what a way to pick up babes!) and can attest to the fact that there are no two-door cars on the road doing more damage than the Wrangler.
At its worst my Wrangler got exactly 13 miles to the gallon. 13! For a car to get less than 25 miles to the gallon is a complete mockery of emission standards and the hope that we may someday wean ourselves off fossil fuels. For someone to say the answer is in the sky but miss the fact that they are actually gripping their hands around the answer is truly silly.
Next Week: If the Browns keep a playoff march alive, will the Cavs once again be relegated to the No. 3 spot in our heart, and where should you draw the line on how serious to take a fantasy football season.
-MoneyMike is S*KM’s senior activist and occasionally reports on things besides his opinion. If you have seen someone dripping with green irony, shoot him an e-mail at cottrill.m@gmail.com
Here’s a message from the Green Team
http://www.funnyordie.com/videos/fa1420df1f
I would like to say RIP to Sean Taylor. All too often you see a athlete who has a history of violence and thug life and all that is shoved aside if he is superior at sports. To start his career most would have agreed that is clearly taylor’s case. But something happened this off-season. Taylor had a baby girl and decided it was time to distance himself from his old ways. Moved to a nice neighborhood and cut ties with his “friends” who he had gone down the wrong path with. He was a guy who started opening up to teammates and started to play better on the field as well. Sad to see such a young man, who is a new father, start to turn his life around and then have it taken in such a manner. Most ironic thing is, he used to live a gangsta type of life, yet was never hurt…he then turns away from that life and starts maturing, and it would seem that type of reckless life is exactly what killed him.