Before the Ravens’ Week 2 matchup against the Browns, Cleveland wide receiver Jerry Jeudy did something weird.
As odd as it is that Jerry Jeudy decided to flip off the Ravens prior to the game, the suggestion from Cleveland.com writer Mary Kay Cabot that the motivation was related to the Ravens’ 30-year celebration is … even more odd. Maybe Jeudy was just trying to get his guys fired up with his gestures. Maybe he naturally wanted to be a villain in a road stadium. Maybe he had heard some chirping from the Ravens and/or fans after his “no challenges” quip earlier in the week.
Or I guess, yeah, it’s possible that Jeudy — who was born in raised in Deerfield Beach, Fla., some three years after the Browns moved to Baltimore, went to Alabama and was dealt to Cleveland 18 months ago — was just REALLY offended by the Ravens’ 30th season celebration kickoff celebration happening before their first home game of the season.
That’s … for sure a possibility.
The obsession some in Cleveland had with the Ravens’ “30th Season” celebration this week was probably a bit more interesting than the Week 2 game itself. (“Ravens not particularly good, demolish opponent anyway. More at 11.”) Some media personalities in Northeast Ohio obsessed over the concept, no matter how much those on the actual team, even those who were the most likely to care, completely did not care.
This, of course, has been a nontroversy all along. The Ravens’ explanation that they always intended for their first game to be their celebration for the start of their 30th season passes literally any possible smell test. Our friends from Ohio seem to think the Ravens could have simply chosen to push the festivities back, but that’s far easier said than done. The next home game is a Monday night game, a more difficult travel ask for former players who may have family and work obligations during the week.
Strangely, I do empathize with the folks of Cleveland. It’s easy to say that they shouldn’t still be mad about the move because, unlike our own city, they got to keep their name, history, records, colors and lack of logos when their beloved team moved. It’s easy to say that no one in Cleveland has to watch a franchise fraudulently continue to wear “throwback” jerseys celebrating players who had nothing to do with their city and wanted nothing to do with their city. It’s easy to say that instead of spending more than a decade hopelessly assuming their city would never have football again, they knew immediately that they’d have a team, THEIR team, back with a brand new stadium.
It’s easy to say all of those things … and all of those things are true. My empathy is not sympathy. But I still do believe there was real pain for folks went the franchise moved. There was a short amount of unknown and a few seasons without football. I believe there was some pain. I believe there was disappointment. I believe there were scars.
But I also don’t believe, for even the shortest of seconds, that this is what any of this is about. We all know exactly what the fragility expressed by the folks in Cleveland is really about.
They’re mad because, well, they knew the Browns were going to lose 41-17 to the Ravens. Or at least that it was the most likely scenario. They’re mad because if that franchise were to host a “27 Seasons” celebration, they wouldn’t be able to make a hype video with anything other than Joe Thomas pancake blocks.
It’s harder to be angrier at your own team than it is to direct it at a rival. Once upon a time, the Orioles had no interest in signing Mark Teixeira. (You may have heard Teixeira is running for political office in his hometown. Wait, sorry, I forgot he grew up an obsessed Don Mattingly fan so it must be New York. No? Oh, a place where he worked for five years two decades ago. That makes sense.) Orioles fans wanted the club to sign the Severna Park native, but the owner of the team wasn’t interested in paying a baseball player significant money to play baseball. So naturally on Opening Day, Orioles fans took their anger out on … the guy who wasn’t offered the chance to play in his hometown.
The Browns are miserable. They are one of if not the worst-run and least successful organizations in all of American sports. There is no path forward. Joe Flacco was particularly bad against the Ravens and there really is no argument for playing anyone else. They’re just a woefully bad, largely inept franchise.
So yes, the Ravens celebrating 30 seasons of competent, winning football probably did feel like twisting the knife. And while their blowhardiness about the subject was pathetic, naked and embarrassing, I truly get it. It’s not fun to be around such a moribund organization. There are only so many ways to dress up another coaching search or quarterback or search for anything at all that feels like it matters. Keeping Art Modell out of the Pro Football Hall of Fame is the closest the modern fans of the Browns have felt to winning something.
It’s really quite sad. And I really do empathize.
But it didn’t justify any of this absurdity.
Photo Credit: Kenya Allen/PressBox