now back on top, like it should be.”
But these inflated hopes, in a
city that for so long has accepted
the inevitability of disappoint-
ment, under a first-year coach
and a second-year QB and a col-
lection of players seen as emotion-
ally volatile, could lead one to see
this team as something other than
blessed. And wouldn’t it be fitting in this city, of all cities,
if greater anticipation led only to greater disappointment?
Comedian Mike Polk, who memorably dubbed the
Browns’ stadium a “factory of sadness,” can’t shake the
idea that his city’s fans are now something like the titu-
lar character in Stephen King’s Carrie. “We’ve just been
crowned prom queen,” Polk says. “Everyone’s cheering
and we’re smiling and waving, blissfully unaware of the
bucket of pig’s blood dangling over our head.”
Welcome to Cleveland.
JOHN DORSEY, clad in his usual khaki shorts and
Browns sweatshirt and beige hat with the old
Brownie elf logo, flips through his iPhone, showing off
photos he’s taken over the past 18 months of fans and
their intricately customized Browns-themed vehicles. The
guy he ran into at a 7-Eleven who had an antique car
painted in team colors... the school bus with a dog face
and helmet covering the windshield. He encounters these
hardcores all over the country, always has, even when he
played linebacker for the Packers in the 1980s and in
every airport spotted Clevelanders proudly displaying
their devotions. “Five of the original [14] teams are from
Ohio,” he says, ticking off the names: Akron Pros, Dayton
Triangles.... “Football means something in this area.”
After Dorsey’s playing career ended, he climbed the
Green Bay org chart, from low-level scout to director of
football operations. The Chiefs hired him as their GM in
2013, and in four years he built one of the league’s most
competitive rosters, averaging double-digit wins—untilBAKER’S MARK
Mayfield put his
stamp on the
idea of a Browns
QB, throwing a
rookie-record 27
TDs in 2018.