by The year was 1949. A man named Eric Arthur Blair, under the pen name George Orwell, had just finished writing a groundbreaking novel that would go on to shape the history of literature, called ‘1984’.
In the book, the characters of 1984 are trapped in a dystopian, torturous world where “Big Brother” rules all, commanding all the people of London to do as they’re told. If you’re an avid reader or a student of the American public school system, you’ve likely heard of it or even read it.
Around the same time, the great Paul Brown and his football club had just wrapped up their fourth consecutive championship in the All-America Football Conference, winning the last quartet of championships before the AAFC merged with Bert Bell’s National Football League.
Despite coming from a presumably weaker league, the Cleveland Browns dominated the NFL as soon as they showed up. Winning titles in ’50, ’54, and ’55, the Browns capped off their mid-20th Century dynasty with another win in 1964.
I’d now like you to humor me for a second and imagine you’ve been allowed to travel back to the mid 1950’s to speak with Orwell and Brown. And beyond that, I’d really like to see their faces when you tell them that the two passions of their lives-Orwell’s dystopian novel and Brown’s championship-winning team- have completely merged, and the lives of Cleveland fans have been taken over by a new Big Brother.
It was a nice Saturday afternoon in Cleveland on August 22. The crisp winds of fall had been peaking in and out of the late summer skies, and the excitement across Northeast Ohio was palpable from new students moving onto their campuses and football fans getting a taste of the 2026 season with a preseason match between the Browns and Buffalo Bills.
This would have been the perfect backdrop for Cleveland’s second preseason game, and for a second, it was. Shedeur Sanders was given the opportunity to rebound after his showing against the Chicago Bears the week before, and for the most part he did, leading the Browns down the field for what ended up as their only scoring drive of the game to open up his afternoon.
But then a seismic shift happened. A presence so violent, so unwanted, so unwelcomed by the Cleveland faithful had taken the field for the second time this preseason. Only this time, the presence wasn’t in Chicago- he was on the shores of Lake Erie.
As he’s done year after year since being traded to Cleveland and receiving one of the most mind-boggling, gigantic contracts in the history of professional football, Deshaun Watson mosied his way off the sideline and under center as the quarterback of the Browns.
I’m not going to sugarcoat how he played. I’m not going to draft up some wordy, detailed review with stats to prove my claims about how he played. Plenty of writers have already done it, and quite frankly, Watson doesn’t deserve that anymore.
Watson played like a sulky, bratty teenage boy fresh out of the seventh grade. Pouting, whining, complaining, all while chucking meatballs into the dirt and into the hands of Bills defenders. Nothing was redeeming about how he looked Saturday, absolutely nothing to write home about. Unspectacular, undeserving of the contract and completely unprofessional.
And that’s not even getting into his postgame press conference.
Draped in gorgeous diamonds and freshly purchased designer clothes, all in white, Watson tried hard to present himself as a “clean figure”. That all changed when members of the media began to ask him about the barrage of booing that hailed upon the 30-year-old after his dismal day.
He looked like a petulant child, fidgeting with his million-dollar earring and winging about the “lack of respect” stemming from Cleveland fans. Taking a hatchet to the fan base who pays for salaries, tickets, parking, television packages, memorabilia and now a $2.6 billion taxpayer-funded stadium in Brookpark, Watson let loose and had an old-fashioned meltdown.
I want to make myself very clear about what I’m saying-athletes do not owe fans anything, especially in the game of football. Football players risk life and limb to play this game, and they, like fans and media, are but cogs in the giant machine of professional sports. The bulk of Cleveland’s problems come from Jimmy and Dee Haslam, and to a certain extent, Andrew Berry(his participation in the Watson saga has always been up for debate, and we’ll likely never know how involved he was in this giant failure until he departs from the Browns).
But let’s get another thing clear-Watson was completely and positively, 100% out of pocket for what he said on Saturday. And as he claimed about the booing, yes, it does go beyond football.
There is no beating around the bush. There will be no more “but he was never charged criminally”. He brought it up, so let’s have a look.
Twenty-Seven is the number of women he’s currently paying out-of-court settlements for how he treated them, for the ungodly crimes he committed against them.
An American court of law, with its power invested in it by the U.S. Constitution, determined, with the evidence given to it, that the Georgia native was civilly liable for sexual assault to the tune of nearly 30 women.
I’m not sure there’s a clearer way of putting it than what I just did. Watson, by the word of law, is a sexual assaulter.
Let’s then turn our attention to what he said during the presser after a reporter asked him if he regrets coming to Cleveland.
“I don’t regret anything in my life,” Watson said. “I think the Lord puts me in these situations for a reason. I don’t regret anything at all. I had different thoughts on how it was going to be, but it is what it is.”
There it is, Browns fans! Your very own quarterback has zero regrets about what he’s done with his life, whether it’s taking everybody’s money, playing each game horribly he’s worn the orange and brown, and his countless sexual assault cases-Watson is proud of each and everything he’s done in this life.
This all boiled over on Monday when head coach Todd Monken “decided” to name Watson the starting quarterback for Cleveland’s first two games at minimum, and indefinitely if the front office and ownership decide. After everything, after the tirades, the wasted money, the sexual assault victims and three more seasons of Browns football down the drain, the city’s newest curse just won’t leave.
Which brings us back to Orwell’s 1984.
The book’s message is the same one Haslam is sending. You will watch Watson play, you will pay upwards of thousands of dollars to take your family to watch the game, you will watch another year of dreadful football, and you have no choice but to take it like the good fan you are.
After all, this is the greatest fan base in the world, right? Bonding through pain and agony, right? It’s all okay; they’ll be back next season, and I heard this year might be different!
If you find yourself in this predicament, if you find yourself wanting so desperately to be a fan of football, you are not bound by the rule of law or God or anything to root for the Browns.
Yes, I know it’s hard to kick the tires on the team your father gave you, and his father before him. It’s the team you grew up watching on Sundays after church services, after grocery shopping with mom, after walking your dog on a fall day.
I know firsthand what it’s like to throw on that old hoodie or that fresh new jersey, and let out all of the thoughts in your head and just watch some NFL action.
I understand that this is one of the oldest franchises in the sport, with a rich history in the mid to late 20th Century, with exciting young players like Quinshon Judkins or Carson Schwesinger currently on the roster.
But enough is enough. As long as Jimmy Haslam is running this team, and as long as Deshaun Watson presides as the leading man on offense, the Cleveland Browns will never escape football purgatory.
Go find a new team to care about, or better yet, do what all the young kids are doing and just be a fan of whatever player you like.
Ja’Marr Chase carrying you in fantasy? Go buy that Bengals hat. Has Sam Darnold been winning crucial for your parlays, and you just want a taste of caring about a team that actually wins for once? Go buy that Seahawks jersey-it’s not like anyone would blame a Clevelander for bandwagoning.
The line has been drawn, and the curse has been cast.
In Cleveland, there have been many curses, many haunting spirits that have plagued this town before and after the triumphant win of the 2016 Cavaliers. There’s ‘The Drive’, ‘The Fumble’, ‘The Shot’, and Jose Mesa’s blown save in 1997.
But beyond those, no one compares to Art Modell, right? Right?
