Every year at this time, I get excited about football. It really doesn't matter which team is playing, I just love good football. Unfortunately, "my team" is the Browns. Which means I've seen very little good football over the past 11 years.
I had very high hopes going into the opening game of 2011. Their opponent was a cream puff, they were unveiling a new and improved offense, and they had played well in the preseason.
It didn't matter.
On offense, they looked just as wretched as they've normally looked over the past 11 years. It's not just poor execution. It's bad offense. Bad offense is when you call a play that has no chance of succeeding. It's the equivalent of running up the middle when the defense is in man-coverage with all eleven players stacked at the line of scrimmage. I'm used to seeing this defense, because Baltimore and Pittsburgh use it against us all the time. It's the dare to throw the ball deep. Apparently, we still have no idea how to do that.
The bad offense was exacerbated by the many mental mistakes that added up to 11 penalties, and the execution mistakes that resulted in poor blocking and dropped passes. The defense played well until they decided to stop playing in the fourth quarter when it really mattered, and the rookie punter put the defense into huge holes with three really bad kicks.
Aside from all the bad, the absolute worst aspect of that game was the "analysis" of color commentator Solomon Wilcots. If I was that bad at my job I would have been fired years and years ago. How this moron has managed to keep his job over season after season of verifiable ineptitude is a travesty the NFL should correct.
In watching the game with my friends, I took to correcting Solomon's verbal mistakes. It got so bad, we were more frustrated by his comments then we were with the Browns.
Because Solomon is at the bottom rung of the NFL's color commentators, and because the Browns are at the bottom rung of the teams in the NFL, they will be matched up frequently. So, I have another season of woefully inept play and woefully inept commentating to look forward to.
I really wish I grew up in Green Bay or Boston.
