I can’t explain why I spend time reading a lot of what’s written about the Cleveland Browns, I really don’t. Room on the bashwagon is just filling up, and a couple of guys who I typically enjoy reading have jumped on:

• The USA Today proudly provides the fifth story I’ve seen spun off of Todd Porter’s comments in the Canton Repository. The journalistic ecosystem seems mostly populated by scavengers these days… someone actually on the ground in Cleveland says something, then here come 20 NFL bloggers to yammer about it and blow it up as huge as possible.
• Porter joins the parade of folks down about the new administration, but I find something hopeful in football players saying that Tom Coughlin is the only guy they would want to play for less than Mangini. And even more hopeful that Joe Namath criticizes him. Last I saw, Tom Coughlin was winning Super Bowls, and Joe Namath was drunkenly putting clumsy old-guy moves on a female ESPN sideline reporter not named Erin Andrews.
• Let’s not overreact to Big Ben Roethlisberger winning a Super Bowl with the Steelers. Passing on him was not the Browns biggest draft screw-up ever. Roethlisberger looks like another Bradshaw: A big, dumb, mobile quarterback who works well in the Steelers system and is a beneficiary of the league’s number one defense. Put him on the Browns and he does not lead us to Super Bowls, nor win them.
• Jim Ingraham joins the parade of Cleveland columnists literally begging Browns fans to stop attending games. Based on what I saw the last couple of weeks of the season, they don’t need journalistic encouragement. This sort of coverage will continue until the team starts winning. It could be a rough revenue summer for the Browns unless they make some huge moves in the draft and free agency. I suspect they won’t be flashy in either.
• Why do we need Bud Shaw to tell us that the Browns are not in the NFL’s top echelon? What was the first hint, Bud? The team’s 4-12 record, perhaps? Or forty-some Super Bowl-less years? Those are dead giveaways if you ask me, but if Bud wants to jump on the Browns bashwagon, I’ll just be happy that the OBR can write for fans who know enough about their team that they wouldn’t find this sort of column insightful.
• I put Erin Andrews name in the second bullet point simply to see if it gets more hits for this blog entry. I’ve been told her name is page view magic. We’ll see.

Sorry. I was in a good mood before I started reading this stuff. On to bigger and better things.