I bought this hat last time I was in Cleveland. It’s okay for Williamsburg because it is a hat with a picture of a hat on it. That old logo is finally, finally growing on me.

I made a personal decision not long ago, that when the Browns eventually make a Super Bowl, I’m going to book a flight to Cleveland and watch it downtown. It would be a key moment for a city for which I have some very fond memories, and though I’m far from the Scott Raab–level of fandom (The Whore of Akron, though thin, with a big typeface and wide lines, was a grueling slog of self-congratulation and self-loathing from a disgustingly fat man—by his own admission—who gets on-demand handjobs from a nubile second wife), I figure that victory, in that town, would be something to see. But I don’t think I’d take my kid. Something’s going to burn.

So granted, that was a moment of off-season optimism and now we’re back to it—deadening reality, in which Joe Haden, a solid Browns draft pick who, in the absence of an offensive star, has become the face of the franchise, testing positive for something or other. It’s too bad “testing positive” isn’t a good thing, though it sounds like it ought to be. I know when I tried Adderall I walked around a club telling everyone who’d listen that I felt like a hundred dollars. Meh—that one we’ll get over. Maybe more troubling is lingering knee trouble for the man who should step in as the new face of the franchise, TR. That just sucks. You need knees, strong ones, to be a running back, no? It is, as the French say, troubling.

Oh, and we got bought by a Steelers fan who seems pretty primed on having his own people in charge of the team, which seems to signal we’ll be starting over again. Seems like we’ve done a lot of that since Browns 2.0 stumbled on the scene. Not that I’m convinced Holmgren is the answer, but as atlswami says: “that team needs stability.” TR’s knee needs that too.

So let’s be realistic about this thing. It’s probably going to be my son taking me to Cleveland when the Browns make the Super Bowl? Humor the old man, he’s cared about this shit since, like, the ’80s.

I also bought this shirt, because it’s sweet.