A Dawg of a game

Sporting News, The, Sept 20, 1999 by Paul Attner

Cleveland's opener against the rival Steelers was a debut only a Browns fan could love

It is three hours before kickoff, and I already know why the Browns will lose their first NFL game after an involuntary three-year leave of absence. I am standing outside their majestic new stadium of glass, steel and concrete, and I see plenty of fans wearing the uniform jerseys 2, 54 and 99. Those are the numbers of Tim Couch, Chris Spielman and the Universal Browns Fan, none of whom will be starting against the Steelers. Any team whose most popular athletes have absolutely no impact on the game at hand is in trouble.

This is a franchise with a tradition handed to it by edict of the NFL. That is nice for the city, but it means squat on the field. Amid all the familiar team colors and Dawg masks and gawd-awful, constant barking is a club that will win consistently only when souvenir jersey sales are dominated by front-line players. For now, Couch remains the quarterback of the future, Spielman the courageous veteran forced into retirement by injury and the Universal Fan too inept to be activated. Not a pretty picture.

But that really is the beauty of what is transpiring in Cleveland. This is a city so giddy about the change in its football fortunes--from zip to this: a new team in a new stadium with ownership that won't ever run out of money and a front office steeped in the success of the formidable 49ers--that nothing right now will deter what promises to be a seasonlong celebration, not even an embarrassing 43-0 loss to the Steelers that set a team record for offensive ineptness.

This is a city in which NFL commissioner Paul Tagliabue is not only recognized, but really popular. Before last Sunday's game, he walked the concourses of Cleveland Browns Stadium, and fans came up to him and shook his hand and told him how happy they are to have their team back. These were not just local fans; he met rooters from Mexico and Europe and California, members of the NFL's most passionate club, the Browns Backers.

This game is important, Tagliabue says, but more significantly, "This represents the resurrection of the Browns and Cleveland Stadium." And he is right. This is a night for Browns fans to honor the power of energy, determination and just plain being a pain in the butt to the league office and club owners. "The fans were insistent," says Tagliabue, and they ultimately got their wish-a new beginning in a city made for football. This once-embarrassment of a city has made history: the first time a pro sports franchise has been resurrected with its record book and traditions intact.

So that is why I can almost understand why, after 1,405 days since Art Modell announced the move to Baltimore, grown men and women are walking into this game with dog bones sticking out of their ears and faces painted brown and orange, wearing all types of impossible outfits and, in many cases, behaving as if they perhaps began their celebration a few hours earlier, concentrating mostly on adult liquid refreshment.

I ask a man wearing a Tim Couch jersey about this moment. "I never thought the league would be this smart," says Andrew Walsh. "When Modell took our team, I thought it was over. But they understood that without the Browns, it really wasn't the same NFL anymore." I ask him if he will bark during the game. "Yes," he says. He is serious.

Walsh is standing outside the north end of the stadium. In the distance is Lake Erie. It is a beautiful late afternoon, with the sun glistening off the serene water and the wind sending a lush draft through the purity of the moment. If this had been the old Browns, with their dreadful relic of a stadium, this surely would not have been this perfect of a day. It would have been gusty and cold and overcast, and the resulting dreariness would have everyone nodding and saying, "Yeah, this is football weather." And so what if it were September, this is Cleveland, after all.

But in the four years since Modell's lust stripped the town of its rightful franchise, so much has changed about Cleveland. It is a city now worthy of a bright climate. A kickoff away from the stadium stand the glowing Rock and Roll Museum and the impressive Great Lakes Science Center, all bordering the lake. Small boats now dock alongside the museum, with their owners just minutes away from what surely are suite seats. Up the road a bit are Jacobs Field and Gund Arena and tall buildings straining against the sky's outline.

And the stadium itself, situated on the site of the old place--what a treasure, with its suites and club seats and abundant restrooms and clean appearance. Every seat is sold out for the season, something the old franchise could never accomplish. The old stadium had nothing memorable about it other than history; it had been the scene of Paul Brown's domination of the NFL and so much heartbreak since then, including Drives and Fumbles and Brian Sipe interceptions and, worst of all, the final weeks of the Modell Era, so venomous and tragic and heartbreaking.