No Knock on the Browns
You don’t have to be a good team to make for good television. With that in mind, I’m really enjoying the “Hard Knocks” television series on HBO.
If you’ve never seen it, Hard Knocks follows an NFL football team from the first day of training camp right up until the season opener. You’re right there in the coaches’ office as they discuss the team, and up close at practice and in the players’ living quarters as they try to make the team. It really is fascinating, and just because the Browns were 0-16 last year doesn’t make it any less entertaining. In fact, to me it’s even more interesting as they try to turn around a losing attitude and build a respectable team.
The first installment featured a rant by new wide receiver Jarvis Landry that made Joe Pesci sound like Billy Graham. I’m wondering if he might have played to the camera a little bit, because these players all know everything they do is being recorded. One interesting, and rather sad, sub-plot was how Browns’ head coach Hue Jackson was dealing with his mother’s serious illness. She actually died during the first week of practice and Jackson was filmed in his office, head in hands with tears flowing down his face. To me that’s a private moment that wasn’t needed to be shown, but since it was you really had to feel for the guy. This is the 13th year of the show and I watch it every year. In fact, I probably get too wound up in it. Usually there’s a guy from the featured team that I take a little bit too high in my fantasy draft after watching the series. Last year that was Tampa Bay quarterback Jameis Winston as the Buccaneers were the featured team.
Luckily I drafted Carson Wentz to be my backup so it wasn’t a total loss. A lot of teams don’t want to be featured, and I can see why. I don’t think the Patriots have ever been on it, and that would be an interesting team to follow. I’ve enjoyed watching the first two episodes of the Browns’ camp so much I even watched the Browns preseason games on the NFL Network to see how the players on “Hard Knocks” performed. And, of course, Virginia Tech’s Tyrod Taylor is the Browns quarterback, trying to hold off first overall pick Baker Mayfield for the starting job, so that’s interesting to watch. No, you don’t have to be a good team to make for good television, at least until the actual games are played. Then, if you go 0-16, it’s hardly worth watching. One final note on that. My friend Craig who lives in Ohio has informed me that the first time the Browns win a game this year Bud Light will be ready with free beer in Cleveland. Special refrigerators throughout the area will be unlocked automatically as soon as they win. I wouldn’t hold my breath, as the Browns open at home with the Steelers, who they haven’t beaten in many years, then go to New Orleans for week two.
But alas, hope springs eternal as the Jets come to Cleveland for a Thursday night game on September 20. Could there be beer flowing through the streets of Cleveland when folks get up for work on Friday morning? You know, everyone has to play at least once on Thursday night so I guess the NFL decided to get the Browns and Jets out of the way early while people are still interested in ANY NFL game on TV. And, with two really bad teams the game might actually be close. I’m rooting for Tyrod.
