OT: How the sausage is made in the Factory of Sadness
A fascinating deep dive into Cleveland Browns dysfunction...
January 24th, 2019 at 10:22 AM ^
Wow - that OP Title is misleading. I was getting hungry, dammit.
LOL
January 24th, 2019 at 10:23 AM ^
After reading the title, there was absolutely no way that I was not clicking the link.
January 24th, 2019 at 10:39 AM ^
I tried too, but I had to click on the link. I had to find out more so see below:
January 24th, 2019 at 10:54 AM ^
Excellent sleuthing. +1
January 24th, 2019 at 12:05 PM ^
For those of you who havent seen the video where the Term got its first widespread notoriety:
January 24th, 2019 at 1:11 PM ^
That is aces
January 24th, 2019 at 10:25 AM ^
Sausage and a little gravy or maybe some peppers. Oh boy!
January 24th, 2019 at 11:00 AM ^
homemade or canned gravy?
January 24th, 2019 at 12:13 PM ^
Some Jabril Peppers?
January 24th, 2019 at 10:23 AM ^
The fuck is that title?
January 24th, 2019 at 11:34 AM ^
Reasonable, informative, eye-catching, and clever.
Not all titles have to be literal "OT: Here is a link to an article analyzing the question why the perennial failure of the Cleveland Browns to achieve a winning record has sucked all of the joy out of supporting that team for its long-suffering fans."
January 24th, 2019 at 12:03 PM ^
I call that the "Snakes on a Plane" method of post-titling.
January 24th, 2019 at 5:36 PM ^
If it gets Samuel L. Jackson to leave a message on my phone, I'm ok with it.
January 24th, 2019 at 11:07 AM ^
no idea what this is, but i have a feeling its really scary.
January 24th, 2019 at 11:12 AM ^
I'm pretty sure that's Tom Green from way back when....That dude was something else. So yes, you should feel scared.
January 24th, 2019 at 11:35 AM ^
Heck yeah. Some of his stuff came from more than just left field. It came from outside the stadium and 20 miles down the road. He almost broke through to becoming really big but just kind of quietly faded away. Still active though.
January 24th, 2019 at 11:55 AM ^
How he was married to Drew Barrymore is still a complete and utter mystery to me.
January 24th, 2019 at 1:36 PM ^
He's on the current cast of Celebrity Big Brother with Ricky Williams and Lolo Jones.
Sadly, the Mooch didn't last.
January 24th, 2019 at 4:28 PM ^
This is Stephen King Disturbing......
January 24th, 2019 at 10:34 AM ^
Do you have your passport?
Did you get your shots?
Girls would to like to come back with Rob
to Americaaaaaaaaa?
January 24th, 2019 at 11:29 AM ^
Please, tell me more...
--rob
January 24th, 2019 at 10:45 AM ^
Least surprising highlights from a Browns fan-
Haslam is an idiot, and he and his wife constantly meddle in day to day operations where they almost always make things worse. Browns fans have long assumed this is the case, and I am terrified they will find some way to fuck this up
Hue Jackson is the worst head coach in history, and actually had the balls at 3-36-1 to ask why he was being fired.
Nothing is apparently Ray Farmer's fault, only a small part of me believes him. I do believe that Haslam personally forced drafting Manziel.
Dorsey was the right man for the job, and has stabilized the organization
Baker Mayfield is a fucking boss, and was somehow successful in spite of all of this garbage. As long as he's upright, we have a shot.
January 24th, 2019 at 11:02 AM ^
Dorsey on analytics: "I don't need a bunch of fucking nerds to tell me how to evaluate talent."
January 24th, 2019 at 11:03 AM ^
Easily my favorite part of the article. At least he's warmed up and realized what I think is the correct approach. It should be a mix of old and new ideas.
January 24th, 2019 at 11:11 AM ^
Agreed. Dorsey is an OG, but at least he realizes that analytics has a place in modern day football
January 24th, 2019 at 12:09 PM ^
I disagree. The whole #DP angle was high comedy.
January 24th, 2019 at 12:23 PM ^
I disagree with some of this, but in a good-natured way. To start, though, I think we agree on the larger point: The Haslam Browns regime is a complete and utter mess.
Haslam's meddling is, I agree, a huge problem. As well illustrated by the article, he never sticks with a plan and regularly pulls the rug out from under people. He adopted a 4-year plan and then pulled the plug less than halfway in, for example.
It's not that he's an idiot, though. Look at the descriptions of some of his meetings. He actually knows a lot and learns a lot. That's part of the problem, because he knows just enough to think that he is smart enough to just overrule people in his organization. He is smart, but not as smart as he thinks he is.
Regarding Hue: He was bad. There were regular problems with Haley and with what he was given; I don't think the Browns are winning a lot of games with some other below-average coach. I don't mind that he asked about why he was getting fired, because Haslam could have any number of reasons given how dysfunctional the front office had been and how bad the team was (Haslam's stated reason, that he had lost the team, is difficult to evaluate, but the team sure did play better after). If Hue had been fired for losing, the bigger question is why he wasn't fired after the previous season.
Farmer felt, apparently with good evidence, that he wasn't given a fair shot to draft the way he wanted to. The description of the Manziel draft is pretty clear. But it's also explicit that Farmer would choose not to draft players purely to spite other corners of the front office, which is... stupid.
Regarding the future with Dorsey and Mayfield: It looks bright. The Browns have some good players. Kitchens might be a good coach.
The problem is that Haslam is still there. He's unstable, unpredictable, and prideful. And that will continue to impact the franchise.
And Mayfield is, in my opinion, not a guy who will thrive with franchise chaos behind him. He'll probably be fine on the field, but he can be impulsive himself. If he'll take public shots at his former coach, getting into it with current management or ownership doesn't seem to be much of a stretch. Not hard to see things going south in a bad way in Browns-land, as long as Haslam is at the controls.
EDIT: just to be clear, I've upvoted your post, and I think those are interesting and worthy takeaways, even if I disagree here and there.
January 24th, 2019 at 10:53 AM ^
a.) where is the lions version of this? it would be BPONE on meth and steroids.
b.) you want to learn how to make sausage? we just quarter the meat, cut the best cuts off and then grind the rest, minus the bones. season as you like and into the casings they go. not so tough.
c.) in mother russia, doesn't the sausage make you?
January 24th, 2019 at 11:10 AM ^
Here is an illustration of
our method...
January 24th, 2019 at 11:39 AM ^
Add coarse-ground pepper, freshly-chopped garlic, mustard seeds, and enough beer to give the right consistency to the sausage mixture (best to also have the sausage coarsely-ground), and you'll have the best kielbasa you've ever tasted!
January 24th, 2019 at 12:00 PM ^
Cut up 60 lbs of pork butt with a buddy last week that we ground up. In addition to what you used we did some fresh ground ginger, and ground up juniper berries.
January 24th, 2019 at 12:21 PM ^
I forgot one other important ingredient: ground marjoram.
Never have tried adding ginger and/or juniper berries, but it sounds interesting. I would guess you'd use both ingredients sparingly?
January 24th, 2019 at 1:17 PM ^
Correct, especially with the ginger, a little will go a long way.
January 24th, 2019 at 1:48 PM ^
I just get my sausage in a jar.
January 24th, 2019 at 12:11 PM ^
The depths that the Browns have descended to may have been more consistently awful than the Lions, but the Browns have also gotten far closer to the Super Bowl than the Lions ever have. If it weren't for The Fumble one year and The Drive in another, the Browns would have at least one SB appearance.
In addition, in 1980 the 11-5 Browns were in position to win their playoff game against the Raiders; with 49 seconds remaining, Cleveland was on the Raider 13, trailing 14-12. A FG would have won the game, but Rutigliano opted to throw a pass and Sipe was intercepted in the end zone. The Raiders went on to win the Super Bowl.
January 24th, 2019 at 12:34 PM ^
the browns have been very close to some championship years.
the lions, well you know, they have been very close to a curse upon football humanity. they are probably what caused your flesh to fall off.
January 24th, 2019 at 1:11 PM ^
The Browns and the Lions are the two most hapless franchises in the NFL and it's not close. The Lions are the only franchise that has existed for all 53 years and not made the Super Bowl. Cleveland's franchise left and was replaced, and the franchise that left has won two SBs since then.
Coming in at a distant third is Houston, which has had two franchises separated by several years that also have never made the Super Bowl. Then Jacksonville, which is less than 30 years old and has not made it (though they've been to more conference title games than Detroit over that span!).
Every other franchise has at least one appearance. Only 8 of them have failed to win one.
But the Lions made the NFC championship game (on the road, against a Washington team that had already thumped us once and whose victory was basically and correctly assumed again) in 1991, so yay us.
January 24th, 2019 at 1:20 PM ^
Not directed at you specifically, but as a Browns fan I have never understood why people only count championships (for both of our squads, in fact) in the "Super Bowl Era" for lack of a better term. Why does that demarcation matter? Yes, the Browns have never made any of the 53 Super Bowls. However, they did win four NFL championships between 1950 and 1964 and made it to the championship game and lost five other times in that same span plus 1965; and Lions fans shouldn't sell their franchise short, as three of those losses were to the Lions!
So, even though it wasn't called the "Super Bowl" until after the 1966 season, the Browns made it to the equivalent of the Super Bowl nine times in 16 seasons and won four of them. The Lions won three in that span, and lost a fourth to the Browns.
January 24th, 2019 at 1:33 PM ^
It's a convenient "modern era" term. Obviously, championships from before matter. But that was a long time ago--only people 60 years old and up are even capable of remembering a time when there was no Super Bowl.
The launch of the Super Bowl and the accompanying AFL-NFL merger was a turning point in pro football history in a great many ways. The alignment and composition of the league itself changed, of course, but also the way it became covered in media. Its popularity skyrocketed--in the 1960s, baseball was clearly America's #1 sport, but football eclipsed it and has not looked back.
And, frankly, the event itself has such a huge magnitude that participation is a big deal. The Lions played in NFL championship games, but they weren't neutral-site media bonanzas the way they are now. The history of the event on its own becomes significant and important. The Super Bowl is an iconic event that the entire nation follows and remembers in a way no other event can match.
And in none of those iconic events will you find participation by the Detroit Lions or Cleveland Browns.
January 24th, 2019 at 1:35 PM ^
it's like Spartan fans counting the B1G Championship game in Indianapolis as the only B1G Championship to have ever existed.
January 24th, 2019 at 2:48 PM ^
The Cardinals have been bad for almost the entirety of their existence. They last won the NFL title, back in 1947 when the team was still in Chicago. Red Grange announced the game!!
They went 50+ years without a playoff win between 1947 and 1999.
The Lions have been bad for a long time, but at least they had a substantial peak in the 50s. And the Lions have a substantially better winning percentage.
January 24th, 2019 at 3:35 PM ^
The Cardinals have been in three different markets. Their years of futility in St. Louis were cancelled out by those fans getting to witness one of the most spectacular teams ever, the Greatest Show on Turf Rams, make two SBs and win one. They've only been in Arizona for ~30 years, a time frame in which they haven't set the world on fire, but have won more than the one playoff game the Lions have, including a Super Bowl appearance that they nearly won and a miraculous victory over Green Bay that's more exciting than any result the Lions have posted.
It's not great by any means, but it's not nothing, either.
January 24th, 2019 at 5:01 PM ^
No franchise has gone longer than the Lions without making it to the title game, whether in the old NFL or the post-merger Super Bowl NFL.
January 24th, 2019 at 5:07 PM ^
I stopped actively rooting for the Lions when they bailed on Detroit and moved to that dumbass Silverdome, and stopped giving a shit entirely not long after that. I was a fan of the Broncos as a little kid because we spent summers in Colorado, and I shifted my rooting interest to them.
The departure of my flesh is unrelated.
January 24th, 2019 at 11:19 AM ^
I saw Harden got 61
January 24th, 2019 at 11:54 AM ^
"How the sausage is made in the Factory of Sadness" sounds like a wedding night gone horribly wrong.
January 24th, 2019 at 12:25 PM ^
I didn't know what was going on with this thread title, which is funny because I actually wanted to see if someone had linked this article. It is fantastic reporting, very insightful. And, wow, Jimmy Haslam is a difficult owner. What a mess that franchise has been. Even worse, if it's possible, than how it looked from the outside.
January 24th, 2019 at 12:39 PM ^
Everyone in town knew Lombardi was a bad apple when Haslem hired him. Everyone in town knew the team had underachieved even for a bad team when Haslem brought Jackson back this past season. And everyone was sick and tired of Jackson making excuses and throwing other people under the bus. Presumably, Dorsey has earned a good deal of latitude running the team with his picks of Mayfield, Ward and Chubb, all of whom played excellent football. And Kitchens showed what the Browns have in Mayfield when he took over the offense. But bad starts at the top, and Haslem (and his predecessor, Randy Lerner, who never really wanted to own the team but had to take over when his father died) is a bad owner. Whether he has learned his lesson remains to be seen, but there is at least a chance he has.
January 24th, 2019 at 1:26 PM ^
Crazy thing is, the Browns gave a away two games this year. With some more experience, that would have translated to a winning record this season.