Wake Me Up Before Ya' Go-go and Take Me Dancin' Tonight 🪩
So the NFL went to Ireland this past Sunday. Yeah, Ireland. Land of Guinness, leprechauns, and now the Pittsburgh Steelers beating the Minnesota Vikings 24-21 at Croke Park in Dublin. First regular-season NFL game ever played in Ireland, and naturally, the Steelers won. Of course they did.
Now look, I'm not saying the Rooneys are running some kind of international goodwill tour to expand the NFL empire across Europe or anything. Okay, yeah, that's exactly what they're doing. But it's the nice kind of empire-building, alright? The kind where you bring football to people who actually call it "American football" because they already got a perfectly good football over there. Which is our soccer. (Which we were supposed to switch to because of all the head injuries.) But instead, we're going the other way. We're bringing the head injuries to them. God bless America.
This coming Sunday, October 5th, it's the Browns heading to London—Tottenham Hotspur Stadium—to take on the Vikings again. Yeah, the Vikings are pulling double duty on the international circuit. They lose in Dublin, then they gotta fly to London and probably lose again. That's what you get for not being from Ohio.
But let's talk about Cleveland for a second. The Browns are going to Europe. THE BROWNS. This is a team that makes grown men weep into their sloppy joes on a regular Sunday. Now they're representing America overseas. You know what? Good for them. At least they're not from Michigan. At least Cleveland fans aren't the kind of people who hand out cans of beer on Halloween. We got some standards.
The thing is, if your team got picked for the Ireland trip, you should be proud. That's the Rooney family saying, "Hey, you're good enough to represent American football to people who don't even know what a touchdown is." The Steelers already did their job—they won. Now it's the Browns' turn to not embarrass us.
And look, I get it. There's something hilarious about this whole thing. We're over here still arguing about CTE and youth tackle football, and meanwhile the NFL's like, "Let's take this show on the road! Europe needs more Sundays where Dad's screaming at the TV before noon!" It's like that episode when Dee goes to Ireland on Always Sunny—seems like a good idea until you actually think about it for two seconds.
But you know what? I'm not gonna lie. If the Browns were my team—and thank God they're not, but IF they were—I'd be pretty jazzed about London. That's a trip. That's history. That's your team playing football in a stadium built for a sport where they don't even use their hands.
So here's to the NFL in Europe. Here's to the Steelers getting it done in Dublin. And here's to the Browns, who better not screw this up in London because Ohio's got enough problems without more international embarrassment.
