Zeros

The Browns Lost to Themselves (Again) : A Sports Tragedy in Orange and Brown Look, I watch sports. I yell at the TV. I know what a touchdown is (the good points). But nothing prepared me for the existential crisis that is the Cleveland Browns losing to the Baltimore Ravens . Because here's the thing: the Ravens are the Browns. Or were. Or something. It's complicated, like explaining why I still watch even though I feel nothing inside. The Great Cleveland Betrayal of 1995 Once upon a time, the Cleveland Browns existed. They had fans, a stadium, and presumably some players who knew how to throw the oblong ball. Then in 1995, their owner, Art Modell, decided Cleveland wasn't good enough for him and moved the entire franchise to Baltimore. Just packed up the team like someone fleeing their apartment at 3 AM to avoid the landlord. But here's where it gets weird (weirder?) : Cleveland got to keep the Browns name, colors, and history . Baltimore had to rebrand a...

The NFL Goes to Ireland ( Because Apparently We're Exporting America's Concussion Problem Now) 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 in...