“Despite a bad season, the Browns can be inserted into this year’s Super Bowl against either of the teams that make it. OR For next season the Indians can impress one player from each division in the American League. If you choose this you have to identify each player. Which do you pick?”
Quite obviously I’d go with the Browns Super Bowl. Hear me out. The problem with The Indians this year was not a lack of talent. They had a World Series winning caliber team, but baseball’s just a sport where things don’t fall your way in the postseason a lot of the time. They can get there again without cherry-picking great players around the league.
The Browns, on the other hand, are special. This is a (currently) 0-10 team with a lot of good players that is also among the worst I’ve seen ever. They’re bad in spectacular ways. Quarterback play is atrocious, they have no play-making receivers, and their good defense is weak only in the area of giving up long passes over the middle of the field. Not to mention, the franchise has a history of losing in the most depressing and creative ways imaginable. To get the opportunity to see not just the team lose in the Super Bowl, but to see precisely how the team could lose - wow. Whatever they did on that field would make the disappointment of other games - Bottlegate, the Dwayne Rudd helmet toss, the game-winning field goal blocked and returned for a TD against Baltimore, the Derek Anderson 5 INT to just miss the playoffs game, the Denver overtime fiasco of 2016, the 2013 Patriots comeback, the Bears two touchdowns with a minute to play win, the Kellen Winslow game-winning catch overturned that inspire the forced out of bounds rule change, the Hue Jackson icing a missed game-winning kick so the Titans got another try, the loss to Cincinnati where The Browns put up 48, the loss to Pittsburg week one in 1999 with a brand new team falling just short 43-0 - the disappointment of other games look like stepping in a puddle of water. It would be the best super bowl ever. Cleveland fans would nod and laugh, but the rest of the country filled with people who aren’t used to that shit would watch until their eyes bled. That’s what they need and it’s something only The Browns could provide.