BizarrOhio
There's something strange in the air here in Ohio. Every day, I feel as if I have awoken to a mirror universe, bizarro world existence. As if everything I know to be true about reality has been completely turned upside-down and inside-out. It goes beyond the three straight days of rain here after a summer that had me wondering if I was living in the midwest or the Sahara. No, it's far deeper than that. It's the realization of what has happened to professional football in this state. It's the realization that the Browns are no longer terrible, and that the Bengals are. It started with the extremely strange and surreal Browns vs Bengals matchup in week 2, a game that surely looked to belong easily to the Bengals before it began. Of course, the Browns shockingly won 51-45.
I thought it would be crazy at that point to declare the Bengals the better team. Surely the conventional wisdom was that the Bengals would rebound and glide to the playoffs, while the Browns would slide into their usual sub-mediocrity and plummet to the bottom of the division. No one could be more shocked than I that this has not been the case.
Now I know what you are thinking. You are thinking: "Wait a second. The Browns are only a .500 team. That's not exactly setting the world on fire, and didn't the Bengals just come off a win versus the Jets?" Yes. This is true. But considering the blundering, incompetent way the Browns have been beginning (and ending, for that matter) their seasons for the last.... forever, it seems... this 3 and 3 start is nothing short of a miraculous Hollywood story. Anderson has come out of nowhere with great Quarterback play that has Brady Quinn controversy talk firmly out of play, for the moment at least. Braylon Edwards is not only living up to the hype of his drafting status, he's actually looking better than advertised at times to Browns fans. Even Winslow is starting to put the comedic blunders of his early NFL career behind him and starting to show some talent.
As for the second part of the above caveat, sure the Bengals are coming off a win, but it was against the lowly Jets. On top of that, the Bengals looked sorry in the first half of that game and should consider themselves lucky to be 2-4 and not 1-5. As usual, the Cincinnati defense was porous and extremely unimpressive, particularly on the play when Coles turned a short receiving gain into a walk in touchdown by breaking not one, but two converging tacklers with shocking ease. The play before that one yielded a delay of game flag on a Bengals defensive player for not allowing Leon Washington to get up off the ground after a one yard gain. It turned a third and nine into a third and four. It probably wouldn't have mattered in the end, but the two-play chain of events provided a perfect metaphor for the Bengals' defense: soft and undisciplined.
The dire straights of the Bengals can be evidenced by the mood and news following the team even following a win, with players still scrambling for answers. They know full well that barely beating the Jets isn't something that can be used as evidence of a turnaround. Rumor has it that the team is now contemplating trading Chad Johnson in an attempt to stem the tide. A move that would be highly ironic, considering that of all the problems the Bengals have, Johnson isn't one of them. He's a brilliant, albeit flashy athlete who contributes greatly to a Cincinnati offense that is still damned good, and doesn't get into off-field trouble... the last of that list obviously a painfully rare gift within that club. After all, it's obvious what the Bengals problem is, and it isn't offense. They have an offense that can win a Super Bowl, and a defense that couldn't win a single playoff game. Unless they are getting some serious defensive firepower in a Johnson trade, this is a sign of flailing desperation to keep a sinking ship from going under.
The Browns, on the other hand, are finally experiencing a relief from the pressure they've been experiencing so long from fans who are finally just happy to have a team that doesn't utterly embarass them. Romeo Crennel might actually get to keep his job if things continue for them the way they have been. It's typical in the modern NFL to track the progress of one team falling against another one rising, but it's interesting to see it happen to two teams in one state so closely tied to each other, particularly considering the Bengals just recently made the journey from futility to near greatness so quickly, only to seemingly lapse back into the same state they were in for so long in the 90s.
For Browns fans, their team is beginning to make fans hopeful for the kind of greatness not seen for that team since the heady days of the 80s, when Kosar, Mack and Metcalf roamed the Cleveland field. Obviously, this current team has a long way to go before approaching that level, but it's certainly better so far than the soul-crushing eras and personnel that have come and gone between them. (And far better than the years with no Cleveland football at all.)
Of course, in the NFL things can change quickly. The Colts defense was just as berated, and was nearly as ineffective as the Bengals defense is, and they came on late in the season to contribute heavily to a Super Bowl win. Likewise, the Browns' newfound hope and glory could evaporate quickly as the season goes on, Anderson could go in the tank, the QB controversy could rise again, and Crennel could be unceremoniously bounced from the job. It's certainly a story still in the telling.
But for now, down is up in Ohio, the Browns are respectable, and the Bengals are terrible. Well, at least half of the Bengals, at any rate.
