Because it's a Monday in December in the Year of Our Lord 2016, you're waking up to another loss by the Browns as the team continues on its path to a perfect 0-16 season.
One guy having a particularly bad time after the team's 23-10 loss to the Bengals is WKNR ESPN Cleveland's own Tony Rizzo. Last night the morning sportstalk icon flipped his wig on the postgame show when the topic turned to the planned 0-16 perfect season parade being organized by Browns' season ticket holder Chris McNeil. Most of us suffering mugs here in BrownsLand actually think the parade could be the only fun to come out of this historically-ugly, record-making piece-of-dog-poo season. But Rizzo and others somehow think it'd be an embarrassment to the city instead of what it really aims to be: a cathartic and very public middle finger to Jimmy Haslam and the organization that very well could accomplish the impossible reverse-perfect campaign.
But here's maestro, angry Uncle Rizzy, losing his mind and making half-hearted threats:
"If you are one of the people out there that is planning a parade for 0-16, I will fight you," Rizzo raged on air. "Come down and see me right now, I'm at Buffalo Wild Wings. you are going to celebrate my misery for four months?"
For all Rizzo's "Mr. Clevelandness," this pretty much proves he doesn't get it anymore. Which is sad, because he was once the loudest megaphone for the average Cleveland fans' soul. Guess that's over. It wasn't just his laughable tough-guy boast (side note: threatening physical violence isn't exactly a good look when . . . well, you know); his riff was so tone-deaf and off-target, you wonder if all these Browns' losses haven't scrambled his circuitry. The 0-16 parade is about the only way the fan base can take back their team from a regime of entitled rich folks who have time and again proven they are fully incapable of doing their jobs and that they don't care about us.
You should really listen to the whole stupid thing. But here are some highlights:
"That is the loser-est of all loser moves I've ever heard in my life. My God man, have some pride in yourself."
"If you are one of the people planning that parade, you better stay the hell away from me, my show, and my family, cause I'll fight you."
"I will do everything in my power to stop that. I will talk to Senator Sherrod Brown, Mayor Frank Jackson, I'll talk to everyone I can. I swear to god . . . I'll be there and I will mow you down under my tires. I promise that . . . If you have that parade it will end ugly. I know billionaires, senators, mayors, governors. That is going to go away, mark my words. It ain't going to happen on my watch, I promise you that."
Rizzo is losing his head at fans. But where's the rage at the effing ownership who have made us the court jesters of the NFL? Where's the rage at Oil Sheikh Jimmy who trusted his own (federally-investigated) Good Ol' Boy instincts instead of his staff. Let's not forget the bonus round, where Oil Sheikh Jimmy did what billionaires do when they realize they don't know what they're doing: he handed the keys over to a bunch of Harvard suits . . . who did what Harvard suits do: overestimated their own brains and balls whilst getting routed and embarrassed by people who actually know what they're doing. But no — the guys throwing the parade, they're the dangerous, back-stabbing, no-account losers . . . right.
In the best-light précis, the perfect season parade is a piece of street theater aimed right at the ownership, putting them on notice that, with a world championship NBA franchise and a MLB team we can finally be proud of, Cleveland sports fans aren't going to be taking the same old Browns shit. If anything, it's the chance for Clevelanders to get ripped and have fun at least once in the 2016 season. But Rizzo looks like he's siding with, in his words, "billionaires, senators, mayors, governors," instead of us Cleveland fans.
When McNeil does organize the parade (and I hope this just makes him more determined to do so) he should have the roil swing by ESPN 850's downtown studio just for added effect.
