Credit: TV Screenshot

Eric Smith was going about his morning at the Cleveland Music Group today when he got a call from Bob Sivik, the Cleveland Browns’ Vice President of Ticket Sales & Service.

Sivik, Smith says, informed him that he had been identified as the fan who poured a beer on Titans’ player Logan Ryan during the Browns’ game at FirstEnergy Stadium on Sunday afternoon.

This was shocking news to Smith, he says, for a couple of reasons. First, he wasn’t at the game. Second, he hadn’t been to a game in nearly a decade. Third, he was DJing a wedding at the Ariel International Center that afternoon.

“I was with my family until about 2 when I left for the wedding,” he says. (Update: Smith followed up with more details this evening — “I drove to First Watch in the morning with my family, took my son to the zoo for like an hour and a half and came home to get ready for work. According to my State Farm app, I actually left for work at 2:57 p.m.)

None of that seemed to sway Sivik, who told Smith that he had been caught on multiple cameras around the stadium, that the team had matched his tattoos, and that he had bought a ticket. Smith was informed he was banned from the stadium.

Nevermind that Eric Smith is an incredibly common name, or that Eric looks like a million other bearded red-headed men in Cleveland, or that he didn’t buy a ticket, or that HE WASN’T AT THE GAME.

“I said please, please send me the footage,” Smith tells Scene. “And he was like, ‘You don’t have to get defensive if you’re innocent.'”

The Browns had been on the hunt for the offender since Sunday.

“This individual person’s action is not tolerated in our building as it is not reflective of our fan base or city,” the team said in a statement earlier this week. “We are currently addressing the situation internally, along with NFL Security, and we believe we have identified the person involved. He will ultimately face an indefinite ban from FirstEnergy Stadium for the unacceptable behavior, which is in clear violation for our Fan Code of Conduct.”

Looks like they need to start their search over again.

We’ve reached out to the Browns for a response and will update you if we hear back.

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This article appears in Sep 11-17, 2019.

Vince Grzegorek has been with Scene since 2007 and editor-in-chief since 2012. He previously worked at Discount Drug Mart and Texas Roadhouse.

15 replies on “Browns Claim Man Who Wasn’t at Game Poured Beer on Titans Player, Ban Him From Stadium”

  1. “is not reflective of our fan base or city, the team said in a statement.”

    proving yet again Jimmy Haslam isn’t from Cleveland, and knows nothing about Browns fans.

  2. Hey Scene,

    The guy sitting at the top of the pic in the front row, with his hand up to his face……. His name is also Eric Smith. Hes a personal friend.

  3. Here, Here. I remember the bottle throwing incident, the destruction of rows of seats in the old Muni stadium during the last game in 1995. In some sort of backhanded weird proudness, I actually thought those two incidents reflected the somewhat blue collar nature and Hutzpah of the fan base, and I am proud to be part of that fan base. I am not condoning over-reactive craziness of the kind that puts people in jail or the hospital, but i love that brownie fans do not put up with the opposition’s in your face, i told you we were better than you crap. Just hope that the debacle of last Sunday lights the proper fire under the proper asses in the Browns organization. And, a little humility would not hurt. It may open their eyes to the huge task ahead that is 15 more not easy to play games,

  4. There is something here that I don’t understand. He says he wasn’t there, that he has not been there in a decade….how did the Browns identify him, figure out what his name was and then call him?

    Did they just call the wrong Eric Smith or is there more to the story?

  6. People,people, people. I have watched enough People’s Court episodes in my lifetime to have become quite observant. I have solved the case! It is clearly a number 6 jersey. Are you following me?! That’s right… The culprit is none other than Mr. Baker Mayfield. Case closed.

  7. Banning someone for something they didn’t do? The Browns aren’t an NFL team…they’re a messageboard.

  8. The bright side.
    1. No one hurt
    2. A class FFFF misdemeanor
    3. The culprit wasted a beer
    4. T-shirts which will be imprinted with…*I AM THE REAL ERIC SMITH,so arrest me!* Will be a sales hit
    5.How much can you sue for defamation of CHARACTER?
    6. Thank God Eric was not African American

  14. Fake news…there was no Browns game the other week when the Browns played the Titans. It was actually just an elaborate stunt by the Russians and Chinese to discredit Baker Mayfield and waste a beer.

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