A Song for Josh McCown of the Cleveland Browns

[General Havoc]

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Blank Check

Tampa dropped you, didn't win
Even Cutler gave more of a shit
Lions, Raiders, Dolphins, Ten
Teams you've signed with, but we thought

Oh my god,
Look at that face,
This could be
Our next mistake
Manziel drank
So wanna play?

Go on, sign it, don't be shy
You get to play for Mike Pettine
Pay no mind as rumors fly
Cause I know you heard about

Josh Gordon, and all his friends
Suspended 'till your contract ends
Grab a football in your hand
All you need to do is beat Shaw for a weekend


So it's gonna be forever
'Least until it goes down in flames
You can tell me when it's over
If the cash was worth the pain

Got a long list of ex-QBs
they'll tell you I'm insane
But you know I love bad players
Who can't play the game!

Cause you're old and you're broken
And you can't throw very far
Practice leaves you breathless
And your brother's axe-made scar

Got a long list of ex-QBs
they'll tell you I'm insane
But I've got a blank check buddy
And I'll write your name


Orange helmets, snowy skies
Boy have we got incredible things
OCs, coaches, drop like flies
Somewhere Gilbert is crying

This is not
What you want
This team won't
Last a month
And the worst
Is yet to come
Oh no...

Screaming, crying, bitter fans
Midway through all the tables will turn
Our receivers have no hands
Drop your passes like we drop these

Games we lose
Woe is me
Should have gone
To Cincinnati
But out you go
To play each week
'Cause Cleveland is a nightmare dressed like a bad team


These three years'll last forever
While your stats all go down in flames
You can tell me when it's over
If the cash was worth the pain.

Got a long list of ex-QBs
they'll tell you I'm insane
You can ask all of our players
As I spread the blame

Cause our owner is reckless
And we won't go very far
Cause this team is deathless
Raised under an evil star

Got a long list of ex-QBs
they'll tell you I'm insane
But I've got a blank check buddy
And I'll write your name


Browns football's not fun, no it's torture
Don't say I didn't, say I didn't, warn ya
Browns football's not fun, no it's torture
Don't say I didn't, say I didn't, warn ya


Say goodbye to your career now
Cause it's gonna go down in flames
You can tell me when it's over
If the cash was worth the pain

Got a long list of ex-QBs
They'll tell you I'm insane
But you know I love bad players
Who can't play the game!

Cause this team is a trainwreck
And we don't have a single star
Not even Bill Belichick
Could drag us from the tar

Got a long list of ex-QBs
they'll tell you I'm insane
But I've got a blank check buddy
And I'll write your name

[Lys]

Marina's wife is from Cleveland, the way she describes rooting for her home teams sounds like somewhere between masochism and the quiet resignation of the condemned.

[Josh]

Cleveland is the factory of sadness.

Admittedly, it was a piss-poor market for quarterbacks. I mean, the big acquisition of the offseason there has been Cassell to Buffalo.

[Josh]

Take that back, the big news is Foles for... Bradford.

Still laughing over that one.

I'd be mildly concerned over the Rams making a potential upgrade in QBing, but then I'm reassured by the continued presence of Coach Mediocrity on the sidelines. As one worthy poster at... FO, I think it was, said: "Jeff Fisher is the king of 8-8. If it looks like a team's going to be 4-12, I know I can count on him to pull it out. If it looks like a team is going to be 14-2, I know I can count on him to pull it out."

[General Havoc]

How in God's name did the Rams convince Kelly to take Bradford in exchange for not only Nick Foles, but draft picks?!

I have no idea what Kelly thinks he is doing. I don't know if he does either.

[Josh]

I saw a really good article a while back, don't have the link handy.

But basically, the notion is that you combine the college style of recruitment (Kelly still kind of being in the mindset that he can refresh the team with a big pile of recruits from across the country) mixed with the control-freak tendencies inherent in any head coach, combined with the sheer insane pressure of trying to learn NFL GMing essentially on the fly has melted his brain a bit. Capology is a complicated enough subject that most teams employ specialized personnel just to work that shit out.

Myself, I never was sold on Kelly the offensive genius translating to the NFL in the first place. The NFL has seen gimmick offenses come and go throughout the years, and top it all off he flat runs the legs off his defense. That's the sort of thing you can get away with on a team full of fresh twenty-somethings, but NFL guys got the wear and tear that no special magic sports science program is going to sustain.

He might surprise us all, if literally everything breaks his way in the coming season. Otherwise, the gaping holes at wideout, OL, DL, and the secondary are going to turn this team into a cellar dweller even worse than the Redskins.

Amazing that in a single season Kelly managed to magically turn the Cowboys into the second-best administered team in the NFC East.

[General Havoc]

Yeah, I get a real whiff of Nick-Saban-at-Miami feel from this, or maybe Steve Spurrier's run at Washington, where he decided to try and re-create the Florida Gators with Danny Wuerffel and Jaquez Green. Neither of those two things should fill Eagles fans with optimism.

[Josh]

Damn it Chip, this was a golden opportunity.

Might as well go full retard. What's to lose at this point?

[Josh]

HAVOC ARE YOU DEPRESSING OUR LINEBACKERS?

NO MORE BAD TOUCH

[General Havoc]

I blame the Seahawks.

[Josh]

One of two things.

Either the '81 Cowboys got together to put a hex on the team, or else Levi's is built on some obscene combination of Indian burial ground, ancestral synagogue of one of the lost tribes, and the summer crash pad of one of von Däniken's aliens.

Last year: potentially best linebacker group in the league ff Bowman comes back and Smith doesn't get suspended, even before we knew how Borland and Lynch would turn out.

This year: FUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU

[Josh]

From the "It always could've been worse" department: despite the rumbles that the Niners might look that way, Trent Richardson ended up on the other side of the bay, hey.

[General Havoc]

Being better off than the Raiders is not exactly a huge achievement. It's like saying that your campus rape policy is better than Notre Dame's.

[Josh]

Right now I'll take any positive signs, thank you.