I covered the three pressure-packed games between the White Sox and Guardians earlier this week, and as I turned onto East Ninth Street to head home after Petey Halpin’s three-run homer propelled Cleveland into first place on Sept. 16, with Progressive Field in my rearview mirror, a thought crossed my mind:
Three games, each critical in the American League playoff race, boisterous fans deeply invested in every pitch, And the only thing that mattered was what happened on the baseball diamond.
How refreshing!
How contrary to the “As the Browns Turn” soap opera that has been airing in Berea for more than a quarter century, starting in 1999 when former team president Carmen Policy named clueless Dwight Clark as the Browns’ first general manager. Clark, who passed away in 2018 when he succumbed to ALS at age 61, was handsome. That was the only qualification necessary as far as Policy was concerned.
The Browns made 11 draft picks in 1999. They selected quarterback Tim Couch first overall. Clark, unfathomably, did not spend any of his 10 remaining picks on an offensive lineman to protect the player who could have been a franchise quarterback had he not been sacked an NFL-most 56 times as a rookie and 51 times in 2001.
The Browns’ front office never seems to learn from its mistakes. Seeing Couch sacked 56 times in 1999 might have been a clue the offensive line needed an upgrade. Nope.
The Browns did not draft an offensive lineman in 2000 until they chose guard Brad Bedell in the sixth round with pick 206 overall. Their final pick in 1999 was running back Madre Hill with pick 207 overall. Adding the number of players picked in the two drafts together shows 412 players were selected before the Browns finally drafted an offensive lineman.
The actors change, but the various plots of the Browns soap opera never do.
No one in the Browns organization has ever taken sole responsibility for leading the charge to acquire Deshaun Watson in a trade with the Houston Texans for three first-round draft picks and three mid-round picks in March of 2022.
Watson initially declined being traded to Cleveland by exercising the no-trade clause in his contract with Houston. He reluctantly changed his mind after Browns owner Jimmy Haslam bribed him with a record-setting, fully guaranteed five-year $230 million contract.
We all know more than two dozen massage therapists in the Houston area had accused Watson of sexual misconduct before the pursuit of Watson began. The Browns made the trade anyway.
Watson packed his clothes and his misery when he moved from Houston to Cleveland. The money didn’t change the fact that deep down he doesn’t want to be here.
“I will say this on behalf of Deshaun,” Haslam said when the trade was finalized. “I think maybe he struggled a little bit with the weather and how far it was away from home, and it took a period of time to get him comfortable with that.”
Watson signed a four-year, $160 million contract extension with the Texans in 2020 — two years after passing for 4,823 yards and 33 touchdowns when Houston went 4-12 in 2018. He demanded a trade before the 2021 season because he was not consulted before the Texans hired Nick Caserio as general manager. The sexual misconduct accusations surfaced around the start of the 2021 season. The Texans responded to the allegations by announcing they would not play Watson in 2021. And, still, the Browns traded for him seven months later.
About 90 minutes before Parker Messick threw the first pitch in the Sept. 16 day game with the White Sox, Watson held his weekly Wednesday news conference in Berea and blamed the media for fans’ poor perception of him. For the record, Watson is 9-11 as the Browns’ starting quarterback since 2022.
Watson never takes accountability for his failures on or off the field.
“I think the media has this expectation that I’m supposed to throw 400 yards, five touchdowns every week,” Watson told reporters. “So, until that happens, I guess it’s going to be the same situation.”
Watson started the season opener in Jacksonville last week. He did not put a touchdown on the board until he connected with rookie Denzel Boston with 1:52 remaining to cut the Jaguars’ lead to 34-10.
Head coach Todd Monken plans to start Watson on Sept. 20 against the Buccaneers in Tampa, Fla. No announcement yet on which quarterback will start the home opener at Huntington Bank Field Sept. 27 against the Carolina Panthers.
One might have thought the Browns learned how much a distraction can be to team success in the aftermath of acquiring Watson. Nope.
The Browns used a fifth-round pick (144) in 2025 on Shedeur Sanders. Taking a quarterback with Sanders’ talent in the fifth round was not a gamble, but he is not just any quarterback.
Every day last year after Sanders was drafted was the Shedeur Circus. Many of the performers were his legion of followers on social media. The circus formed the moment Sanders was drafted.
“Our guys understand when you’re in the building, we’re here to work,” former coach Kevin Stefanski said the night Sanders was drafted. “We don’t pay much attention to what’s on the outside. We’ve spent a lot of time with Shedeur. “We know what he’s about. He’s coming in here to work, just like all of our other players.”
Stefanski was called a racist by Sanders’ blindly loyal followers for not starting Sanders during the first 10 games. It was a ridiculous, baseless charge, but it was part of the turmoil of 2025. Sanders did go 3-4 starting the final seven games last year, but current coach Todd Monken reached the same conclusion Stefanski did — Sanders isn’t ready to be a starter in the NFL.
Meanwhile, the Guardians are scratching and clawing to win their third straight AL Central title.
Fans pull out their hair because Guardians owner Paul Dolan doesn’t throw piles of money at free agents in the offseason. It is a fair complaint. But big contracts do not guarantee success.
The Mets have the highest payroll among MLB’s 30 teams at $343,778,787. The Guardians are dead last at $82,003,196. The Mets (70-84) are last in the NL East. The Guardians (79-75) have a one-game lead on the 78-76 White Sox in the Central Division. Chicago would win the tiebreaker if they finish with identical records because the White Sox won the season series, 7-6.
Dolan, president of baseball operations Chris Antonetti and general manager Mike Chernoff give the Guardians solid leadership from the top.
Guardians president of baseball operations Chris Antonetti and manager Stephen Vogt celebrate after winning the AL Central on Sept. 28. (Tim Phillis – For The News-Herald)
Antonetti has been in the Indians/Guardians organization since 1999 — coincidentally the year the Browns were an expansion team. He was appointed general manager in 2010 and promoted to his current position in 2015. Chernoff was named assistant general manager in 2010 and made the natural progression to GM in 2015 when Antonetti got his promotion.
Terry Francona managed the team from 2013-2023. He is the winningest manager in franchise history with 921 victories. The team made the playoffs in six of the 11 years he managed. He led the Indians to the World Series in 2016. They lost to the Cubs in the 10th inning of Game 7. Francona’s combined playoff record in Cleveland was 16-17.
Stephen Vogt has been at the helm the last three years. The Guardians played the Yankees for the American League championship in 2024. They were eliminated in five games. They lost to the Tigers, two games to one, in the wild-card series last October.
We’ll use 2010 as a starting point with the Browns since that is the year Antonetti took over as general manager. Tom Heckert was the Browns’ GM from 2010-12, followed by Mike Lombardi in 2013, Ray Farmer 2014-15, Sashi Brown 2016-17 and John Dorsey in 2018-19.
Andrew Berry has been the Browns’ general manager since 2020. He has the longest tenure at the position since Ernie Accorsi was general manager from 1985-92.
We’ll use 2013 as the starting point for Browns head coaches since that is the year Francona first managed in Cleveland. Rob Chudzinski was one-and-done in 2013. Mike Pettine was head coach in 2014 and 2015. Hue Jackson had the job from 2016 until he was fired midway through 2018 with a sterling record of 3-36-1. Freddie Kitchens was 6-10 in a one-and-done 2019 season. Stefanski was 45-56 in six seasons. Todd Monken is coaching his second game as the sideline boss when the Browns face the Bucs.
Stefanski guided the Browns to the playoffs in 2020 and 2023. They beat the Steelers, 48-37, in a wild-card playoff game after the 2020 season for their only playoff win in the 27 years of the expansion era. The only other time they made the playoffs since 1999 was 2002 under Butch Davis.
Berry has had seven offseasons and seven drafts to find a quarterback. For now, the Browns are sinking with Watson, Sanders, rookie Taylen Green and injured Dillon Gabriel.
There’s always next year. Every year, there’s always next year for the Browns.
I didn’t know that
… until I read my Snapple bottle cap.
Bees have five eyes. Three are on top of the bee’s head. … A human body has 2.5 million sweatpores. … Until early in the 20th century, solid blocks of tea were used as currency in Siberia. … A standard gold bar stored in Fort Knox weighs 27.5 pounds. … At birth, a Dalmatian is always white. … Jim Thorpe was paid $250 a game playing for the Canton Bulldogs in 1915, making him the highest-paid professional football player at the time. That would equate to roughly $8,300 a game today.