CLEVELAND — Baker Mayfield’s call for a better fan turnout in the final home game against Cincinnati will take care of itself.
No need for anyone to offer to drive people to their destination, election-day style.
It’s simple.
Beat Denver, they will come.
Lose to Denver, oh boy.
In that case, it will be best for Mayfield and everyone else in Berea to zip it no matter how innocent their intentions.
At least until they prove they can:
A) win more than one game on the road in a season, and/or
B) have a winning season overall more than once or twice every 20 years.
To be fair, Mayfield didn’t say anything crazy. I mean, it’s not as if he ranted about being disrespected when he goes to his local CVS.
But when a team goes 1-15, 0-16, 2-6-1 to start the next season, gets blown out in Houston and comes home 4-7-1 from that, well, if there are more people in the stadium than seagulls and possums for the next home game it should be considered a pretty good turnout.
The solution is right in front of Mayfield and the Browns. Just beat a Denver team whose best offensive weapon (Phillip Lindsay) is a 5-8, 190-pound undrafted running back playing for his home town team.
The Browns house-of-horrors past against the Broncos and especially at altitude? None of that matters.
No reason the Browns can’t win. For one thing (apologies to Case Keenum) they have the better quarterback.
For another, it’s about time isn’t it?
- At least once we should all be welcomed at work the way Cavs fans welcomed Matthew Dellavedova Wednesday.
Or like Neil Armstrong after the moon walk.
Basically the same thing.
- The Cavs beat New York in Delly’s first game back at The Q as “M-V-P” chants rained on him.
I feel the need to separate fact from comedic (I hope) exaggeration in this column.
The MVP chants really did happen.
Clearly, people were just having fun. Nothing serious.
In the same week Steph Curry said he doesn’t believe the moon landing happened, I just feel the need to clarify that.
- If you’re one of those Cavs fans who say “Delly Trey” or post a picture of lunch meat when Dellavedova hits a three, the rest of us are the ones saying, “Please stop.”
- If it still bothers you that Baker Mayfield took a hit to the head with no flag against Tampa Bay, well, that happened to Phillip Rivers too, on the Chargers final drive of a tremendous 29-28 win against the Chiefs in Kansas City Thursday.
Feel better? Didn’t think so.
- At least the ref Thursday didn’t say, “The quarterback was still a runner and therefore is allowed to be hit in the head [...] “
That’s what passes for improved refereeing this season. When they make bad calls but don’t say anything more incriminating.
- I’m not one to make refs the big story week after week. It gets old.
Whether you agree or disagree with calls depends in large part on your rooting interest. There’s no conspiracy against the Browns.
That said, 2018 for NFL refs has been a never-ending pupil dilation at the eye doctor’s office.
- The payroll correction for the Indians continued with the trade of Edwin Encarnacion and his parrot. OK, not so much the parrot.
Seattle’s willingness to send $6 million along in the deal makes Santana’s contract a $29 million purchase over two seasons. Encarnacion, three years older than Santana, would cost the Indians more than $20 million this season alone.
It’s plausible to say the Indians can still win the AL Central while losing Encarnacion, Michael Brantley, Yan Gomes, Cody Allen, Lonnie Chisenhall, Rajai Davis, Melky Cabrera, Andrew Miller, Erik Gonzalez, Oliver Perez and Yandy Diaz.
It’s also more than fair to say winning the AL Central isn’t going to float anybody’s boat if the playoffs are another eye blink.
- The Indians might yet trade Yonder Alonso, who makes $8 million next season.
But now if they also trade either Corey Kluber or Trevor Bauer only one thing can make it right with fans.
And Delly can’t throw out the first pitch every night.
- Shaquille O’Neal believes his 2000-02 Lakers would have handled the Golden State Warriors pretty easily.
“We had one of the best teams of all-time in 2001 when we went 15-1 in the playoffs,” O’Neal said.
Meanwhile, O’Neal wouldn’t choose a side in the Michael Jordan-LeBron James debate because “we’re talking about two different eras.”
So, to reiterate, he won’t compare eras.
Until he compares eras.
- By the way, did you see Jordan knock Charlotte’s Malik Monk upside the head after Monk got a technical for running on to the court prematurely to celebrate a game-winning Hornets shot?
“Big brother (reaction),” Jordan called it.
LeBron deserves a lot of credit for never doing that. Given how many seasons he played with J.R.
- "You forgot the what? The score?” Smack.
- James was one of the Lakers who locked his hands behind his back during a few Houston possessions Thursday to let the refs know his team did not appreciate ticky-tack calls that sent the Rockets to the foul line.
“Just trying to defend without fouling,” said James.
It’s important to note that in his first year in L.A., James is still playing at an extremely high passive-aggressive level.
- By the way, Shaq is right as his claim applies to the Golden State team that had trouble with the depleted Cavs the first time they met in the NBA Finals.
The Warriors and Lakers are only separated by 15 years so it’s not the difference between distant generations.
But certainly the Warriors style is a marked departure from the way some teams play now and most all teams played then.
“Teams that dominated their respective eras need to be left alone in terms of what that means,” said Steph Curry.
“Hopefully that's how they'll approach us when they talk about us 20, 30 years from now looking back."
Curry is right. No sense talking about it. Good for him.
Wait. He will anyway.
“I think (Shaq’s) dead wrong.”
- As far as the silliness of comparing generations go, hold my beer, says free agent pitcher Adam Ottavino.
Speaking on MLB’s Statcast podcast, Ottavino recounted an argument he had with a Triple A coach.
“I said, ‘Babe Ruth, with that swing, swinging that bat, I got him hitting .140 with eight homers,” said Ottavino. "He was like, ‘Are you nuts? Babe Ruth would hit .370 with 60 homers.’ And I’m like, ‘I would strike Babe Ruth out every time.’’
Go on.
“I’m not trying to disrespect him, you know, rest in peace, you know, shout out to Babe Ruth. “But it was a different game. I mean, the guy ate hot dogs and drank beer and did whatever he did. It was just a different game.”
He has a point. The game changes.
Crazy arguments never do.
- Curry’s Warriors lost to the Raptors by 20 Wednesday at home. Kawhi Leonard did not play for Toronto.
Duly impressed, Kevin Durant said the Raptors are not “up and coming.” Instead, he said, “they’re (already) here.”
No one has said that about the Raptors during the regular season since last year and, you know, all those other years.
- The best reason to think it might finally be true of the Raptors isn’t what they do in the regular season. The best reason to think they’re here is LeBron James is over there in the other conference.
- Harold Baines was inducted into the Hall of Fame.
Harold Baines.
- Baines was a veteran’s committee inductee who never received more than six percent of the vote on the baseball writer’s ballot from 2007-2011. He was dropped from the ballot after that.
Seventy-five percent of the vote is needed for induction via the BBWAA.
.So, yes, we’re saying there was no chance.
- The Eagles lost to the Cowboys in overtime after forcing a fumble on the kickoff in the extra period. Philly successfully challenged the down-by-contact ruling on the field but refs determined there was no “clear” Philadelphia recovery.
"That was a pretty terrible call," Philly’s Malcom Jenkins said via ESPN.com. "They reviewed it and the explanation I got was that it wasn't a clear recovery, although Kamu (Grugier-Hill) had the ball in his hand and there was only Eagles defenders on the ball in replay. So whoever's watching that in New York should stay off the bottle.”
Jenkins “stay off the bottle” line seems fair.
Unless the definition of “clear” recovery is picture of the game ball, complete with serial number, in the hands of an Eagles player.
- And, yes, full disclosure. I did grow up in Philly.
- Yahoo reported Bulls players contacted the union to complain about Jim Boylen after the interim head coach scheduled three two-and-a-half hour practices in his first week on the job.
Boylen, who spent two years in San Antonio under head coach Gregg Popovich, pulled all five starters twice against the Celtics, once after a17-0 Boston run.
Boylen seems to have miscalculated at least one equation:
Pop’s success > Pop’s tough tactics.
Also: Jim Boylen in the minds of Bulls players = Who?
- Rams head coach Sean McVay blamed himself for putting his players in bad situations and called the 15-6 loss to the Bears “very, very humbling.”
Wait. Something can humble a NFL head coach? Something can be his fault?
Not on my watch, said Hue Jackson.
- Browns 23, Denver 17.
And I haven’t been wrong in two weeks.
