The Work of the Cleveland Browns

For Cleveland, losing is a given

The immortal Jim Brown and all the quarterbacks who couldn’t save the revived Cleveland Browns

This piece, which was published in the summer 2017 edition of the now-defunct Victory Journal, was the most lavishly-illustrated print piece of my career¹. It was also among the best-paying freelance gigs I’ve had, with Victory—which was really a vanity project run by the advertising company Doubleday & Cartwright²—ponying up $4,000 for the story.³

For whatever reason, “Why Are the Browns So Bad?” was never republished on the Victory website, a fate that befell a number of their print stories.⁴ What I’m going to do here for paying subscribers is to share the text—it’s essentially evergreen, because despite a recent playoff appearance and dalliance with respectability, the Browns have returned to their dysfunctional, losing ways—and include the impressive artwork that Victory commissioned, along with other videos and images that help tell the story.

The story—which boasts interviews with long-time beat reporter Tony Grossi and talk radio host Aaron Goldhammer as well as former Browns Tim Couch, Peyton Hillis⁵, Joe Thomas, and Chris Ruhman⁶—is among the best articles yet written about the sad second iteration of this storied franchise (and more than worth the cheap-as-free $5 price of admission).⁷