Sunday, October 14, 2001
Not much of a rivalry anymore
Back in the day, Paul Brown would turn red-faced by Monday afternoon. By Friday, he'd be at full boil, a lobster in an emotion pot. “Don't anyone dare cut his grass before Sunday,” The Great Man would demand, twice a year, every year, before the Bengals played the Browns.
Many seasons earlier, one of PB's players had mowed his lawn the Friday before a game. The guy slipped and whacked off a toe, which was painful and disloyal. Ever after, Brown forbade grass-cutting before the Cleveland game.
Now, you could take a cleaver to your fescue a few minutes before kickoff and so what. In heaven, The Great Man is wondering what the hell is going on.
Rivalry? What rivalry?
At best, the Bengals-Browns feud is Cincinnati's one-sided attempt at whipping up some instant loathing to get the local football blood gurgling. (Note to Bengals fans: Cleveland would rather beat Pittsburgh and Baltimore.) At worst, it's a fraud.
Example: Akili
To gauge the state of the Bengals-Browns “rivalry,” look no further than Akili Smith. He's the one over there on the practice field, pretending to be Tim Couch.
Smith stirred the embers of the rivalry two years ago, taunting Browns fans after a Bengals win in Cleveland. Since, Smith's career has gone into remission. Now, he's running the scout team offense. He doesn't compete with the Browns quarterback. He is the Browns quarterback.
Here are some things today's game will be for both teams: telling, significant, fiercely played. A big game. Here's something it won't be: The big game.
“The big game has been Browns-Steelers for as long as I can remember,” says Cleveland Plain Dealer metro columnist Dick Feagler, who has only been writing in Cleveland since 1963.
Put another way: “Since (former Browns owner Art) Modell moved the team, there's kind of a fondness up here for Cincinnati,” according to Plain Dealer sports columnist Bill Livingston. “Mike Brown didn't move his team.”
A ... fondness. Whoa, get that up on the bulletin board.
Different team
The Browns aren't even the Browns. They are an expansion team dispatched to Mistakeville by the NFL, as payback for Modell's treason. We'll call them The Cleveland Team.
It doesn't play in the rotting Erector Set stadium anymore. It has the Dawg Pound but, without Frank Minnifield and Hanford Dixon, no dawgs. It has a QB from the University of Kentucky. That's enough for UC fans who are Bengals fans to hate The Cleveland Team; it's also a reason for UK Bengals fans to love Cleveland.
It doesn't have Modell. It lacks boring Bill Belichick, the perfect foil to Sam Wyche.
It doesn't have any players, on either side, who recall the passion PB had for beating the Browns, who understand what the game meant to the old man. “We were burdened by playing Cleveland” is how Bob Trumpy put it Friday.
It is just a football game. It may be an entertaining game. But without the subplots, it ain't a rivalry.
Besides, the Indians are still playing.
E-mail: pdaugherty@enquirer.com. Past columns at Enquirer.com/columns/daugherty.
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DAUGHERTY: Not much of a rivalry anymore
