FanSided editors Matt Verderame and Jonathan Bass overreact to stories because why not.
Verderame: MELTDOWN TUESDAY
Bass: LEGGO! We obviously have to start with the Browns, so which section of this trash heap you wanna suit up for and tackle first?
Verderame: It all starts with Jimmy Haslam. The guy bought the team and was immediately being looked at by the feds. Then he blows through about 19 first-round picks and 37 head coaches without finding one keeper. Other than that, he’s doing great.
Bass: Now he’s hiring a baseball guy that only answers to him and the team president who, by the way, is some dude named Sashi. What in the hell is going on up there?! Do we have another owner ripe for an offseason drug bust on our hands?
Verderame: It’s like the Browns are sitting around and trying to figure out how to piss off the fan base. Cleveland needs to storm the stadium and take it apart piece by damn piece.
Bass: There’s no way they don’t sign Chip Kelly, right?! I mean they’ve flipped the switch for crazy at this point. Might as well the entire way by bringing in the Mad Scientist.
Verderame: Can you imagine Kelly in Cleveland? He would be going insane trying to get that offense going, only to watch the most untalented group of players, ever, going three-and-out.
Bass: Here’s my thing: bring him in and give him 5 years no matter what. Tell the fans. Tell the rest of management. Let the guy be coach and GM, and then hand off the franchise for a half-decade. They’ve been lower than dirt for the past 17 seasons; they’re the biggest laughing stock in all sports; and the fans aren’t going anywhere because they live in a perpetual state of Stockholm Syndrome from last time the team left town (they’ll watch anything). It’s already ugly as hell, why not just dedicate the next five years to something that is either going to work wonders or spontaneously combust. Get weird.
Verderame: How about doing the right thing and paying some insane amount of money for either Bill Cowher or Marty Schottenheimer? Both have ties to the team and would be immediate fixes to a problem that has been going on for the better part of two decades. Kelly is a lousy coach and the rest of the candidates this year are incredibly underwhelming. How about Haslam puts his big boy pants on and hires a real man?
Bass: I can get behind that. Bring them in, let them turn things around (obviously give them as long a leash as possible), and at the same time groom a young coach to take over the franchise. Though we’re talking too logically right now.
Verderame: Alright, while staying on this dumpster fire in the worst city America has outside of Buffalo, what the hell is going on with Johnny Manziel?
Bass: It’s all a ploy. No doubt. He’s forcing his way out of The Forest City.
Verderame: Manziel might just be a genius. Or, he could be one of the dumbest people on Earth. It’s a wide span, and I’m learning toward the latter. Still, can’t blame the man for wanting to get out of town.
Bass: I’m in the former’s camp. Put yourself in his shoes: you’re from Texas, you’re a legend down there and you know you have what it takes to play some ball. Yet you’re stuck in the worst-run organization in all professional sports who won’t take the kid gloves off of you. Wouldn’t you want to get the hell out of Dodge? Like at least if you play for some shithouse like Miami or San Diego you’re in nice weather where you can play golf and surf all day. What do you do in Cleveland? Extinguish the lake that’s inexplicably on fire? Buy a year’s pass to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame? FOH.
Verderame: I just think he’s out of his mind. But this whole thing is on Cleveland. Fix your damn city. Maybe he would not be trying to create an NFL team in Vegas if there was something to do in Cleveland besides walking down a dark alley between two crap bars. Manziel needs to become an adult, but the damn Browns knew he was a mess and took him anyway.
Bass: True Life Cleveland:
Verderame: FUN TIMES IN CLEVELAND AGAIN
Bass: One thing about Cleveland, at least they play games at times when you an watch them. Did you catch the College Football Playoff Semifinals?
Verderame: Nope, I was busy having a life at a wedding with the girlfriend (who is beautiful by the way …. she reads these things). I saw Michigan State gave about as much effort than night as I did.
Bass: I’m pretty sure that you could give more effort than Sparty put out that night. But that’s not the point. How dumb is Bill Hancock and the CFP brain trust for holding their biggest games to date on New Year’s Eve? Obviously there’s conceit involved, but we’re talking stupidity. What’s your rating?
Verderame: They deserve those crap ratings. How stupid do you have to be to put the thing on New Year’s Eve. I’m glad the damn games tanked.
Bass: Not a rating, but okay let’s go from there. Here’s the problem. One: the games are on New Year’s Eve – a day where a lot of people still work. It was 1 p.m. on the West Coast for kickoff of the first game. Two: they shared the day with the Peach Bowl. There’s nothing special about the day, and your lead is Florida State getting its brains blown out by Houston. Woo! And three: there was football on THE DAY AFTER. There’s no buildup. No crescendo. They completely buried the games. Buried them. The two most important contests of the entire year and they were hidden from view, on cable, on the biggest night all year to go out.
Verderame: Oh, my bad. My rating is a -12. And I hate that college football does not save the entire College Football Playoff for the last games. Why are there games in between the semifinals and championship? It is like the NFL playing the conference championships, then Week 17, then some more nonsense, then the Super Bowl. Come on, man.
Bass: Put the games on Monday, have the entire night to yourself, and move along happily. The worst part of it is that Disney and ESPN saw this coming from a mile away. They wanted the games to be changed. Hancock said no. Said he was going to change the game for New Year’s Eve. Enlighten the world. And what does he care: his group gets paid a flat rate whether 100 or 100 million people watch it. ESPN is the one that suffers due to ad sales. It was a giant f–k you to every fan of college football. Just despicable.
Verderame: I hope that college football gets hit with a massive scandal next year that wipes out everyone in charge, along with the Big 12 and PAC 12. Why? Because the suits need to go, and those two conferences need to learn about DEFENSE.
Bass: Yeah, like some kind of giant cover-up where a coach is actually a closet pedophile and everyone in the institution knows, but it finally comes out due to a whistle-blower. There’s no way the NCAA could save face there, nor the institution or any parties involved …
Verderame: PENN STATE STAND UP
Bass: In all seriousness, though, the NCAA is a bunch of Teflon Dons. There’s nothing that can touch them, save them trying to drop the hammer on a conference and the Power 5 banding together and forming its own institution. It’s a crock. Only thing more laughable is Puppet Goodell doing his $44 million soft-shoe dance atop a pile of hundos for 32 billionaires.
Verderame: Frankly, I’m disgusted and appalled at what is going on.
Bass: Yeah, I think I’m done. See you tomorrow.
Verderame: Good fight, good night.