Though the Chargers game vs. the Cleveland Browns barely missed Halloween this year, it times perfectly to the Día De Muertos.
Who's doing that in Cleveland though?
Well the Browns fans certainly should. The color palette matches. They already wear, and wield dog bones.
Since the resurrection of their franchise a quarter-century ago the team has cycled through 39 different starters at quarterback. The same quarterback has started every game in a season only three times (Tim Couch in 2001, Baker Mayfield in 2019 and 2020). By comparison the Green Bay Packers have had eight different starters; the Chargers have had eleven over that same span.
Last Sunday, Jameis Winston became the latest one in a dramatic 29-24 upset over the Baltimore Ravens. It was Winston's first start in over two years.
Something about the Cleveland offense seemed different during this 29-24 victory over the Baltimore Ravens. I’d imagine some theories might emerge to explain the night-and-day change, but could the dead cat bounce simply have been the quarterback change from Deshaun Watson to Jameis Winston?
Derwin James noticed it when he watched the film.
"You could tell the difference. Guys want to get open. They're running hard. Everybody's playing hard for him." said James. "You could tell he's one of the leaders in that locker room."
Could the cumulative weight and bad vibes surrounding Watson have been a psychic anchor on the entire organization? Or is the goofy, yet affable Winston the beneficiary some positive turnover luck that could swing back faster than he can lick clean his fingers?
“I am certain when I am making great decisions, one play at a time, I am a great NFL quarterback,” Winston said this week.
Which is the type of thing a fat guy says coming back from the buffet line with a small plate of steamed broccoli.
The numbers suggest otherwise. As the only member in the NLF's 30/30 club, the former first round pick, now 30-years old, is on his third team.
Yes, Winston played well and gives the fans in Cleveland something to look forward to in the months ahead, but if we're being honest, the Browns are still searching for a permanent answer behind center.
One fan has already turned his front yard into a quarterback graveyard . Over three dozen quarterbacks are memorialized in the Halloween display, with five starting just last year—on a team that went to the playoffs!
Tony Timoteo and his wife Jill created their Browns Quarterback Graveyard ten years ago, memorializing every starting quarterback for the Browns since the team's rebirth in 1999.
“Unfortunately, a quarterback in Cleveland, your demise is inevitable here,” Timoteo said.
That's the opposite of a franchise player. The Browns go through quarterbacks the way Leonardo DiCaprio goes through girlfriends.
That is a lot of dead bodies, or rather, that is a lot of pictures to decorate an ofrenda.
Communities who celebrate Día de Muertos this weekend gather family and friends to pay homage members who have died.
When the Spanish conquistadors invaded the Americas, a conversion to Catholicism was forced on the indigenous people they conquered. In Spain, families would decorate graves, bring food to graveyards, and burn candles to light the path for the dead to return to their families.Upon experiencing the Aztec celebrations of death, the first Spanish colonials began fusing Aztec tradition with their own.
All Saints Day and All Souls Day, which were also pagan holidays initially, mingled with the Aztecan influence resulting in the strange mélange we recognize today as Día de Muertos.
The holiday is marked by raising a glass and telling stories, feasting, and decorating an ofrenda with photographs and cempazúchitl (marigolds). Día de Muertos can last for days.
But if you were to distill all of the anthropology lesson above into the kernel of truth at the heart of the holiday it just asks that you not to forget the ones who have passed on.
"Remember me." To quote the song from the Pixar film "Coco" (2017); a beautiful animated story that imagined what might happen if the living crossed over into the realm of the dead.
Even if it only lasts for a day or two, the idea is strikingly beautiful.
Taking any amount of time out of our hectic daily lives to remember the ones who tread these steps before us is a worthwhile endeavor. It's also a huge part of my writing.
So please don't interpret this Día de Muertos framing as slander against the Browns for being unable to draft a quarterback.
I just love the idea of remembering the ones that lost. And for that completist out there somewhere putting a framed photo of Deshaun Watson on the Browns' ofrenda, you might want to turn that frame face down.
If you didn't already know, Chargers fans have a genuine kinship with Browns fans. If another franchise exists with enough cumulative emotional baggage to rival ours, then surely they wear bone necklaces, bark like dogs and can explain whatever Brownie the elf is .
One of my best friends is a Browns fan. Whenever I need to tap into that Midwestern fatalism to make myself feel better about my own team I can always count on Mikey, who is always there to talk me down off the ledge. After a few beers and a shoulder to cry on, I gain perspective on my own football life.
I wish I could say that I provided the same mental health service to him.
"We are one of the most emotionally stable fan bases around." Mikey said. "You can't really disappoint a Browns fan because they expect suffering. There's none of this volatility that other fans experience."
Other fans talk about their team's ceilings, in Cleveland a ceiling is just something else that could fall and hurt somebody; something else you need to get a permit for.
When you expect the floor to fall beneath you, you learn to keep your head down.
To have a sense of how bad the Browns have been, former coach Hue Jackson told reporters after going 1-15 in 2016 that if that happened again he would jump into Lake Erie.
The Browns did him one better. They went 0-16.
As a head coach, Jackson went 1-31 over the course two seasons—and the Browns brought him back for a third year! Talk about dead man walking.
Jackson's sole win came against Philip Rivers and a gutted Chargers team on Christmas Eve.
See? We have our own skeletons in the closet to hold the candle for.
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Boat⚡️Up!
Well done! The analogy using the Day of the Dead is clever and original. It works!