Confidence Wins, Not Arrogance

Shakes. My right leg shakes non-stop when I am nervous (and sitting down). Walking into the stadium for the game, I was incredibly nervous despite the fact we were playing the 0-6 Dolphins. Why on God's Earth would I be so nervous about the Dolphins? Well, two reasons: 1. I know a little about sports history and 2. I know a lot more than I would like to about heart-breaking Cleveland sports' history. Cleveland has a tendency to lose games/battles it is supposed to win. For example, you know when a rookie for the other team takes his first major league at bat against the Indians there is about a 75% chance he will crush one at least 450 feet.

Emily and I just reached the seats in time for the kickoff; there goes my right leg. The Browns received and Cribbs gave us awesome field position to start the game - something that is becoming more and more common…this is a change I could get used too. Anderson and Co. walked right down the field and scored. This helped - you could almost hear the entire stadium let out a big sigh…my leg slowed down a little. The Browns continued to control the game throughout the entire first half - it felt good. Cancel that, it felt awesome. It felt like that moment in your childhood fantasy when you saved the world and your favorite hero congratulated you (I was a Batman guy myself). It felt, as though someone just handed me, well, a Browns' victory - we were not out of the woods yet though...my leg was still moving.

I was just happy the Browns didn't come out flat - its easy to get arrogant about games you are supposed to win. Sometimes teams feel as though they just have to show up to win the game - that why they play the games. Crazy things happen all time in sports. Through it all one thing remains true - confidence, preparation, hard work and determination win games...arrogance, stupidity, greed, and apathy lose games.

Maybe we swapped defenses with the Dolphins, maybe our players thought the game was only 30 minutes this week, maybe they were stuck in a childhood fantasy, maybe they took fans out of the stands to play - I don't know exactly what happened during halftime, but it wasn't good. The Browns' defense made the Dolphins look like pro-bowl caliber players the entire second half…our big time offense saved us. This baffles me - Crennel was this defensive genius at New England - how is our offense so much better than our defense?

Despite how stressful it was - it was nice to finally win a game we were supposed to win. Upsetting a team, you are supposed to lose to (like the Patriots) is awesome, but an upset and winning a game you are supposed to win goes in the score book the same way. The best part of this win is that we can enjoy it for two weeks - the bye week is coming up. I know the players can use the rest...so can my right leg.