The Browns Are Finally Thriving, as Their Fans Adjust to the New Normal

Smaller crowds, no tailgating, no packed sports bars. 2020 has been a different experience for NFL fans. For Browns fans, it comes at a time when the team is finally good.

With a minute and 30 seconds remaining in Sunday’s Browns–Titans game, Gus Angelone answers the phone, still floating in this strange euphoria that has defined the majority of his 2020 football season. He calls it euphoria because, admittedly, he is still unsure how to describe it. At age 44, he only knows bad Cleveland Browns football. There has not been a singular Sunday in his sentient adult life where a game felt in hand, or even remotely winnable at kickoff.

And now, the superfan known as Pumpkinhead is watching as his two sons, ages 12 and 13, launch off the La-Z-Boy onto the ottoman as Cleveland seals its ninth win of the season—this one a 41–35 romp in which the Browns stormed out to a 38–7 halftime lead over a first-place Titans team. The kids wear their Browns jerseys to school and don’t get made fun of.

Courtesy: Pumpkinhead (left); Christopher Hanewinckel/USA TODAY Sports (right)

I’ve thought about Angelone with regularity this season after we last spoke in March for a story about what the NFL’s legion of superfans would do without the ability to actually attend games in person. Angelone said he’s been fortunate that in Ohio, a small number of fans (12,000) can get into the stadium each week, and he has seen all of Cleveland’s home games. He’s also been to a road game in Dallas. But the general exchange—sacrificing the togetherness of tailgating, the energy of a full stadium, the closeness of friends to share in a victory—in order for the Browns to finally be good, feels so perfectly Brownsian, doesn’t it? The cosmic interference that has constantly toyed with the franchise since its rebirth in 1999 has not lifted, it just may be growing slightly less macabre.

Angelone knows he’s one of the lucky ones. He typically attends most if not all games and this year the number has been chopped down to nine. Not every fan is an unofficial organizational ambassador, and thus, has been kept at arm’s length from their finally relevant franchise. It was a Gift of the Magi type scenario that Angelone said he predicted back in the summer when it became clear that Sundays would not be the same for a while.

“I felt that after they canceled the tailgating and the idea of fans in the stands were in jeopardy, I just knew,” Angelone said. “This is so Cleveland Browns. This is the year they make the playoffs, when [most] of us can’t attend a game.”

He was joking—mostly. This season has meant a great deal to Angelone, a single father and military veteran who has weathered the mental and physical grind of the pandemic like the rest of us. Adventures in distance learning, part-time layoffs and furloughs, fear and joy and confusion and struggle.

Sundays like this one, where the team clinched just its third winning season of the past 20 years and continued surging toward its first playoff appearance since 2002, have taken on a much different meaning. They are far quieter and more intimate than he’s used to (both of his sons have been going to Browns games since they were infants and are also used to the cacophony of cheers and boos each weekend). They are also quite special, as Angelone can take in their full progression into Browns fanhood and take stock in how intertwined they’ve become in a game he grew up loving as well.

“The Browns have always been a focal point in our family,” he said. “But to have them be actually competitive, actually winning, actually be enjoyable, I mean, it’s just crazy. My boys understand the game now, they know all the players. For me as a father this has been enjoyable to experience with them.”

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It’s safe to say that Angelone is not the only one finding a hard time describing it all. There are always moments where moribund franchises finally turn the corner, allowing their long-dejected fan bases to finally emerge and puff their chests. But this turnaround is radical, even by modern standards. Sunday’s win over the Titans was another benchmark in a season that has been so unbelievably efficient and sensible, so free of palace intrigue, infighting, public gaffes and cursed, underperforming talent.

In short, the complete opposite of what he and his kids have been used to.

It was telling that as we wrapped up our conversation on Sunday, and the Titans scored to bring the game within six points, Angelone barely flinched. He muttered something about Tennessee staging a comeback but his focus remained on the good fortune that this strange and beautiful season has brought. He is confident in Baker Mayfield. He and his boys are obsessed with Myles Garrett and Nick Chubb. Pandemic be damned, there is a bright future on the horizon, or whatever you want to call it.

“Their whole life, all they know is crap football,” Angelone said, as his sons continued to celebrate in the background. “And now, they’re experiencing what it’s like to actually enjoy watching their favorite football team.

“Before it was just like, Oh, the Browns are on. You just always had that pit in your stomach.”