Over the years of writing for what is now my third website (fourth if  you count a one-time article that was published on hogshaven.com as a Cleveland Browns contributor), I’ve been blessed and have earned the respect of several others when it comes to my knowledge of football in general and the NFL draft in particular. It’s been a very rewarding experience, in spite of the fact that I’ve never received even so much as one red cent for any of my writings. You see, football has always been a passion of mine, and writing allows me certain liberties with the English language while expounding on my thoughts concerning a given topic. Considering how passionate a writer I am about the Cleveland Browns, I’m convinced that many of you will be rather surprised (if not shocked) to read that I’m not originally from Ohio at all – much less Northeast Ohio. When someone asks me where I’m from, I say that I’m from Cincinnati. I do that because almost no one in Northeast Ohio has a clue as to where Villa Hills, Kentucky is. In case you’re interested, it’s a suburban town of roughly 10,000 people that’s situated about halfway between Cincinnati, Ohio and Florence, Kentucky – about two miles west from exit 186 along the stretch where I-71 and I-75 merge into one highway. And that confession, my friends, leads to one simple question; “So, Wunkle, why are you a Browns fan?”

It was early March of 1984 when I accepted a position with what was then the Aerospace Division of the Goodyear Tire and Rubber Company. My wife and I were married less than nine months when we re-located to the Akron-Canton area. It was there that I learned just how knowledgeable and passionate Northeast Ohioans are about football in general and Cleveland Browns football in particular. Granted, I was only four years old when the Browns last won an NFL championship, but I’ve seen plenty of film clips on the likes of Otto Graham, Marion Motley, Bill Willis and Jim Brown – who is arguably the greatest football player in NFL history. I’ve also seen the likes of Brian Sipe, Clay Matthews, Paul Warfield, Frank Minnifield, Hanford Dixon, Don Cockroft, Bob Golic, Ozzie Newsome and the incomparable Bernie Kosar when they were all in their prime. I’ve learned just how rich the winning tradition of Cleveland Browns football is and I have a great respect for it, but that’s not why I’m a Browns fan.

It was in the early 1990’s when then Browns owner Arthur B. Modell and his Stadium Corporation were leasing Cleveland Municipal Stadium from the city for $1.00 a year on the premise that Modell would pay for all maintenance on the facility. His prime tenant for 81 games a year was none other than your Cleveland Indians. At this time the Cleveland Cavaliers were playing their home games at the Richfield Coliseum, which is located in Summit County – just a few miles north of Akron. Cleveland’s city council wanted the tax revenue that Richfield was receiving from the Cavaliers, but there was neither an existing arena nor practice facility that was anywhere near adequate. So the council struck a deal with both the Indians and the Cavaliers that would by 1995 move the teams into a pair of state of the art sports facilities. This complex would later be known as the Gateway Project. The combination of Modell losing his primary tenant, costs of trying to maintain an eyesore of a stadium and his own ineptitude found him nearly 200 million dollars in debt by this time. But the straw that broke the camel’s back came just before the start of the 1995 baseball season when Modell was given a tour of the Gateway facilities. When he saw what the city had done for the other two sports teams and not done anything to get his team a new stadium, Modell then made the decision to move the team. He was desperate for cash flow, but was too proud and headstrong to sell the team to a local buyer that would keep the team in Cleveland.

Time out for a snippet of sports trivia: Baltimore, Maryland is the only city with two sports teams that – prior to relocating there – shared the same nickname. The Baltimore Orioles were originally known as the St. Louis Browns. The other team is obviously the Baltimore Ravens, who were the original Cleveland Browns.

Let’s fast forward to the last half of the 1995 – 1996 NFL season where Modell announced that the Cleveland Browns were moving to Baltimore, Maryland. It was Modell’s every intention to keep the name and colors the same. Then Cleveland Mayor Michael White – in an effort to (in part) save his own political career – embarked on an effort called the Save Our Browns campaign. Cleveland Browns fans literally crippled the NFL’s ability to conduct any business transactions by generating a veritable typhoon of faxes and phone calls to the league’s New York office. No trades, no waiver wire acquisitions, no practice squad signings could be approved. If anyone in the league office wanted to place a carry out order out to a local delicatessen, they had to walk there to place the order and wait for it to be made on the spot. So, when I say the league’s ability to conduct business was crippled, it was literally crippled. It was at that time when then Commissioner Paul Tagliabue pleaded with the Cleveland Browns fans to stop the assault; and in return, Cleveland would be awarded an NFL expansion franchise. Furthermore, the Browns name, team colors and team history would remain in Cleveland; which is unprecedented in professional sports. The big catch was that the expansion Browns must have a new stadium built to replace Municipal Stadium, and that it had to be completed in time for the start of the 1999-2000 NFL season. Thus, committees were formed, architects and construction crews were hired, tax revenues were generated and the old stadium was demolished in preparation for the new expansion Cleveland Browns.

It was already announced that the 29^th and 30^th NFL franchises were awarded to Carolina and Jacksonville. Both ownership groups were given an abundant amount of time to get their front offices, coaching staffs, trainers, scouting system and other essential personnel all in place to prepare for the upcoming expansion draft, free agent period and the rookie draft. As a result of their preparation, both Carolina and Jacksonville made the playoffs in only their second season; which drew the ire of many NFL owners. You see, the old cronies didn’t like being shown up by the new kids in town. So when it was time to announce the new ownership group for Cleveland, the other 30 team owners were determined to not allow the Browns such an easy pathway to success. This intended destiny for failure was further demonstrated by the short time frame in which ownership had from the day ownership was awarded to the NFL draft. Carolina and Jacksonville both had well over a year to assemble staff, but Cleveland had mere months.

The situation became even more complicated when Al Lerner threw his hat into the Browns ownership ring and sought Tagliabue’s advice as to whom he should hire as a team president. His recommendation was former 49ers President Carmen Policy, who in turn hired Dwight Clark to become the team’s Vice President and General Manager. Clark’s history as a player is well documented and is best known for “the catch” he made in the NFC championship game against the Dallas Cowboys. However, his history as an evaluator of talent was less than stellar to say the least. He was most noted for drafting virtually unknown QB in Jim Druckenmiller instead of Arizona State’s Jake Plummer, whose collegiate career was that of a standout. In spite of all the additional draft picks awarded, Clark continued to show his ineptitude at evaluating talent with each and every round; thus placing the expansion Browns further and further behind the rest of the league than what could ever have been imagined.

So here we are going into the summer of 2015. The expansion Browns are now beginning their seventeenth season with only two winning seasons to show for it. They still don’t have a franchise caliber quarterback on the roster, the team’s best WR from strictly a talent perspective is currently serving his third suspension for violations of the league’s substance abuse policy and the team’s new offensive coordinator has yet to call a single play at the NFL level. Our latest quarterback to be dubbed the “savior of the franchise” appeared more interested in partying like a rock star than learning the offensive playbook in his rookie season, and year two’s offseason finds him checking into a rehabilitation center. Once out of rehab, he goes onto the practice field and looks horrible on a number of occasions.

So why am I a Browns fan? It’s pretty simple, actually. No NFL city – especially Cleveland, Ohio – deserved the raw deal they got by the NFL allowing their franchise to be ripped away from them in the manner that it was and then replaced by an ownership group and front office that continually served up poop platters on the field and tried to sell it as though it was fillet mignon. The City of Cleveland deserves better and Browns fans all over the world deserve a lot better than what the NFL in general and this organization in particular have delivered. This is Northeast Ohio, the birthplace of professional football for crying out loud; and the perseverance of these rabid sports fanatics needs to be rewarded by this current regime giving them multiple Super Bowl Championship Trophies. That’s why I am and will always be a Cleveland Browns fan, because this fan base – especially after everything they’ve had to endure – deserves nothing but the best.