Randomness from yesterday's Browns home game:

Special Guest: Nomar Stalker. Always eager to view the Browns. Especially against the Steelers, a team he knows a lot about. We have decided this is probably the most important game of the Romeo Crennel era. Bridge jumping alerts will go up if the Browns blow this one.

Today's Opponent: Our hated rivals, the Pittsburgh Steelers. Not much of a rivalry between these two teams lately, as the Steelers have dominated. I believe the only win upon their return was a game Tim Couch quarterbacked. Cue "Glory Days". Browns Versions 2.1 and 2.2 have really sucked in this matchup. The Steelers steamrolled Houston at home last week and looked good on both sides of the ball.

Browns Version 2.3, however, is in danger of becoming the Not-Ready-For-Prime-Time-Players if there is not a good effort tonight. Timing was off in the passing game last week, and should be better with another week of practice. Josh Cribbs with a return on special teams should help, as well. The Browns had another injury this week as Sean Jones went under the knife, meaning we may start backups at both safety positions. Uh, that's not good. Ben Roethlisberger has a tendency to carve us up in the passing game and, quite frankly, I do not see that changing tonight. I think the Browns have only one chance in this game and that's getting into a shootout with the Steelers. Sadly, I do not see that happening, as I think the Browns will play better, but lose this one.

Parking: East 6th and Lakeside by Public Hall. I consider that primo.

Browns Player on Ticket: Josh Cribbs.

Pre-Game Festivities: For some reason, I have been entering the park earlier this year. I miss my Sunday at 1:00 starts. That means I see the festivities before the game. Two honorees before the game were the late Ernie Davis and Bobby Mitchell. Jim Brown had a huge ovation and told us all about Ernie Davis, the Browns legend who never played a game for the Browns and died of leukemia. Brown is walking with a cane, hopefully nothing serious. Dennis Quaid, who is in the movie about Davis, was also there. The great Hall of Famer, Bobby Mitchell, was also introduced and received an award from the Leukemia Society. Can't say it enough, Randy Lerner knows how to keep the history of the Browns alive.

The Browns Spirit Flag was unveiled again and did not blow away. The National Anthem was played and a unique flag, consisting of huge strips, was unfurled as it was sung.

Worst Feature (For Me): "Hang on Sloopy" at the end of the third quarter. Although, I laughed when Santonio Holmes did "O-H-I-O" in the Pittsburgh huddle.

The Weather: Hollie Strano neglected to show us the Channel 3 Dual Doppler radar, always a feature from the Marky Nolan days. She told us it was windy, and did not tell us rain was around the corner. I expect more from my gameday weatherpeople.

When I arrived Downtown before 6:00, the wind was directly from the south and it looked the city streets would be clean as all the dirt and anything else lying around probably blew into the lake. Temp at gametime was in the low 80's and the humidity was up there.

Then late in the first quarter, the rain arrived. Only a deluge for a little bit, but man, at first, those raindrops were cold! But it was more of a steady, misting type of rain. In the middle of the game, things calmed down a little bit, but the rain and not-so-much wind returned again late. Certainly, I risked pneumonia.

Pre-Game Injury: Yes, I was sacked by a tarp on the Mall on the way in. I cannot believe I just typed that, but it did happen. These yahoos were deconstructing a stage or some booths on the mall and pieces/parts were all over the place. As I'm walking by, the wind is really howling. There was a tarp several feet away that I was going to have to walk around. I noticed one gust had sort of flipped it over. I even thought to myself, surely they have that anchored down, don't they? Uh, that would be a negatory on that one. The next gust lifted it airborne and I'm right in the middle of it's path.

I stood in the pocket, unlike some Browns QBs I know, but I got flattened. Only minor scrapes, nothing major. Of course, I immediately looked for someone to sue.

Today's Giveaway: The fine folks at AT&T gave us a "Browns Swirler". No, not a Swirly. This had "Go Browns" on one side and Brownie the Elf on the other. "You're doin' a heckuva job, Brownie."

BTW, a Swirler is basically a flag to wave. It has a small umbrella-like handle.

Section 345: It's Steelers Week, so you know what kind of action that brings. Once again, I am not seeing many familiar faces, so I do not know if the season ticket holders have sold their tickets to make some money off of these games or if some diehards have just given up. But that means many more Steeler fans in our section than usual. Anyhow, lots, and I mean lots, of visits by the gendarmes in our section. This resulted in ejections of...you guessed it! Steeler fans! Following the Home Stadium Code to a T, it's never the home fans that start things, it's always the opposing, especially, Steeler fans who start the shenanigans.

Best Browns Play: Another piddling selection to choose from. I'd say the screen pass to Jerome Harrison for 23 yards was it. Certainly, the most exciting of the lot and it was the start of our last field goal drive. Harrison juked around for a big gain when it didn't look like much at the start of the play.

Best Steelers Play: Among a few to choose from, I think the prettiest play was Ben Roethlisberger hitting Santonio Holmes on a deep ball for 48 yards in the third quarter. That led to a field goal and 10-0 lead for the Steelers.

Worst Browns Play: The Derek Anderson interception right before the half. Just an awful throw. Triggered by the Browns ineptitude in a two-minute offense. They only ran six plays in the final 1:47 of the half, while they had two timeouts. Should have come up with some points there.

Second Worst Browns Play: Romeo Crennel is obviously going to kick field goals while behind, until he is proven correct. Not as terrible as Week One's FG decision, but close. Number One, what made him think they would get the ball back, with less than 4 minutes to play? And Number Two, even if they did get it back, they didn't prove they could score a TD all night. Very questionable call. Again.

Best Exchange:
NS (after a Roethlisberger sneak failed): "What a godawful call."
Me: "Just proves my Offensive Coordinator Theory. I have to prove I am smarter than you, instead of calling a play that might work."
NS: "Did you come up with that before or after Bruce Arians was here?"

Best Line from a Random: After another third-down escape by the Steelers. "We're the same team we are since we've come back. Nothing ever changes."

Oddest Browns Jersey: 2 Couch, 92 Brown, 94 Warren. Gerard Warren? Are you effin' kidding me?

Food Items: A pretzel for $3.50. Had my pre-game Corona Lights at Alesci's.

Best Fan Cam Feature: Didn't really pay attentiion last night.

The Fuckin' Run: Although the Browns defense did play better last night, you may attribute that to both offensive coordinators being cautious and the weather. The defense still managed to give up 117 yards on the ground.

Worst Stat: On a day that begged for a strong running game, the Browns managed 53 rushing yards. They only had 208 total yards, so it was a fairly ugly performance offensively.

2nd Worst Stat: Browns averaged 4.8 yards per pass attempt. Trust me, that won't win many games.

Most Interesting Stat: The kicking game for both teams was rather solid, even with all of the wind and rain. Dave Zastudil had a 52-yard average on Browns punts and Mitch Berger had 45 on the Steeler punts. All of the field goal attempts were made. Jeff Reed even knocked in a 48-yarder for Pittsburgh against the wind.

Don't know how this was shown on the broadcast, but the Steelers had a unique ability of not catching most punts or kickoffs. The punt returning was hideous and almost costly as one unfielded punt almost led to a Browns recovery and a kickoff that was botched almost resulted in an even better Browns recovery. I think they caught one punt on a fly and only one kickoff.

Penalties: The Browns were offside on an extra point. That makes two penalties on extra points, so far. The Steelers had the unusual taunting penalty, while in their huddle! Always thought that was fair game, to yell across the line at each other. I guess not.

The frustrating thing about last night's game, it was winnable. Who would have thought it would be the offense that would struggle in this game. The defense was OK last night, but again, it may have been the function of the playcalling of the Steelers. Derek Anderson was not very good last night. Timing was still a bit off and although he wasn't horrid, their really was no zip in his game.

The running game stunk. Bright spots were Shawn Rogers and Kellen Winslow. Rogers played a good game on defense, with several tackles. If it were up to me (and most assuredly him), I'd throw the ball to Winslow 20 times a game. He's that good. But I thought the Browns could have sustained some momentum with a better play selection.

Look at their field-goal drive in the fourth quarter. Harrison catches a pass and goes crazy for 23 yards. Crowd perks up a lot. Followed by two runs. After a pass to Winslow (the bouncing in the air one), it's a run and an Anderson scramble. After another first down, it's two more runs. These types of calls seem to kill any momentum and it would be nice to see if Anderson could shake off some cobwebs and establish any kind of rhythm. Very frustrating game to watch.

Browns lose, 10-6, as Roethlisberger wins his ninth straight against Cleveland.

Meal of Links

It's the end of Merrill Lynch. And I thought Lehman was the one in trouble.

Child actors who actually made it. Am I missing something? No Jodie Foster or DiCaprio?

Was Andre the Giant the Greatest Drunkard Ever? He drank 7,000 calories of booze per day.

Exercise Yard

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