I was born in Cleveland on Feb. 28, 2002, and was instantly cursed with being a Cleveland sports fan until the day I die.

I had no say in it. I didn’t sign my life away to these teams and I don’t owe them any of my time no money, but being surrounded by a family of sports fans has programmed me to support my hapless teams no matter how many times I tell myself that I’m done with them.

I have been breathing on Earth for 23 years, and the Cleveland Browns have only been good for two of them. I have witnessed just as many winless seasons as I have playoff victories. 

Apart from witnessing the Browns defeat the Pittsburgh Steelers 48-37 in the 2021 Wildcard game, my most vivid memory of watching the Browns was the reaction everyone in the living room had when Steelers wide receiver Antonio Brown spartan-kicked Browns punter Spencer Lanning in the face during a punt return in a 2014 divisional matchup.

If I wasn't also an Ohio State University football fan, I wouldn’t know what rooting for a winning team feels like.

Despite suffering 22 losing seasons since 1999, Cleveland still considers itself a “Browns Town,” and knowing what is almost certainly going to happen, I struggle to understand why the support is as strong as it is at the start of every season.

The Cleveland Browns organization seems to make decisions that should make their fanbase wonder if they’re purposely trying to lose.

The 2020s started off great for the organization, as the Cleveland Browns made their first playoff appearance since 2002, and won their first playoff game since 1995 in the 2021 postseason.

Although they lost to the Chiefs in the divisional round that year, Cleveland fans felt like they were witnessing the beginning of an era of winning football with Baker Mayfield breaking the Browns’ infamous “Quarterback Curse."

A year later, and the Browns would trade Mayfield – after a down season with the quarterback playing most of the season hampered by a torn labrum and a fractured humerus in his left non-throwing shoulder – but not before trading their 2022 first and fourth round draft picks, their 2023 first and third round selections, and their 2024 first and fourth round picks for a Texans 2024 sixth round pick and Deshaun Watson while guaranteeing the latter $230 million over five seasons.

That last trade appears to have destroyed whatever future the Browns might have had. Hindsight is always 20/20, but what pipe was the Cleveland front office smoking when it decided it was a good idea to trade three first round picks for a quarterback who sat out an entire season the previous year – while he was also dealing with over 20 sexual misconduct lawsuits that would later result in an 11-game suspension – and then offer him almost a quarter of a billions dollars guaranteed just for gracing the stadium of our fair city?

NFL teams aren’t strangers to paying abusive men millions to play football, but making someone with that type of reputation the face of your franchise, alongside Myles Garrett, was an interesting decision, to say the least.

The Browns ended up sacrificing their dignity and future for an unproductive quarterback who struggles to stay on the field, while Baker Mayfield would move on and find a home in Tampa Bay, where he has become a two-time Pro Bowler.

Despite everything, Cleveland managed a winning season in 2023, but not without starting five different quarterbacks, including 38-year-old Joe Flacco, who turned out to be the best of them. Although the team made the playoffs, an embarrassing 31-point loss to the Houston Texans would end the Browns’ chaotic season.

Flacco’s magical run in the last stretch of the 2023 season was the last time I had fun watching the Browns. Since then, the Browns have let go of fan-favorite Nick Chubb, had their future Hall of Fame edge Myles Garrett publicly request a trade just to sign him to a deal shortly after, and consistently waste a good defense by crafting an offense that doesn't know what do do with the ball when they have it.

But I am ever the optimist. The Browns’ solid draft earlier this year tricked me into thinking this team would have a six-win season with a young and lively offense. But a terrible receiving core, Kevin Stefanski’s bad playcalling and the unusual decision to play rookie Dillon Gabriel at quarterback over Shedeur Sanders make it hard to tune into a Browns game on Sundays.

With the Browns currently sitting at the bottom of the AFC North with a 2-6 record, I’m uncertain what the team can do moving forward. Will they trade the good players they’ve been holding hostage on a bad team for years and tank for the rest of the season? Will they use one of their two draft picks next season on another QB? Although drafting another quarterback a year after drafting two wouldn’t make much sense, it would be a Browns kind of thing to do.

The Browns have no direction or any identity other than being the laughing stock of American sports. Cleveland has somehow let our previously hapless neighbors, the Detroit Lions, get their franchise together before them, and I don’t see the Browns having a resurgence like that anytime soon.

Still, despite years of misfortune, the Browns revel in one of the biggest fanbases in the league. From people getting married in the “Muni Lot” before games, to hundreds of Browns fans showing support at their international games, the Dawg Pound is never shy to proudly show its love for a franchise that rarely shows much love back.

Cleveland Browns fans have been in a toxic relationship with this franchise for decades and haven’t experienced much that would justify continuing to stay loyal.

At least we’re getting a new stadium I suppose.