Chomps
Well-known member
- Mar 18, 2019
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At a time when Browns coach Freddie Kitchens hopes to reel in expectations that will find him squarely at fault if they aren’t met, one of his highest-profile players has pushed the bar even higher.
“I plan on being there for the next five years and trying to bring as many championships there as possible,” Odell Beckham Jr. told GQ, “turning [the Browns] into the new Patriots.”
Here’s the thing about the Patriots. The Patriots never said that they intended to be the Patriots. They never vowed to achieve a goal, about anything — at any time.
And by “they,” I mean “they” in the broadest possible sense. I mean everyone in the organization. In the past 19 years, through six Super Bowl wins and nine Super Bowl appearances and eight straight AFC title games and counting, no member of the franchise has ever called a shot, set a bar, registered an expectation. They forget about the past, and the only future they think about is the next opportunity to get better at what they do, and during football season they think only about the next game.
Really, has any team that bought into its preseason hype ever delivered a Lombardi Trophy? Carrying around the weight of those expectations put a ton of pressure on teams early in the year, when the consequences of each loss become magnified. Indeed, 2-4-1 for the Browns in 2018 was regarded as a pleasant surprise; in 2019, it would be cause for panic, because of expectations that players like Beckham aren’t just embracing but creating.
So what should someone like Beckham, whose fame will necessarily amplify his words, say? He should say the kinds of things his coach and G.M. are saying, that the Browns haven’t done anything yet, that they need to focus on the present, that they need to earn whatever they may achieve, that they’re not in the prediction business.
That’s what Patriots players do, because they know that if they don’t they’ll have to answer to the man who has programmed those answers into their brains.
For more, a video clip from PFT Live (with Simms and me discussing the issue) is attached to this item. An audio clip from the radio-only hour of PFT Live (with just me babbling about the topic) appears below.