Beer me

The Blob loves its gimmicks, mainly because it operates under a certain conceit. That conceit is it never sees a gimmick it believes it couldn't gimmick better.

 Which brings us to Bud Light and the city of Cleveland, which has not known a glut of gridiron success lately. In fact, the Browns, The Corpse That Walks Like An NFL Franchise, have won exactly one game in the last two years. And, as everyone who pays attention to the NFL knows, they didn't win any last year.

That would be "any" as in "zero." And that would be "zero" as in "zero-and-16."

This gave the folks at Bud Light a brilliant marketing idea: Why not offer Clevelanders free beer when the Browns win their first game this season? The city, after all, is surely thirsty for a W, or at least the Bernie-Kosar-jersey-wearing portion of it. And so Bud Light came up with the idea of "Victory Fridges": Special refrigerators stocked with Bud Light that will remain under lock and key until the Browns win one, at which time smart technology will unlock them. And then ... free beer!

This of course assumes the Browns will win a game this year, something everyone for some weird reason is taking for granted.  After all, they just drafted a franchise quarterback (Baker Mayfield), and everyone knows that's the key to turning everything around, especially in Cleveland. Why, look how many times drafting a franchise quarterback has turned things around for the Browns in the past!

(And, no, Tim Couch, Brady Quinn, Johnny Manziel and DeShone Kizer don't count. They're the exceptions that prove the rule, you see. Besides none of them were Baker Mayfield. How could Baker Mayfield possibly fail, especially surrounded by all that one-win-in-two-years talent?)

So, yeah, at some point, Clevelanders will be drinking for free, an unnerving thought for those of us who've witnessed first-hand how Clevelanders drink not for free.  The Blob, however, would take Bud Light's idea a step further. Because of course it would.

And so, instead of "The Victory Fridge," here are a few other Fridge ideas:

1. The Pick Six Fridge: It unlocks the first time Baker Mayfield throws a pick six, allowing Browns fans to slam down eleventy-hundred Bud Lights while muttering "Bleep bleep-it, I KNEW he was Tim Couch."

2. The Bleep Bleep-It They Lied To Us Again Fridge: Unlocks in Week 15 out of pity for the Browns fans still waiting for that first victory. And also because the sell-by date is about to expire.

3. The Mayfield Meltdown Fridge: Unlocks the day Mayfield finally loses patience with the Browns organization and launches into an epic rant that features the multiple use of words like "horses**t", "morons", "bleep-bleeping ball-dropping CFL rejects" and the phrase, "My bleeping high school team could have beaten this bunch of bleeping bleep-bleep turds."

4. The Mayfield Suspended Fridge: Unlocks the day after the Mayfield Meltdown Fridge unlocks.

And last but not least ...

5. The Good God Tyrod Taylor Sucks, Too, Fridge: Unlocks the Sunday after the Mayfield Suspended Fridge, when Browns fans discover Tyrod Taylor can't win with their horses**t team, either.