Cruisin' for a bruisin'

There has always been this mean, rotten place in the Blob that loves a good hard downpour on a festive parade. Nothing like drenched floral arrangements on the President's Trophy float to warm the cockles of its cold, cold heart.

And so we take you to last night, and the first full slate of Games Between Guys You'll Never See Again, aka the NFL preseason.

Here was a headline from all that I saw on ESPN.com this morning: Baker Mayfield, Browns Off To Picture-Perfect Start.

Oh, lordy. Here we go.

Here we go with the elaborate setup, the Hostess Twinkie filled with shaving cream, the flaming bag of dog poop left on the doorstep. The Browns hype, it's gone full red line. And it's cruelty undistilled. Browns fans are Carrie, and, yes, that is a bucket of pig's blood poised to come raining down on them.

Sure, sure. We all get it. The Browns have a quarterback now who from all appearances is not Johnny "Tim" Manziel-Crouch. They've got Odell Beckham Jr. They've got Nick Chubb to gash defenses. They've got a bunch of young guys on defense who look like they can play.

How can they not be bound for the Super Bowl? Or at least the lush expanse of the playoffs?

So cruel. So. Damn. Cruel.

Because, listen, there are all sorts of scenarios in which everything goes sideways, and the cruelest part is, every Browns fan knows every one of them. The catechism of heartbreak goes back decades, and every drunken Dog Pounder who wound up sitting bleary-eye on some street corner after another crushing loss can recite all of it.

The Drive. The Fumble. Johnny Bleeping Manziel, what the hell were they thinking?

But Manziel is in Canada now, or maybe back home in Texas. And the Brownies have Mayfield now, a real quarterback, better than Mike Phipps, even. And they have Odell. What could go wrong?

Easy to forget that the Browns went 7-9 last year. Easy to forget that the Steelers aren't going anywhere, that everyone who's writing them off because they lost Antonio Brown and LeVeon Bell are overlooking the fact they've still got the best QB in the division (Ben Roethlisberger),plus a wideout who caught 111 balls last year (JuJu Smith-Schuster), plus a running back (James Conner) who rushed for 900-plus yards and averaged 4.5 yards per tote.

Plus a lot more cohesive locker room now that A.B. is gone.

So there's that. And there's Lamar Jackson over in Baltimore;, and who knows what magic he'll pull out of the hat this fall. And ...

And, well. This is the Browns we're talking about. The last time they didn't screw everything up, Gary Collins was catching passes from Frank Ryan and Jim Brown was shedding tacklers the way a duck sheds rainwater.

On the other hand, they did beat the Washington Football Club 30-10 last night. Mayfield was 6-of-7 and threw a touchdown pass. And the Browns leading receiver was ... Rashard Griffin.

Fifth-round draft pick in 2016, out of Colorado State. Started one game last year. Caught 39 balls, fifth on the team. Ranked 98th in the league among NFL receivers.

In other words, he's a backup, and no Odell. Who didn't play a down last night, on account of it's preseason.

Which means, technically, that aforementioned headline is inaccurate. The Browns are not off to a picture-perfect start, because nothing's really started. We're still a month out from that.

See? Rain, all over the parade.

Of course, Browns fans are used to that.

Not the parade, though.