Ohio karma?

Wait ... what?

The Browns did what?

The Cleveland Browns. The Browns whose fans eat dog biscuits and Alpo. "The Drive" Browns, "The Fumble" Browns, the Brian Sipe/Earnest Byner/Fair Hooker Browns.

Those Browns?

Those Browns went into Heinz Field, hung 48 on their eternal tormentors in black-and-gold, picked Big Ben four times? Embarrassed the hated Steelers ... in the Steelers' house ... IN THE PLAYOFFS?

Oh, you bet. First playoff win in 26 years, prompting the over-used (and often misused)  term "long-suffering" to make an appearance. Also prompting fresh appraisal of the redemptive power of the diss -- and whether it might be transferrable.

Here's the deal: JuJu Smith-Schuster caught 13 balls for the Steelers  last night, but he never got as loose as he did mid-week, when he opened his mouth and dumbness fell out. Asked about the Browns, he said they were "the same Browns team I play every year." Called them "nameless gray faces." Said "the Browns is the Browns."

That last sounded a lot different when Browns quarterback Baker Mayfield was shouting it sometime around 11:30 last night. It sounded, in fact, like something the Browns might frame and hang in their facility this week, or adopt as some sort of mantra or Gregorian chant.

The Browns is the Browns! The Browns is the Browns! The Browns is the Browns!

Yeah. Could definitely happen.

And that brings to mind another team from Ohio, which is playing a kinda big football game itself this evening. 

Alabama coach Nick Saban is a lot smarter than Clemson coach Dabo Swinney, so he hasn't pulled the JuJu that Swinney did before the national semifinal games. Someone asked Dabo if he regretted never ranking the Ohio State Buckeyes in the top ten in the coaches' poll because they'd only played six games, and he said, no, he didn't regret it a bit.

This likely didn't sit well with Buckeyes, who were tired of hearing that only-played-six-games crap. So they went out and beat the Clemsons like a mess of egg whites, 49-28.

Now the 7-0 Bucks get 12-0 Alabama for the national championship, and everyone expects the Crimson Tide to roll like a tsunami. The 'Bamas are almost three-field-goal favorites, which doesn't seem right considering how badly Ohio State embarrassed the other half of ClemBama Football Inc. So maybe the Buckeyes follow the lead of that other team from Ohio, and take the 8.5-point spread as a diss that fuels another mighty upset.

That's probably a silly notion, thinking the Browns' karma is somehow communicable. But everything else seems to be these crazy days, so why not the Big K?

The Browns is the Browns!

7-0 is 7-0!

Could work.