The Close Line

In the Browns' first win of the season, you have a game that included nine dropped passes by the receiving corps and running back Jamal Lewis getting more carries (31) than quarterback Derek Anderson had in total passing yards (23). But a win in the NFL, as everyone will tell you, is a win.

Head Coach Eric Mangini prepared his Browns all week for the Bills. Don't believe me? Yeah, I wouldn't either. But I have proof. After everyone cleared out of the locker room in a daze of having that weird winning feeling under their belts, I stayed behind to do my normal post-game trash rummaging routine. Lo and behold, I found Mangini's game day notes and have taken the time to scan them. Here they are:

Mike Brown won the 2008-09 NBA Coach of the Year today, and there are some close-lipped smiles cracking all over Cleveland. There are also some bartender-to-drunk-patron "I told you so's." There are some junior high fist pumping, some douche-bag horn honking in Lakewood, some newspaper intern digging up insignificant facts.

Yes, this is only the second time a Cleveland Cavaliers coach has won COY (your boy Bill Fitch was awarded the same in 1976), and it's definitely a neat thing for the organization.

Everyone knows the franchise records the Cavs have shattered this year: Most wins in a season, most wins at home, the first No. 1 overall seed, first division title in 33 years, most home sellouts, most temporary C-with-the-sword-going-through-it tattoos showing up on your disabled neighbor's forehead. The Cavs, in all sense, have kicked ass this year.

So far.

But what's mostly happening in Cleveland right now, in Northeast Ohio, in the corners of the world where Cleveland transplants are logging onto the Plain Dealer's site to post incendiary comments about Branson Wright's inability to write a decent column, there's just a bunch of shoulders being shrugged.

All this, all of it, every single Austin Carr yelp whenever a three is hit deep in the Q, every award somebody in the organization wins this year (EOY should be Danny Ferry's, MVP should be LeBron's) means nothing without winning the championship.

Cleveland fans know disappointment better than Bo knows multiple sports, and with each championship-less year that goes by (for all three professional sports teams), everything else is just a yearly award, a forgettable horn honk in Lakewood, or a peeling temporary tattoo on some kid's forehead.