I live in a state of disbelief. Year after year I convince myself, in the absence of any evidence whatsoever, that the Cleveland Browns have finally turned it around and could make the playoffs. I did it last year, I did it this year. I promise I’ll do it again next year, reality be damned.
We finally have a quarterback, I say. The offensive line was vastly improved this offseason. We’ve piled up valuable draft picks- that rookie is the real deal! The schedule looks easy. The division looks weak. The fans are thirsty. We finally have a quarterback (for real this time)!
And year after year I sit in stunned disbelief as my optimistic dreams crumble before me, one interception at a time. The rose colored glasses turn a depressing brown and orange as the losses continue to stack up. We haven’t sniffed the playoffs in a decade and a half. We haven’t celebrated a single victory since last Christmas. As of this writing, the team has lost 37 of the past 39 games with no predictable end in sight. This level of ineptitude is frankly unheard of outside of federal bureaucracy or a Three Stooges marathon.
But it will work this time. If Corey Coleman can stay on the field and Josh Gordon can stay off of drugs we’ll have a shot. If Joe Thomas doesn’t retire and Brian Sipe suits up and Lou Groza comes back from the dead. History gives me absolutely no reason to believe, but that just means we’re due. Right?? Hand me my rose colored glasses!
In the scientific world, this behavior is known as confirmation bias- the tendency to interpret information in a way that backs up what you already believe (or desperately want) to be true. You notice all the things that confirm your predetermined hypothesis while simultaneously refusing to see anything that refutes it. It’s honestly not all that different from today’s political discourse, where we fault the “other guys” for acting a certain way but then act oblivious when a member of our chosen team commits the same sin. We make excuses, we grasp for any reasonably logical explanation of why it’s different this time. We don’t notice how our attitudes depend so much on whether there’s an ‘R’ or a ‘D’ next to a name. We just know that our team is the one who will make the world a better place if we can get them in office and keep them there, reality be damned.
But let’s face it. The Browns suck.