WELCOME TO THE bWo ERA

Hey Yo!  Being a Browns fan is hard.  It is really hard.  First we had our team just ripped out of the city.  And for several seasons if we wanted to watch football we had to watch someone else.  Then came the "Countdown to 99."  We were getting our team back.  But it was tough at first, even though we got the first overall pick of the draft, as fans we knew we weren't going to just get a great team.  We knew that it might be 3 or 4 years until we would have a contending team.  So we went into it expecting the worse.  And we got the worst.

Finally, four years in we snuck a 9-7 team into the playoffs... just to lose a heart breaker to the blasted Steelers.  That is our only playoff appearance the team had had in the 15 seasons the Browns have been back in the NFL.  And since then the Browns have only lost less than 10 games in a season in 2007.  That year we were 10-6 and couldn't even get into the playoffs.

That makes it hard enough to be a Browns fan.  And if you are a Browns fan that remembers all of those times, you should seriously pat yourself on the back.  You are a true fan.  And chances are you are an angry fan.

Unfortunately much of our futility wasn't due to bad luck, it was due to Randy Lerner.  He made the Browns a case study in what happens when a pro sports franchise has an apathetic owner not willing to attempt to build a winning team.  We didn't sign proven talent, and we didn't retain our talent.  When your only hope is "building through the draft" and you also put poor people in position to make decisions that is the recipe for disaster.

A few decades ago the media might have been clever enough to pick up on it.  Perhaps expose the owner for being a cheapskate.  But today's media isn't nearly clever enough for that.  They have become large market loving, corporate boobs.  The once proud franchise known as the Browns has been reduced to a joke in their eyes.  And they don't stop with the team, they also have attacked our fans.  For years we have been the butt of their jokes and this fanbase is fed up.

A few weeks ago the jokes were supposed to stop.  The Browns drafted quite possibly the most sought after interview to ever play football, Johnny Manziel.  ESPN's coverage of the draft was the Johnny show.  Then we took him.  Then the news came out that Johnny actually contacted our QB coach and asked them to make the move for him.  Then the Browns protected him, and shut the media out.

That's when the explosion happens.  National media scumbags like Bart Hubbuch and Ben Maller were on all out attacks on all things Cleveland.  It became loud voices harshly judging the brand new Browns front office, and of course our city and fans.

Cue the bWo!

  What is the bWo? It stands for the "Browns World Order." It originated as an observation by @JeremyInAkron within a twitter conversation.  They saw the influx of Browns fans lashing back at the media hate.  Essentially drawing the hate upon themselves, being the bad guy in a way.  They saw the parallels to the old wrestling faction, the nWo.

And it is true, the nWo was the attempt to make Hulk Hogan and his friends bad guys when he went to the WCW from the WWE.  Suddenly the fans were showing up supporting the bad guys.  Suddenly they were on the underdog wrestling show, as the hottest wrestling commodity around.  Their membership grew by leaps and bounds.  They weren't taking any crap anymore.  To me that sounds a bit like us.

Us fans have been the bad guys of the media for a few years now.  Then the media created their "Hulk Hogan" in the form of Johnny Manziel.  But now he is a Cleveland Brown, the WCW of the NFL.  The Browns were the national joke, and now suddenly our #2 jerseys are on shelves from coast to coast. People are joining us in droves.  And the fans aren't taking any crap about their team.  So yes why not? The bWo!

It just stuck.  And truthfully, like it or not if you are a Browns fan you are already a member of the bWo.

Bernie Kosar has been in the bWo since 1985

We cheer for the hated whipping boys of the national media.  ESPN has us power ranked dead last in the league.  Scumbags like Ben Maller and Bart Hubbuch can't wait to rip everything about us, so the bWo make their lives hell.  Channing Crowder said that he couldn't tell the difference between Cleveland's women and men... Even Drew Carey took to the internet to take care of him.

Drew Carey even joined the bWo and went after Channing Crowder after calling Cleveland the "Anus of america"

So if you want to stick up for your team and show your Browns pride tag your twitter posts with #bWo.  Chances are you are going to find some friends.  I expect the bWo will be a big part of the fanbase this coming season.  Don't fight it because if you are a Browns fan, in some peoples eyes we are already the bad guys.  

My name is @BrownsMemes and I am a proud member of the #bWo