Dawgs By Nature: Rejoice, Browns Fans, For You Won Your Super Bowl

The beautiful thing about the NFL is that no matter how awful your team is — and the Browns are pretty freaking awful — one victory can make everything better for a week. Especially when that victory comes against your team’s biggest rival, in a game that they absolutely must win.

So over at SB Nation’s Browns blog, Dawgs By Nature, they’re celebrating the win over the Steelers on Thursday night, because if they can’t make it to the playoffs, taking Pittsburgh down with them is the next best thing:

Right now, I don’t care what the Cleveland Browns record is for the 2009-2010 campaign. In Eric Mangini’s first year as head coach of the Browns, we beat the Pittsburgh Steelers in Week 14 to make it almost impossible for Mike Tomlin’s defending Super Bowl Champions to reach the playoffs.

The defense was absolutely amazing today, and that includes every unit — the defensive line, the linebackers, and especially the secondary. The pressure was brought early and often from Rob Ryan, resulting in an insurmountable 8 sacks. For the record, let’s take a look at all of the players credited with sacks…

• DL Corey Williams (2 sacks)
• LB Marcus Benard (2 sacks)
• DL Brian Schaefering (1.5 sacks)
• LB David Bowens (1 sack)
• DB Hank Poteat (1 sack)
• LB Kaluka Maiava (0.5 sacks)

Besides the sacks, the man-to-man coverage by Eric Wright was tremendous, and Brandon McDonald didn’t do a bad job either. There were other unsung heroes too, because upon review, every time Roethlisberger dropped back to throw, nobody was open. […]

And, did I mention it all came against the Steelers? Celebrate, Cleveland fans — December 10, 2009 was our Super Bowl, and we came away with the trophy.

As a Redskins fan, I can totally relate to this: One win over Dallas can make up for an entire season of misery. Although, with the NFL, it’s never hard to find joy in any victory, regardless of record.