There were about a dozen different ways I debated starting this column. Then I saw Bonnie Bernstein reporting in a downpour with this cute little rain hat and pigtails. I suddenly became distracted. And then I saw something shiny and was distracted again. Now I’m back and ready to talk about the Browns.

The Browns have some of the most devoted fans in pro sports. Any sport, any fans, from coast-to-coast. My question is, what in the hell do we have to expect out of this team to get any kind of results? We spend the greater part of the season taking the “stabbing our eyes out with a rusty fork” option over watching what they put on the field to resemble an offense, but at the same time, looking with some kind of hope that if the offense can explode for 20 points in a single game, the defense should keep us in it and we might even win.

Then today happens. Forty-eight points by the offense. 48. XLVIII. More points than any Browns team has scored in one game in 15 years. More points than most recent Browns teams have scored in back-to-back games combined.

And they lose.

Not just a “hey, we’re playing Kansas City here and somehow they’ll find a way to win 49-48, because Kansas City always wins games 49-48 it seems”, but they lost by 10. Probably the most painful part is that this newly-found “offense” (it’s a strange word, one I haven’t seen in at least 12 years coming out of Cleveland) took time late in the game to remind us that they’re the Browns.

Kelly Holcomb, playing his familiar role of “I’ll light you up as a starter once, but please don’t watch the game film and figure me out, because I’ll never do it again”, drives the Browns down the field to cut the lead to three, then puts them up with 10 minutes left thanks to an interception from that timely, if not nearly close to efficient the rest of the time, defense of the Browns, and all is good.

Somewhere in the next 10:22 is where I’m lucky I wasn’t sitting at home, where my TV could become a projectile. Thanks to NFL.com, I get to watch Holcomb take two sacks, and throw an interception for the deciding score. Fortunately, NFL.com didn’t show me that the pick was a floating screen pass to a tight end at the line of scrimmage. You know all the times a play like that gets dropped and you and your buddies collectively sigh/gasp/shout/curse “Oooh! That was almost six.” Yeah, it was one of those. And it was six. Deltha O’Neal (who’s name sounds like he should have been a female co-star on a 70’s black sitcom) should be sending a really nice Christmas present to the Holcomb house this year.

To top it all off, as the Browns drove into Bengals territory in the final minute, with visions of sugar plums, touchdowns, onside kicks and all kinds of miraculous bullshit, or near bullshit that tends to happen to the Browns, they snap the ball 25 yards past the quarterback, just to remind us that we are, in fact, the Browns.

Postgame quote of the week goes to safety Robert Griffith: “When it rains it pours, and right now we’ve got to turn off the sprinkler.” I don’t think its a sprinkler, anymore, Robert. Have you ever been to Niagara Falls?

Oh, and no matter how you spell it, its not a good year to be an Andre/Andra Davis. Both AD’s are out of the Browns lineup, the defensive Davis for the year, the offensive Davis is out on a weekly basis until the end of the season. I’m finally starting to realize that they shouldn’t be the only guys named Davis who aren’t around for the rest of the year.

At least Bonnie Bernstein looked good.