The Cleveland Browns have plagued Northeast Ohio for a long time. The team has never even appeared in a Super Bowl. Sometimes they makes the playoffs. Occasionally, it gets close enough to convince us that everything is finally changing. Then the dysfunction returns.
The past few years have exposed problems stretching from ownership and management to the decisions made on the field. Yet Browns fans continue filling the stadium, buying merchandise, packing the parking lots and convincing themselves that this year might be different.
To me, the Cleveland Browns are a mirror of politics.
Both show how people tolerate decisions that are not good for them because they hope something better is coming, stop paying attention or never impose consequences on the people making those decisions.
The Most Loyal Fans Keep Getting the Worst Product
The Browns are a notoriously unsuccessful franchise, but they continue spending enormous amounts of money. One published payroll estimate placed Cleveland first in the NFL for 2026, at approximately $361 million.
The team’s season tickets remain sold out. Fans continue tailgating, buying gear and building their Sundays around a franchise that has given them very little in return.
At some point, it starts looking like Stockholm syndrome. Fans get punched in the face, disrespected, lied to and gouged for money. Then they come back the following week hoping the next game will be different. That's how we got our cities motto, "there's always next year.”
The organization can make terrible decisions because it knows most of the fan base is not going anywhere. The anger is real, but it rarely becomes a consequence. People complain, call the radio shows and argue online. Then they buy another jersey and tune in Sunday.
That is where the political comparison begins.
The Deshaun Watson Decision Told Us Everything
In 2022, the Browns traded three first-round draft picks and additional draft capital for Deshaun Watson. They then gave him a five-year, $230 million contract that was fully guaranteed.
The allegations surrounding Watson were already public. More than 20 women had accused him of sexual misconduct connected to massage appointments. Grand juries declined to indict him, but the civil allegations remained. The Browns signed him anyway. Sounds like a congressman I know.
The NFL eventually suspended Watson for 11 games and fined him $5 million after its investigation. Most of the organization and fan base eventually closed the book, shrugged and moved forward. Plenty of people essentially argued that whatever happened in Watson’s personal life would become secondary if he won football games.
Then he did not win football games.
Watson struggled with performance and repeated injuries. He played only 19 regular-season games for Cleveland between 2022 and 2024 before multiple Achilles surgeries kept him out during 2025. Even Browns co-owner Jimmy Haslam eventually called the trade a “big swing and miss.”
Yet Cleveland selected Watson as its starting quarterback again in 2026. In the season opener, the Browns lost 34–10 to Jacksonville. Cleveland fell behind 31–0 before scoring its only touchdown late in the game.
Watson had described boos from Browns fans during the preseason as “personal” and “disrespectful” all while he was wearing $75,000 earrings, a Louis Vuitton shirt and a Richard Mille watch, all in all worth nearly $350,000 by my layman estimates.
A highly paid quarterback criticizing the fans who are angry about the product they have been given. As though we had no right to be pissed. Making it seem HE was the victim.
Now the Browns Want a $2.6 Billion Stadium
The organization is also moving forward with a new domed stadium and surrounding development in Brook Park.
The project was originally described as costing approximately $2.4 billion. The Browns now place the cost at roughly $2.6 billion. The Haslam family says it increased its private share to 67.5 percent, but Ohio still approved $600 million in state support.
That public financing became the subject of litigation because the state planned to use money from Ohio’s unclaimed-funds system. A judge temporarily blocked the transfer while the lawsuit moved forward.
The Browns want more than a football stadium. The Brook Park development would include parking, restaurants, retail, hotels and other property surrounding the dome. Instead of fans spending money throughout downtown Cleveland, the organization would control far more of the economic activity attached to a game or event.
This is an expensive facility for a franchise with a poor record, years of questionable decisions and one of the most disastrous quarterback contracts in NFL history.
People complained. Lawsuits were filed. The people raised objections. Concessions were made. But the project kept moving.
That also sounds familiar.
We Keep Rewarding the Behavior We Claim to Hate
In politics, voters complain about property taxes, wasteful spending, inaccessible officials and money flowing toward specialized projects. Candidates make promises during campaigns, enter office and face few consequences when those promises disappear.
Incumbents can remain in office for years without debating their opponents or holding meaningful town halls. Spending decisions generate a few angry posts or messages. Then election season arrives, and many voters support the same people again.
The Browns operate under a similar arrangement. Fans blame ownership, coaches and management, but continue supplying the organization with attention and money.
Where is our/your responsibility?
We keep buying tickets. We keep purchasing merchandise. We keep watching the games and consuming months of sports coverage. We rarely boycott. We do not consistently pressure our representatives over public stadium financing. We complain about owners extracting money from the region while politicians compete to keep those owners happy.
The same pattern appears in government. People hope the next election will finally change everything, just as Browns fans hope the next season will finally be different.
Hope replaces consequences.
Accountability requires more than anger. It requires changing what we reward.
The Browns can continue making terrible decisions because the fans keep returning.
Political candidates and officials ignore debates, avoid town halls, overspend and break campaign promises, and voters continue returning them to office. Shit, they can have alleged domestic violence charges and still get elected.
We have a role in maintaining the system.
Otherwise, we will keep receiving the same shit sandwich: a horrible product, another angry Sunday and highly paid people dressed in luxury telling us we are disrespectful for expecting better.