‘I’m mad as hell, and I’m not going to take this anymore!’ That iconic line from the movie ‘Network’ begins to, but does not fully illustrate the current state of my Cleveland Browns support. Exhausted disillusion with a side of hopeless cynicism and the complete lack of a way out in sight is where I am, but I am drawing a line in the sand this time.

I have been a loyal Browns fan for over twenty years, and the cupboard has been bare for that entire time. Since 1999 there have been so many quarterbacks, so many coaches, one great kicker and so many inexplicable new ways I’ve witnessed of how to lose football games. Is it a rebuild if you start the next one before you finish the last one?

Farewell to the Haslams, the first half of my time as a fan was marked by the Browns being drastically outspent by nearly every team in the league with cap space that would only be spent on the Madden video game every year. Jimmy and Dee Haslam invested in the big moves that previous ownership never did, and I thank them for swinging. I also owed them a debt, especially Dee, for not allowing my beloved Columbus Crew to be the second team in my lifetime greedily stolen from Ohio. After what the Watson trade has become, I consider us even.

I hope the Browns get a wonderful new dome stadium that will provide the people of Cleveland entertainment opportunities 12 months a year. When the proposal for the new stadium came out, the usual old school Browns fan pushback inevitably followed. The cold weather is our 12th player, natural grass is the only surface for real football and other tiresome arguments that have led the team to losing every meaningful game on the frozen tundra next to the lake.

Make no mistake, I wish the Browns well, I will always root for them against the Kentucky Bengals and the rest of the division. However, I am not signing on for another 0-16 season, which would now be 0-17. The Browns are now staring down the possibility of that debacle again for the next two seasons. The Jacksonville win a few weeks ago seems like a gift at this point, and this season is a lost cause. Every week that they roll out Watson as the starter is an exercise in insanity.

With Baker Mayfield and Joe Flacco winning games for their new teams, I’ve been getting that Browns feeling I know too well. Like Odell Beckham Jr who fetched a first round pick from us, we ended up cutting him, and he won the Super Bowl that year with the Rams, I can’t do this anymore. Am I supposed to be excited to tank the rest of this season for another quarterback that will need to lead a roster starting at a $70 million dollar cap disadvantage for the next two years? At which point they probably bail on him to draft a new guy, with an over/under of 3 coaches and general managers between now and then. This is a re-run of the Browns, now in syndication on a late night cable network and I can’t do it to myself anymore.

To my two favorite Browns of all time Myles Garrett and Nick Chubb, I thank you for some of the best football I’ve ever seen at those positions. Nick Chubb without injury in Kevin Stephanski’s offense was supposed to be the Cleveland dream and it could have been so sweet. Myles Garrett is the most impactful defensive player I have seen in my lifetime other than Ray Lewis, and for the record I wish he would have torn Mason Rudolph’s head clean off.

As my favorite Bob Dylan so goes, I have been offered, ‘Shelter From the Storm’: Emily just moved to Columbus from Chicago, and I went to a Columbus Bears Backers bar to watch the London game last weekend. The experience of watching a team with hope bludgeon a Jacksonville team that the Browns couldn’t score 20 against was exhilarating. I love football, and I’m not going to stop watching the NFL, so I shed the Browns like I shed another geographical fallacy, Catholicism. I feel as guilt free moving to another midwestern team with a great fan base as my dad probably did when he turned in the Time Warner Cable box and cut the cord.