(Editor’s Note: This article features a lot of pro wrestling terminology. This will help you on your reading journey)

I, like most men who have survived puberty and lived to tell about it, watched my share of pro wrestling back in the day. I will not apologize for this. Some knock wrestling as a soap opera for teenage boys. I will not dispute that, for that is exactly what it is. Like soaps, wrestling provides juicy narrative: tales of alliances forged and broken, of underdogs overcoming the odds, of villains being evil because that’s what villains do. Choke slams, clotheslines, and ankle locks are simply the medium for the message, the Cheez Whiz to make the broccoli more palatable.



Football is a soap opera told through trap blocks and man coverage and grit.

Football is no different. It is a soap opera told through trap blocks and man coverage and grit. This Browns-Steelers game showed why.

It had the classic heel: the Steelers, the model franchise, winners of roughly 99 of the last 100 meetings, led by Ben Roethlisberger, who in Cleveland is only slightly less beloved than traffic cones and the decline of American industry. It had the plucky underdog: our beloved Browns, fighting to prove that they belong in a main event, led by a hometown kid looking to change the trend of the past 15 years.

The simplest narratives are often the most compelling.

There is an expression in pro wrestling parlance: “marking out.” Marking out is to eat up every bite of narrative with no reservation, no matter how silly or scripted the action may be. “Marks” are the ones who accept the storyline and don’t ask too many questions. They’re the ones who suspend disbelief in order to amplify their excitement. In wrestling, marks are often the youngest fans, the ones who buy the biggest hero’s t-shirts because they’re told he is the biggest hero. It’s easy to look down on marks, but the game needs marks.

“Smarks”—The “smart” wrestling crowd—analyze the action knowing that it’s all scripted. They view wrestling through a more cynical lens. The storytelling is important insofar as it is well done. The events can be ridiculous, but there should be logic to them. “Cheap heat”—a Russian wrestler bashing America to get easy boos, for instance—is derided as cheap and lazy. A smart wrestling fan doesn’t want to be insulted by the action.

It’s easy to look at the Cleveland Browns like a smark. It’s easy to be cynical, and to point out their flaws. It’s easy to scoff at them when they play badly. Lord knows we’ve had enough chances to do that.

But on this day, a clear October day when the Browns legitimately trounced the Pittsburgh Steelers, I marked out. I didn’t care how easy or derivative the storyline was. I wrapped myself in the hometown-boy-leads-team-through-hard-work narrative like it was a mink coat. When the Browns beat the Steelers, it’s okay to cheer like a child.

The plays that told me the most about this Browns team, however, were not scoring plays. They weren’t long completions nor sacks of Ben Roethlisberger. They will not appear on any highlight reel.

The plays that told me the most about this Browns team were the ones that would’ve gone differently in the past, the oh no plays that the Steelers have used to break our will before. On this day, the Browns stood taller instead of wilting.

The first was a two-yard Pittsburgh run with 6:43 left in the first quarter. The Steelers had gone 60 yards without completing a pass. They ran it six times and got a 24-yard pass interference penalty on Buster Skrine. They were asserting their dominance like we’ve seen so many times before. It was another instance of Lucy pulling the ball away from Charlie Brown, but if she kicked dirt in his face after.

The bad guys had the ball at the five. They brought out two tight ends, ready to punch it in and bring a familiar silence to the enemies’ home turf.

Roethlisberger turned and handed to Le’Veon Bell, the latest model of Browns-destroying running back, an unholy combination of Willie Parker and Jerome Bettis. He’s big and he’s fast and he’s second in the whole league in rushing. The kid can play.

Bell took the handoff. He had a hole and only a few yards between him and a six-pointer. There was one man in his way, one player of the 53 wearing brown and orange with a chance to stop him. In years past, that one man would get run over or around, another sorry footnote to a Steeler touchdown.

But on Sunday, that man was Donte Whitner.

Whitner filled the gap. He squared his shoulders. He stayed low and strong. He met Bell and stopped him cold, surrendering no additional yardage. He brought him to the ground, with Desmond Bryant chipping in.

The Browns stopped another Steeler run on the next play. Pittsburgh managed only three points on the drive. The defense held.

Whitner’s stop was a football play—a Cleveland-in-the-fall, AFC North, smash mouth, hardhat, no nonsense football play. This was our guy against their guy, one-on-one in a phone booth, with nowhere to hide. This was a gut check, a litmus test, a moment. And the Browns came out on top.

This is not how Steeler games tend to go.

The second play that told me the most about this Browns team was a one-yard Browns run that came with 5:46 left in the second quarter.

Brian Hoyer pivoted and pitched to Isaiah Crowell. The offensive line pushed right, setting up another beautiful cutback opportunity. One problem: Crowell dropped the ball six yards behind the line of scrimmage. An otherwise promising drive could have ended, just like that.

But it didn’t. Crow picked up the ball, re-oriented himself and looked up field. He drove forward and scrounged a yard when there was none to be had. Instead of a turnover or 2nd-and-15, it was 2nd-and-9.

Crowell had the chance to pick up that yard because Brian Hoyer did not bail on the play. He saw that Crow fumbled, and instead of carrying out of his fake away from the action, he put his neck on the line. No one would have blamed Hoyer if he stayed away. Quarterbacks, like paper cranes, are not meant to be mangled.

But Hoyer didn’t stay away. He saw a team and teammate in need. He’s a Clevelander, dammit, and he wasn’t going to let the play end without inserting himself into the proceedings. He did what we all like to think we would have done.

Hoyer dove and threw a shoulder into Arthur Moats, a 250-pound linebacker. He up-ended Moats, rendering him useless. He gave Crow a moment to plot his course as the crowd roared in approval. Crowell understood the situation, and he did well to get that yard. Yardage is football currency, and Crow was going to get rich or die trying.

Plays like these two are all I want from my favorite football team. Over the course of a 60-minute game and a 16-game season, bad plays will happen. That’s life, really. You’re gonna get hit in the mouth sometimes. It’s a matter of how you respond. The strongest steel is forged from the hottest fires. You’ve gotta climb back on that horse after you’ve been kicked in the teeth. It’s as simple as (insert hokey motivational saying here). Whitner, Hoyer, and the rest of our guys answered the bell.

When I watch my favorite teams play, the one thing that I want more than anything else is to feel that they’ve played as hard as they can. I want to feel like these guys want it as much as I do, and my friends do, and my dad does. I want to feel like they understand what football means in Cleveland, Ohio. I want to know that they know that we invest an objectively ridiculous amount of time, money, and self-esteem to the outcomes of these football games.

It’s fitting that both key figures in these two plays were locally sourced. If it were feasible, I would want every single Brown to be from Cleveland. I’m just another kid from the suburbs, but I mark out on the Cleveland identity: the notion that we’re hard working, blue-collar, lunch pail people. I want my football team to reflect that. I don’t want no finesse game. Give me a group of guys who love nothing more than dirt in their facemasks and the enemies’ paint on their helmets.

This Browns team has shown all of those things. They have won my heart. They have reminded me how it feels to love a team for the right reasons.

The Browns have been jobbers—the overwhelmed opponents designed to be beaten—for the better part of my life. And Sunday, they came out and opened a can of whoop ass on the Pittsburgh Steelers. It wasn’t a cheap sneak attack roll-up pin. They stood in the center of the ring and outclassed the biggest babyface in the AFC North. They beat them long and good, and we all got to count the 1-2-3 together.

Yeah, football is just a soap opera played on grass. Yeah, it’s no different from wrestling. Yeah, it’s silly that it’s one of the few things for which men will actually express honest emotion.

But on a day like this one? When the Browns beat the Steelers by three touchdowns? When Brian Hoyer outplayed Ben Roethlisberger? When the Browns whole team rallied around the injured Alex Mack? When our underdog wins, and deserves to win? When “the Browns rammed the ball down Pittsburgh’s throat” appears in the game recap?

You’re damn right I’m going to mark out.