Here is Week 1 of the Browns Diary.

So before we get too deep into Sunday’s horror show, I probably should reintroduce myself: I write a weekly Browns’ Diary. I’ve been writing it for a few years now. It has taken years off of my life.

I started the diary in some sort of mid-life crisis fear of losing my younger self. I grew up in South Euclid, Ohio, and I spent my entire childhood living and dying and dying some more and, yeah, mostly just dying with the Cleveland Browns. I cried after Red Right 88. I cried after The Drive. I cried after The Fumble. I was at Cleveland Municipal Stadium the afternoon the Browns played their last home game. I wandered the littered field afterward.

Sure, I cried then, too.

The Browns’ move made me stop caring. It was too much heartbreak. And even after a team that called itself the Browns came to Cleveland, I didn’t buy it for a long time.

Then, a few years ago, I realized that there was an empty space in my life without the Browns.

And rather than just appreciate the joy of that empty space, I started writing this diary.

Read more at The Athletic.