Browns and Lions in the Super Bowl: Scot Striffler

In this Nov. 12, 2017, file photo Cleveland Browns running back Isaiah Crowell lunges over the tackle attempt of Detroit Lions cornerback D.J. Hayden for a rushing touchdown in the second half at Ford Field in Detroit, Michigan. The Lions won that game 38-24.

But would a Super Bowl matchup of these two hard-luck teams in a year when both are showing some spark yield a different outcome?

Either way, one of them would win, proving that miracles can happen, Scot Striffler writes in a guest column today. The entire universe should be cheering for a Super Bowl featuring the Cleveland Browns and Detroit Lions.

Not only are the Browns and Lions the last old-school NFL teams never to appear in a Super Bowl, much less win one, they have become synonymous with losing, enduring endless jokes as two of the most futile and hapless professional sports teams to ever exist. Ever.

Before the universe got its jollies making fun of the Browns for the last two decades, it dumped on the Lions for the 40 years before that.

The Lions have teased their tortured fan base with occasional good seasons and great players that provided moments of joy — Hall of Famers Barry Sanders and Calvin Johnson come to mind — but a trip to the Super Bowl was never to be.

For much of America, watching the Lions lose has been a Thanksgiving Day tradition, with terrible Lions teams stinking up one of our holiday football games every year. For dedicated Lions fans, there has only been heartburn.

The Browns had great years with Bernie Kosar at quarterback in the 1980s, needing only to get past John Elway and the Denver Broncos in three conference championship games in order to play in a Super Bowl, but those three chances resulted in super bummers, earning their places in the long line of sports heartbreaks for Cleveland fans.

Detroit has won championships in other sports the last 40 years with the Pistons, Tigers and Red Wings, and other Cleveland teams have reached championship games, as well.

The Cleveland Cavaliers appeared in four straight NBA Finals against the Golden State Warriors, winning one championship in 2016 to break the overall Cleveland championship drought that had lasted since 1964 — the last time the Browns were NFL champs.

Cleveland fans were spoiled (by Cleveland sports standards) in 2016, with the Indians also reaching the World Series against the Chicago Cubs, another hard-luck team suffering their own curses.

Of course, the Cubs won that World Series in a Game 7 extra-inning thriller. Cubs fans cried tears of joy. Cleveland sports fans just cried again.

They say everyone loves a winner, but sports fans really love a perennial loser that they can compare to their own losing team and feel better by saying, “At least we don’t stink as bad as the Browns,” or, “At least we ain’t the Lions.”

The Browns have usurped the Lions as the worst team in the NFL the past 20-plus years, taking over as the laughingstock of the league.

Even Lions fans are known to say, “At least we ain’t the Browns.” Aw heck, even sugary-sweet Kelly Clarkson was cracking Browns jokes at the 2023 NFL Honors awards in February — right down the road in Canton.

But just think of the excitement if the two worst, hard-luck, woebegone, tainted, miserable, forlorn and tormented football teams played each other in the Super Bowl.

Scot Striffler is a retired writer in Sheffield Lake, Ohio.The Browns and Lions are looking like pretty good teams this year, so far (hey, put those jokes away right now). Someday, some year, somehow, the Lions and Browns have to make it to a Super Bowl.

Don’t the natural laws of the universe and mathematical percentages say it must happen at some point? Why not this year for both teams (I said, put those jokes away!)?

Both teams must eventually play in a Super Bowl. Even when whole generations have now grown to be grandparents since the last time the Browns or Lions were any good. Even when it appears all the cosmic forces in the universe have been in on the joke. Even when it feels like it will never happen .

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