NOTE: Due to excessive celebration following Thursday night’s win against the Steelers, the second installment of this series was delayed by almost two days.
For more than half of the NFL’s history, professional football players made modest salaries. It wasn’t until the mid-1980s that the average salary for a player was raised to $198,000 a year. By 1993, the average annual salary jumped to nearly $800,000. Today, it’s $2.7 million.
From 1946, when the Cleveland Browns were founded, to about 1986, professional ball players often held second jobs year-round. In fact, they were expected to. Cleveland coach Paul Brown once told his players, “Gentleman, you’re going to be off Mondays and Tuesdays. Get a job.”
As this 2010 article from the Cleveland Plain Dealer notes, players taught in schools, sold insurance, even worked in the steel mills when they weren’t practicing or playing football. A lot of times, they made more money in their second job than they did in their primary one.
They lived in the suburbs and cut their own grass. Their children attended the local schools. Their “ordinary” lives off the field endeared them to football fans.
In a steel town like Cleveland, the players were real-life heroes who didn’t just play for the Browns, they embodied the city itself. You could live down the street from the quarterback and buy insurance from one of the linebackers, then watch them play on Sunday afternoon.
That has all changed, of course. Most players make enough money for football to be their only source of income. They can afford expensive houses, often away from the working-class suburbs. Yes, they do get involved with local charities. But it’s not the same as bumping into them at your local grocery store, talking about the upcoming neighborhood barbecue and perhaps giving them unsolicited advice on how to play their position.
It’s the same situation wherever there’s a professional sports team, because players have been elevated to celebrity status. But in Cleveland, there’s still a sense that these players are part of us, even if they’re only here for a few years and then move on. People who bleed orange and brown welcome players into the family and cheer them on in good times and bad. They also boo when they think the team deserves it, as the players found out after a ridiculous loss to the Jets.
Playing for the Browns is like being part of a big, boisterous ethnic family, whether you like it or not. You’ll be embraced when you make the family proud and read the riot act when you cause the family shame. There will be lots of celebrating and shouting and hugging and criticizing. And that’s what Browns fans live for.
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