The Browns 0-16 parade was equal parts humiliation and hope

Even as a few thousand fans gathered at FirstEnergy Stadium in Cleveland to commemorate a winless Browns season, parade organizer Chris McNeil isn’t looking forward to celebrating 0-16 again anytime soon. One catastrophic season is worth laughing at, anything more isn’t worth paying attention to at all.

Which was more or less the overall tone of the parade around the Browns’ home stadium — a bunch of fans gathering to poke fun at their own failure and demand future success. And after going 1-31 in the last two years, you can’t blame them.

What followed was a hodgepodge of anger, humility, hopefulness, irrational demands and impassioned pleas for change. It was everything you come to expect from sports fans, just not the event you ever expect to participate in.

Cleveland police estimate nearly 3,000 people showed up for the festivities. Understandably, a few of the players on the Browns weren’t too thrilled by the parade.

If going to a party in freezing temperatures to celebrate your favorite team’s ineptitude doesn’t make you a “true fan” we need to rework the definition of that phrase.

People very much care about this franchise. Just look at McNeil, who expects there will be another parade in the future — one that celebrates his team’s success and not its inability to achieve it.

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Blake Schuster is a writer for Shutdown Corner on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at blakeschuster@yahoo.com or follow him on Twitter! Follow @Schustee

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