Robert’s Rant! Browns Fans Need To Get Over OSU Homer Bias In Team’s Selection of Donovan Peoples-Jones!

BEREA, OH – With the 2020 Virtual NFL Draft now in the books, draft grades are out, teams, media and fans are overly-assessing and critiquing their favorite team’s picks. While the Cleveland Browns addressed a lot of key positions, the selection of former Michigan wide receiver, Donovan Peoples-Jones has rankled and drawn the ire of many die-hard Ohio State fans in the Dawg Pound.

Resisting the urge to trade down in the first—for once—and making trades later, the Bayou Browns of LSU came away with one of the best overall draft weekends in addressing key areas of need at LT, WR, LB, DB and DL. Thanks to their selection of former Alabama OT Jedrick Wills Jr., there are no more excuses for third-year starting QB Baker Mayfield as he is going into what will be a pivotal make-or-break campaign.

LSU North continued their new namesake tradition in selecting former Tiger S Grant Delpit and ILB Jacob Phillips, who is a real hitter and enforcer-type that can develop into a starter.

DL depth was also addressed with the selection of Jordan Elliott, especially with Larry Ogunjobi in the final year of his rookie contract and Sheldon Richardson a pending free agent. But the highlight of the draft—especially among the Ohio State faction of Dawg Pound Nation—is the much-maligned selection of former Peoples-Jones over the likes of K.J. Hill and Binjimen Victor.

As a lifelong Browns and Buckeyes fan and family alum, I get it my fellow Dawgs! Believe me I do. I can understand your latest fit of misplaced fake outrage of our beloved Brownies daring to select a player at a position of need from the school we all LOVE to hate. I mean, there are ONE. TWO. THREE. FOUR. FIVE  former Bayou Bengals currently on the roster in the form of OBJ, Juice and now Delpit and Phillips over the likes of Malik Harrison, Hill and Victor.

How dare they!

I’m gonna call Browns customer service now and cancel my season tickets and demand they select more players from THE Ohio State University, God dammit! And while I’m at it, I’m also going to go on my Facebook and post, rant and try to create a stupid boycott of Michigan-based companies such as General Motors, Ford, Chrysler, Little Caesar’s and Meijer in an effort to channel my inner and spiteful Woody Hayes!

F&%k the Browns! I’ll never cheer for a Wolverine on my team! We don’t give a damn about the whole state of Michigan here in Ohio, right?!?

Since I’m one of you, I’m willing to risk my permanent Browns and Buckeyes fandom card being revoked in snitching our most inner thoughts aloud in that, the PERFECT dream scenario of OSU homers is that Paul Brown—who founded the team—was never fired—as he shouldn’t have!—is the patriarch of the franchise and that it stays within the Brown family with Paul Brown III is the principle owner, Urban Meyer is—by some stroke of alternate reality—the Executive Vice president of Football Operations and that current Buckeyes head coach, Ryan Day is the head coach instead of the Ivy League elitist nerd currently in Berea in Kevin Stefanski.

And in the deepest, darkest reaches of a every OSU homer’s perfect scarlet-gray colored Browns universe, we’d draft NOTHING but Buckeyes such as WR Santonio Holmes and Michael Thomas, LB’s Mike Vrabel and James Carpenter, DE John Simon, RB Ezekiel Elliott and QB Cardale Jones to help form the foundation of our return to greatness!

Screw Baker and his flag-planting punk a$#, right!

We are all homers and cheer proudly, loudly and vocally for those that GET us. Again, I completely get it, but to see the proverbial meltdown across social media following the selection of DPJ just because he went to That School Up North is not only childish and sad, but utterly pathetic and petty.

I can understand that the pick may have triggered some PTSD flashbacks of Braylon Edwards, Derrick Alexander and most recently Jabrill Peppers, but last time I check, what school did Leroy Hoard and Steve Everitt come out of again?

Recently, I’ve had the pleasure of hanging out on Twitter and seeing all the OSU/Browns honks and wannabe GM’s try to make their argument—and pray futilely to the football gods—that Cleveland would select Hill, and one of the arguments that a long-time buddy of mine tried to make with me was that Hill had better tape than DPJ and that because he’s a Wolverine that he can never root for him as a member of the Browns.

My rebuttal to that is; if both Hill and Victor had “better tape” then why were they drafted later and not before DPJ?

Again, I can understand the passion of college football, and the rivalry and long-standing Michigan-Ohio anthemia between the two states runs deep, I mean we fought over f%$#ing Toledo for crying out loud back in 1835, but such deep-rooted homerism and bias rooted on Saturdays has no business carrying over to Sundays.

My long-standing viewpoint is this, I don’t care what school you play for or come from, as long as you produce and perform on Sunday, that is all I care about.

While I’m hopeful that such bias will change towards where a player played in college will change, it’s doubtful that some people ever graduate and let go of old grudges. Deep down inside of all of us, we are like that jingle from the old Toys R’ Us kid and never wanting to grow up

Bottom line is this, DPJ is one of US now, like it or not, and landing who was once the top WR prospect in the country in 2017–that Ohio State tried to recruit–out of the same Detroit-area powerhouse high school (Cass Tech) that produced a fellow Buckeye—and current backup to Zeke down in Big D in RB Mike Weber Jr.—in the sixth round of arguably the deepest WR draft since 2004 says something.

While Rashard Higgins recently re-signed with the Browns for one year and close to $1 million, the Browns lacked depth and got great value in addressing a glaring need. Isn’t that what was most important?

Aside from the recent belly-aching over the uniforms, throwing a tantrum over where someone played college football at should be the last of our worries come this fall.