US' saddest city just got sadder

The multi-billion dollar orgy is now in full swing across the United States with the NFL upon us. There are big games on Sunday, Monday, Thursday, and occasionally even Friday or Saturday. It's a national obsession with lots of money, lots of hype, lots of passion and lots of hope, unless of course you live in Cleveland.

Losing their first two games of the season is nothing new to the forlorn Browns. After all, there are 14 more games to straighten things out. But before the team even take the field for week three, they have just been told that their season is effectively over.

Running back Trent Richardson, the guy they took with the third pick in the draft last year in a spot reserved for franchise players, has been traded to the Indianapolis Colts for a first-round pick in the 2014 draft. It was a shocking deal, not only because in-season impact trades are practically unheard of in the NFL but also because you don't give up on the third player in the draft after only one year.

Management has made much of the fact that they will now have two first-round picks next year as well as two in the third and fourth round to find a franchise player to, presumably, replace the one they just traded.

Of course, the current regime has only been on the job for less than a year so they say to go forward we have to go backwards. First we have to undo the mistakes of the previous regime. The problem is they have been undoing mistakes in Cleveland for more than 20 years. The Browns are blessed with some of the most blindly loyal fans in sports who, through no fault of their own, watched when the team moved to Baltimore in 1996 only to have an expansion club return three years later. The team who went to Baltimore have won two Super Bowls and are a model of consistent excellence. The one they got have been abysmal.