Jerry Evanoff's Cleveland Browns fan blog

Yes, that's right, I love April for football.  It's NFL Draft time.  I like listening to the NFL Channel on Sirius and I like reading Draft guides and websites that talk about the draft.  I love paying attention to the draft just because it helps me get ready for fantasy football.  On draft day, I will Tivo and watch all the coverage on both days.

But this year it's different and I'm not sure why.  With the exception of a couple of Quarterbacks, I couldn't tell you who the Browns may take at #5.  I know what positions they need, but I'm not sure what players are available.  So I've decided to do my research and make my draft predictions as I type this blog.

So here we go...we'll start at Number 1 with Detroit.  It always strange to have the first pick in the draft.  As a fan, you want your team to draft the best player available for your team and you're really scared of that bust.  Quarterbacks are thrown around at this pick most of the time but at least half the time, first round quarterbacks are busts.  But most teams that have this pick need that quarterback or they wouldn't be sitting at number 1.  So what do the Lions do?  Take Stafford, Sanchez?  Take a big defensive guy to help put pressure on the QB?  Or go the safe route with a Tackle?  When you're that bad, you need a lot of help in a lot of places. 

Continue reading "It's April, My Second Favorite Month for Football"

Okay, so the title says it all but it should be repeated.

I am the most optimistic Browns fan ever!

That's right, it's hard for me to ever really doubt that they are doing the right thing.  Maybe it's because they are and have been so bad for so long that I always like to think they have a chance.  If they went into the season without me thinking they had a chance, besides fantasy football, what would be the point of me even watching the season?  So I go into every season hopeful...only to be let down by the time week six rolls around.  

So what could possibly make me hopeful this season?  Simple, it just depends on how you look at things. 

With the losses of Andre Davis and Sean Jones through free agency, they lost two of the better players on defense.  But from my point of view, they lost two of the slowest players for their position on the 26th ranked defense...so big deal.

Continue reading "I am the Most Optimistic Cleveland Browns Fan Ever!"

I have been playing a weekly to semi-weekly game of Texas Hold'em with a rotating group of friends now for about five years.  I believe we started on New Year's Day 2004 with just five of us in someone's living room.  Only one of us (not me) had really had much experience playing hold'em at a casino while the rest of us just watched on on TV and occasionally called it out in the semi-weekly dealer's choice game we had been playing for years before that.

So one day we decided to just play tournaments.  We each put $10 (or sometimes $20) in and played for a first or second place prize.  We did this for a few years and it was a blast.  We all started to learn each other's tendencies.  We would make casino trips together and sit at the same table so two, three, four of us would have fun playing with the strangers who would sit down.  We would never cheat but we knew each other so well that we could anticipate each other better and it would make for a more fun game.  Throughout that time, we would have people who would only show up every now and then and give us games of 10-20 people but was the same five or six of us would always show up.  We never really did it to try to win lots of money.  We just liked getting together every week on a Friday night and having some fun. 

Continue reading "I'm at a Crossroads in my Weekly Hold 'em Game, What do I do?"