4/26/2012 - West Side Leader
     

On the Mark — By Craig Marks

I’d like to thank you all for being here today, my friends, my family, world leaders and, of course, members of the Cleveland Browns organization. I am honored to be the Browns’ top selection in the 2012 NFL draft. I will do everything in my power to lead the team to the Super Bowl, or rather, I would if I were not giving up football to pursue my dream of being in an internationally successful boy band.

Ha ha! Oh, the looks of terror on your faces. Of course I’m joining the Browns. My goal is to be the kind of player fans will rally around and other teams will fear. But please, I don’t want defensive coordinators offering a reward to have me injured. If I wanted a bounty placed on me, I would have been a paper-products shelf at a Giant Eagle. But seriously …

An unknown quantity I am not. You had me in for workouts and interviews. You performed background checks. You consulted scouts and psychics, and while I can’t prove it, I believe you had some guy jump into my dreams, “Inception”-like. He demanded I run the 40-yard dash on the same volcanic planet where Anakin Skywalker and Obi-Wan staged their climactic battle. To my surprise, the latest collective bargaining agreement permits this.

I should tell you I’m dealing with an injury. It’s my ears. They’ve been burning for the last five months from all the talk about me on sports radio shows. Honestly, do your fans spend as much time helping your kid select a college as you do analyzing who the Browns should pick? But that’s fine. As Simon & Garfunkle sang in “Mrs. Robinson,” “Laugh about it, shout about it, when you’ve got to choose.” There’s a line after that, but I can’t recall what it is.

As your top draft pick, let me be blunt and say it’s going take more than me to right the ship. The way I see it, only two people could immediately turn the Browns into a playoff team, and those two people are Thor, of the “Avengers,” and a genie. Neither made themselves available for the draft, so you’ll have to make do with me.

I know enough not to ask you to be patient. Your response would be that you’ve been patient for 40-some years, and I cannot deny that. But I can tell you that my teammates and I will work long hours to give you a compelling reason to spend gorgeous autumn Sunday afternoons in front of the tube. And, if we fail in our mission, there’s always next year’s draft, which is already being heatedly discussed. I hear there’s some junior on Clemson’s team who, when being chased in his dreams by a centaur, can run a 4.1.

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