very first Brownsbills Day, where neither team threw for 150 yards and Buffalo punted nine times.
This is not your typical Cleveland-Buffalo hoedown, however. Sunday will be the third Brownsbills Day in which both Cleveland and Buffalo enter with a winning record. Per tradition, that makes this game a Brownsbills Day Supreme, which has some different customs and rules than a normal Brownsbills Day.
Regular Brownsbills: At the end of the first quarter, the visiting team unveils a giant mechanical bird it has constructed out of abandoned mopeds and the plastic wrap that comes on CDs. The bird is launched into the air by a catapult, and the home crowd attempts to destroy the bird by throwing history textbooks at it. If the bird escapes the stadium's confines, the visiting team gets an extra timeout. If the bird is destroyed before it can fly out of the stadium, the home crowd gets to park illegally for a month.
Brownsbills Supreme: The bird can also be made out of silverware stolen from a chain restaurant, and the home crowd gets to park illegally for an entire year, even at the bank drive-through.
Regular Brownsbills: Tailgaters traditionally eat Losman Soup, which, despite its name, is a pile of fruit and ham eaten out of a paper bag with your hand, which is wrapped in packing tape.
Brownsbills Supreme: Many tailgaters will also cook up Holcomb Lasagna, a teakettle filled with unsweetened chocolate, tater tots, and white vinegar. It is left in an oven that isn't turned on for 45 minutes.
Regular Brownsbills: Anyone with a Chan Gailey tattoo is admitted to the game for free.
Brownsbills Supreme: Anyone with a Chan Gailey tattoo in a "personal area" gets to play backgammon with Chan Gailey for five minutes.
But don't worry - this will still mostly look like the Brownsbills Days you've known and cherished in years past. We'll still have the Race Through A Parking Garage Full Of Broken Light Bulbs, the Snake Fashion Show, and the Police Horse Raffle. (A reminder: winners are not guaranteed to receive a healthy police horse.)
We'll also crown this year's Pappy Brownsbills, and Brian Hoyer has a chance to retain the crown. (Despite being knocked out of the 2013 Brownsbills Day game early with an injury, Hoyer was the starting quarterback for the winning team, and Pappy Brownsbills is not a health-based honorific.)
So start preparing your Losman Soup bags, call your friends and family, and an enjoy a Brownbills Day carol with the rest of us. "O Little Town of Cleveland."
O Little Town of Cleveland
How cursed is thy land
You once put all your playoff hopes
In Bruce Gradkowski's hands
And to your east by northeast
Lies frigid Buffalo
Though bound by tears
From losing years
Neither paid Schiano
0 comments: