Last week i has the chance to speak on Zoom with Paul Brown, who can be found on Youtube and Instagram. Paul Brown has over 6,000 instagram followers. On his instagram page you can often find Paul cooking food, supporting the Cleveland Browns or enjoying a Jägerbomb in London.
Paul Brown also has a Youtube channel with over 2,300 subscribers. His focus on the channel is the NFL and his team, the Cleveland Browns.
Cleveland Browns Fandom
When I started the interview, I asked Paul for the reason he supported the Cleveland Browns.
“The name is Paul Brown. I had a choice between two teams, either the Bengals or Browns. I went with the Cleveland Browns”.
Paul Brown is the name of a former American Football coach and executive. He coached and worked for both the Cleveland Browns and Cincinnati Bengals.
I then proceeded to ask Paul Brown who his favourite player in his time supporting the Browns and his favourite moment.
“My current favourite player is Myles Garrett. My favourite Browns player of all time is Jim Brown and favourite player of my era is Joe Thomas”.
Paul also referred to his liking of the ‘Scottish Hammer’, Cleveland’s Scottish punter Jamie Gillan.
“The highlight for me was the Browns winning against the Jets. I think it was 635 days without winning”.
I then talked to Paul Brown about his experiences of watching games in America.
Paul Brown Cold And Wet Foxborough
“My win loss record is something like 10-6 I’m guessing for live games. Not all the games have been great. Browns vs Pats was torrential rain. Ive never been so cold in my life”.
“I’ve never experienced rain like it in my life. The rain just went straight through me”.
”I was wearing a Scottish Kilt for Scottish Hammer but my legs weren’t the problem. I had a t-shirt, a jersey, a hoodie and a retro Browns 1990 starter jacket. It went through and was soggy wet”.
“If the Pats had the ball, i was going into the toilets with the hand dryer to dry myself off. I thought i was going to die”.
Paul said this was in Foxborough, which is the location of the Gillette Stadium, home to the New England Patriots. I have been to the same stadium and me and Paul both talked about how cold we were watching the game. We both said that it was the coldest we have ever been.
We both also mentioned how much of a different experience it is to tailgate in America than it is with the UK. Paul said he is up at 7am most mornings of games in America.
Paul also went to the Hall Of Fame in Canton. I asked Paul about this.
“Any NFL fan should go. Its a great experience. I went there thinking I would see a few bits and pieces and some Browns jerseys. The way they set the history out is really interesting. It starts to open your knowledge up to the NFL. It’s really interesting”.
Me and Paul started talking about both our individual plans to see NFL games out in America.
“When the games come out, i look up direct flights to the furthest away games. This year i went to Dallas, Jacksonville, Nashville and New York. Last year i got a flight for £220 to New York”.
“I get free accommodation and stay at friends’ houses. I get a flight at the cheapest price then worry about where I will sleep. I then get tickets up to 2 hours before kickoff”.
Me and Paul started talking about other sports that he likes. He told me he watches Football and later on in the interview, Paul told me he was at the 4-4 game between Liverpool and Chelsea in the Champions League.
Paul Brownalso mentioned fantasy football and it turned out that he started playing fantasy football in 1994, the year before I was born.
This surprised me as i never knew that fantasy football had gone on so long and I wondered how you did fantasy football .
“I remember buying Gary Mabbut for half a million, signing Ravenelli. You would phone through your team. You would register your team and then not change your team for the rest of the season”.
Helping Out The NHS
Over lockdown, Paul Brown played a big part in cooking food for the NHS. I wanted to ask him about this and how it came about.
“I have a media company and I was approached by Help For Heroes to do some social media for the NHS. I thought there was something more i can do. I reached out to nurses and they told me they’d love for me to cook”.
“I reached out to grocers and supermarkets and got donated some food. I was buying food for £20 to £50 and feeding 100 people. I cooked 4,000 meals in 80 days. It was doing my own thing to help them”.
Cleveland Browns Play Off Chances
Towards the end of the interview, Paul actually asked me whether the Cleveland Browns would make the play offs.
I told him i felt they would miss out due to the strength of their division and be the best seed to miss out.
I talked about how I wasn’t sold on Baker despite liking the running game of Nick Chubb and Kareem Hunt.
Paul talked about how he felt they would do.
“I feel we may nick it. I remember Alex Ferguson used to get ugly wins and for the first time in a long time, we won ugly on Sunday”.
It was a real pleasure speaking to Paul Brown. The Browns won the weekend after Paul and I spoke in a big statement win over the Dallas Cowboys. Odell Beckham had his best game in a Cleveland Browns jersey. The Browns showed that they could actually be a contender. If they do this, then there is no doubt that Paul will be routing for them all the way.
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