New Year means New Hope

2010 wasn't a very good year for Cleveland sports fans.

LeBron decided to pack up and leave for Miami, causing the Cavaliers to fall into oblivion in the NBA. They may become the first team since Jordan left the Bulls to go from first to worst in the East. Besides that, his "homecoming" showed the fans being more passionate about the game than the players wearing the Cavaliers jerseys. And the Heat continue to get better as they get used to playing with each other.

The Tribe dealt with injuries throughout the season (see: Grady Sizemore, Carlos Santana, Asdrubal Cabrera) and didn't even win 70 games. We saw Cliff Lee dominate in the post season, wondering why he had to wait to have these kind of performances on the mound until after the 2007 season.

And the Browns will finish, at best, 6-10 this season. The Browns, like the Indians, were also plagued with injuries to their key players. And now the speculation of Mangini's future rears its ugly head for the second season in a row.

But there's hope for the future.

The Cavaliers have to get worse before they get better again. That's how it is in the NBA. We may not have LeBron, but we all can see that teams have won championships the past few years without LeBron on their team.

The Indians will have Carlos Santana at catcher this season. Hopefully, Grady can return back to his pre-injury self. And the Indians play in a division that's up for grabs most seasons. 2011 may not be a contending season, but possibly 2012?

And last but not least, the Browns. We have Peyton Hillis. Ben Watson, a great pick up, will be back next year. Our draft picks (Haden and Ward especially) look like long term starters for a team that was desperate for talent in the secondary prior to this season. We may have finally found our quarterback in McCoy (/crosses fingers). Basically, it looks like our FO has put together a pretty darn good first draft. We can have hope that they can repeat this success in the 2011 draft. Brian Robiskie is finally starting to emerge and be effective. The Scott Fujita pick up was great. Also, we have a lighter schedule next season! Yay! I don't think it'll be unrealistic to say we could go 8-8 next season or maybe better. 

So, 2010 wasn't great for us Cleveland fans (or Browns fans in general). But tomorrow begins a new year, and if you look hard enough, you can see that things are gradually beginning to look up.

And finally, Happy New Year, everyone!