Celebrating 10 Years of Dawgs By Nature

For all of February, I kept thinking to myself, "don't forget to write your 10-year post on March 6." With my favorite player retiring earlier today, I thought to myself, "how fitting." I then went to my archives in order to link to my very first post in 2006 at Dawgs By Nature, only to go "dammit!" as I saw it read March 2. I guess doing this for that long does make you mix up a couple of dates here and there. Maybe the leap year threw me off.

Anyway, I'm thrilled to have been doing this for 10 years. Aside from Dave Halprin over at Blogging the Boys, I am the longest-reigning NFL blogger at SB Nation. It has been a joy to see the many different iterations of this site and the growth of the community, as well as the growth of our presence on social media the past couple of years.

The thing I've learned about writing a good Browns blog is that there is never a day off. I used to think, "I can relax during the dead periods of the offseason." The truth is that you end up working harder. During the season, the content pretty much writes itself because you have so much to work with. During the offseason, you need more research into things you aren't so familiar with at times, like other teams' free agents, draft prospects, and your team's always-changing-cap-room. And, forgot about trying to stay up-to-date with the latest Johnny Manziel news.

I went through my archives and tried to find several of my most memorable pieces of all time -- some are memorable because they were my "first type" of a certain post, while others are memorable because of the editorial tone I took on major events.

• My first ever season preview (2006)
• My first "free agency wishlist" article (2007)
• Battling with our Colts blogger over them laying down vs. Titans (2008)
• Writing about the "Family Fun Day" scrimmage for the first time (2008)
• My first ever "live blog" of the NFL Draft (2009) - I can't believe I've been doing this since 2009. This has evolved to be much more in-depth, and I now do live blogs for each day of the draft and the first several days of free agency.
• My first visit to Berea at training camp (2011)
• Editorial on the shocking trade of Trent Richardson (2013)
• Editorial on the real representation of Bernie Kosar's commentary against the Rams (2013)
• Editorial on Lombardi & Banner being fired (2014)
• DBN staff visits the Browns headquarters in Berea (2014)
• Editorial on Jason La Canfora's report on the Browns (2015)

I'm sure there are many that I'm missing, but it's tough to think back through over 7,000 articles. I look forward to writing many more articles, but hopefully some of them can be during a winning season. During my 10 years at DBN, the Browns have had just one winning season and zero playoff appearances.

For further reading on the history of DBN, go here (note: the staff portion of that article has not been updated since 2013). Thanks again to all of the fans who have followed us along the way, and the staff members (both past and present) who have contributed alongside me.