By Kate Roth

The Cleveland Browns improved their record to 3-2 this past Sunday with a dominating 31-10 victory over their rival Pittsburgh Steelers. Through his performance, quarterback Brian Hoyer, showed us once again that he is capable of leading an NFL team and is deserving of the starting spot over fan favorite Johnny Manziel. For once, everything seems to be clicking for the Browns considering they have a quarterback they can trust, their star running back in Ben Tate has just emerged off the injured and is performing well and their schedule over the next few weeks seems to be playing out in their favor. This is something that Browns fans have been looking forward to for years and now that everything seems to be falling into place, I’m not sure the media knows how to handle it.

Following the win on Sunday I was fully expecting this week to be filled with local (Cleveland) sports articles regarding the success of the Browns, and the potential to really make a statement in the up and coming weeks. The last thing I was expecting to see is negative comments about the team and especially not the “Hometown Hero” Brian Hoyer.

Unfortunately the media caught me off guard and this is exactly what I ended up reading. Stories claiming that Hoyer is considering not signing a contract extension with the Browns and instead looking for the next big contract, comments that Hoyer later denied. Other articles discussed how the injuries to center Alex Mack and defensive lineman Armonty Bryant could be very costly to the Browns, preventing them from winning the games coming up on their schedule.

There was even an article that criticized Hoyer for wanting to turn current Dallas Cowboys fan and Cleveland Cavaliers superstar LeBron James into a Browns fan, claiming that Hoyer needed to stay focused on his job as the quarterback of the Browns and not worry about who LeBron is cheering for.

It’s almost as if the Cleveland media is so used to watching the Browns lose that they’re not quite sure how to react to the success of the team.

Instead of picking out anything negative they could find about the team they needed to be applauding them for the great performance they put up over the weekend and throughout the season thus far. After a 31-10 smack down on your rival there should be plenty of positive things to talk about.

Even though it is still very early in the season and may be too early to tell how the team will perform throughout the year, things are still looking up in Cleveland and fans are really starting to believe and get behind this team. Now it’s the media’s turn to jump on board and enjoy the ride for as long as it may last and create positive news stories instead of negative.

It’s time to turn this Factory of Sadness around and an easy way to start this is through the media.