I'm a bit tardy with this post, but ...

On Thursday, my good friend Jeff Brown treated me to a front-row seat at the Browns' preseason game against Buffalo. Well, a business acquaintance of his gave him his season tickets. So I guess technically, that guy treated both of us to the game. In any case, Jeff was kind enough to invite me along. I never realized regular people such as we could ever wind up in the front row, even for a preseason game, but of course, you always see people sitting there when you watch the games on TV, and whether those people are bajillionaires or not, they still have red blood just like you and me, and their pants-donning method is identical (or at least highly similar) to yours and mine.

In any case, I took this picture with my phone before the game:



That was taken from the actual seat I was actually sitting in for the actual game. Sure, it was just a preseason game, but still, that was pretty awesome. That blue thing in the lower left-hand corner of the photo is the instant replay machine. Had there been a replay review, it would have taken place directly in front of my seat. Sadly, there were none.

I used to work at The News-Herald in Willoughby, first as a member of the copy desk, and then as an assistant city editor. I left there in 2007, but the newsroom staff has changed very little in that time, and I spotted former colleague Michael Blair, the N-H photographer, on the sideline. I was so close to the field, I yelled out his name at a not-particularly high volume, and he immediately turned around and saw me, waved and snapped my picture, presumably to show his co-workers who he saw at the game.

Here's a selfie Jeff took:




The row behind us did eventually fill up, in case you're wondering. Those people were just a little late.

As for the game? Well, of course it's just preseason, but it seems to me Manziel played a little better than McCown, albeit against the second-string defense. But that's about the extent of my analysis at this time. I unfortunately don't really have enough time to go into any depth.