TOLEDO, Ohio — The excitement over the Cleveland Browns playoff-clinching win is being felt across the state, including right here in Toledo.
Backers on the Bay, a local chapter of the Browns Backers official fan club watched the victory together downtown Sunday.
"I think we're all just really excited," Ye Olde Cock N' Bull bar owner and lifelong Browns fan Sarah Mettler said. "After 18 years, we're finally doing it."
For Browns fans - what a way to start 2021. Many couldn't help but scream and shout when it became clear the drought is finally over. The Brownies are headed back to the playoffs for the first time since 2002.
"Cheering for the Browns, it always hasn't been the greatest," Mettler added, "it has its ups and mainly its downs. But we're up right now. We're up."
This was the first year Mettler's bar in downtown Toledo was an official Browns Backer bar.
"I'm a 38-year-old man and I've been choking back tears over a football game," said Backers on the Bay leader Zach Nowaczyk.
He runs the local Backers on the Bay, a fan group officially sanctioned by the Browns.
"Our main purpose is to watch the Browns, spread cheer, spread joy, cheer for the Browns," said Nowaczyk, "but at the same time, try and make a difference in our community."
Mettler says she hopes people feel welcome knowing they have a place to come watch the games with others.
"I hope it's like a home for people," she said. "We have a lot of giveaways. We do 50-50 raffles. We give away to a lot of charities."
It's been a long, road but beating the division-rival Pittsburgh Steelers made the win just a little sweeter for fans.
"Yes. Because we get a lot of Steelers fans and they always win," said Mettler. "And they always get to talk crap to us. So today it was a change of pace."
After a challenging 2020, the Browns gave people some hope when that was in short supply.
"However you may actually feel about football - being a silly game," said Nowaczyk, "it gave a group of people something to cheer about for the last 17 weeks of the year. And a year like this, you couldn't ask for anything more."
The Browns Backers are ready to watch the team in playoff action next Sunday - something they haven't been able to do in nearly two decades.