The Cleveland Gladiators, the Team Nobody Knows About

Well, it turns out that Cleveland is just bad at football in general. In the NFL, they have the Browns, a dismal team that had just one win last year. But Cleveland also has a football team in the league everyone forgets about, the Arena Football League. 

Now, if you don't know about the Arena Football League, here's a rundown. The AFL was created in 1987 and is a spin-off of the NFL, but with a couple different rules. First, it's played indoor with short walls along the side of the fields. Players are allowed to crash into these walls without the play being stopped. Second, it's much more high scoring. The reason for this is because the field is only 50 yards long. Before the snap, one receiver is allowed to start running. In addition, there are only 16 players on the field at a time, eight on offense and eight on defense. Many players play on both offense and defense.

Now that you know the basics of Arena Football, I'll talk about the Cleveland Gladiators.

The Cleveland Gladiators are one of only five Arena Football League teams created in 2008 after relocating from Las Vegas. Their owner is also the Cleveland Cavaliers owner, Dan Gilbert.When I first learned about the Gladiators, I hoped they'd be good to make up for the Browns. But of course, they're not. Two years ago, in 2015, the Gladiators had eight wins and 10 losses. Last year, in 2016, the Gladiators went 7-9. This year, 2017, they've played five games. Their record through five games is almost Browns-like. They have a grand total of one win. One win! In a league with only five teams, you'd think they might have figured out how to beat the other teams by now. But apparently not. 

The Cleveland Browns and Cleveland
Gladiators, the two bad Cleveland
football teams.

Granted, their games have been close. They've lost by six points, four points, one point and two points. But in my opinion, it doesn't matter how much you win or lose by, it matters if you win or if you lose. And the Gladiators have lost four and only won one. This sounds a lot like the Browns. The Browns last season had five losses by less than six points that they easily could have won. But they didn't.

Based on the stats though, the Gladiators should be a very good team. This season, they're leading the AFL in touchdowns, total points scored, tackles and sacks. In addition, they're second in interceptions and fourth down conversions. Somehow, even with the statistics showing that they should be good, the Gladiators are bad. And frankly, I do not know why.

The Gladiators and the Browns do have a lot of similarities if you think about it. But what matters most is that they're both plain old bad. I do have hope for the Browns in the future, as mentioned in previous blogs, and by the scores and statistics of the Gladiators, I have hope too. Things are looking up for the future of Cleveland football.