‘Dawg Pound Baker’ goes back to kitchen to cook up new character ahead of Browns season

CLEVELAND, Ohio (WOIO) - For the Dawg Pound Baker, it was four years wearing a chef’s hat and apron, and carrying baked goods to every game.

But now, with Baker Mayfield, playing against the Browns as a member of the Carolina Panthers, Greg Casper had to come up with another character for his Browns tailgates.

“Who more to honor than our local kid, Denzel Ward?,” asked the Jackson Township resident about honoring another 2018 Browns first-round draft choice, the Nordonia and Ohio State graduate. “And he’s an absolute great guy.”

He’s traded his chef’s hat for a baseball cap to honor the Browns cornerback, showing a Pittsburgh Steeler player in jail, a red universal “No” symbol over a wide receiver, plus handcuffs, a police bullhorn, flashing lights, and the power to write citations.

“Violations, and they’re orange so I can write out tickets to fans who are wearing other jerseys or other uniforms on that are not the Browns,’ Casper said.

The official unveiling of the Lockdown Warden won’t happen until the Browns first tailgate, which means Casper’s wife didn’t go with a character to the Browns exhibition game last month.

“She was really happy to have just me in a Polo shirt,” Casper remembered. “She really had begged me just to be a normal fan.”

Casper has changed season tickets this year, moving out of the Dawg Pound, but he’ll still show up at Burke Lakefront Airport at 5 a.m. for his GNATS (The Grassy kNoll Airport Tailgate Society) and no one will quench his allegiance.

“I would like to see Baker do well, but I’m a Browns fan,” he said. “We tailgate like nobody and you know that. It’s about the comradery, it’s the friendships you build through this. That’s what it’s all about.”

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