An olive branch from Joey Porter

If the Browns and Steelers were on equal competitive footing, the ongoing spat between Joey Porter and Kellen Winslow Jr. would be kind of funny.

OK, it would be hilarious. Porter is a loudmouthed hothead, Winslow is a loudmouthed hothead. To ask those two to get into a war of words is like asking gasoline to catch on fire when it's exposed to an open flame.

But when your team has lost 13 of 14 to its hated division rival, the humor kind of goes out of it, and you start wishing that Porter would follow his quarterback's example and take a helmetless ride on a motorcycle. Preferably in an ice storm.

So, before he disrespected an entire city and NFL organization even further than last week's 27-7 final score already did, Porter decided to make a degree of peace with the Browns.

If nothing else, he took back the homosexual slur he used to describe Winslow and the Browns.

"I guess how we used that word freely, me growing up using it, I didn't think nothing of it like that," Porter told reporters. "Like I said, I apologize to anybody I offended on it."

Big man. Thanks, Joey. You're all right.

Thanks, Coach Cowher. You can stop glaring at your linebacker now. He's made good.

Of course, that apology does not extend to Winslow, whom Porter still thinks is a lily-livered, lace-wearing, muffin-baking, eyebrow-plucking, Zima-drinking, cuticle-clipping, shoe-coordinating, skin-moisturizing, Grey's Anatomy-watching, skip-to-my-lou pansy if there ever was one.

"I didn't mean to offend nobody but Kellen Winslow. Pretty much, that's it about that," he said.

If the Browns cannot manage to field a winning team in the reasonably near future, my second choice would be for the team to acquire Porter at some point. I want Porter and Winslow on the same roster. If wins aren't in the cards, the least the Browns can give us is the always-entertaining prospect of anarchy on the sidelines.