A good comparison, but also a painful, scary one
By STEVE KING
The 2021 Cleveland Browns bear a great resemblance to their teams from 3½ decades ago.
That’s both great, and, uh, not so great.
You’re hearing all about the great part, and there’s good reason for that, for the Browns are one of the NFL’s sexy teams, with nearly every so-called expert predicting big things, even bigger than a year ago.
Indeed, the Browns have assembled a horde of young talent, their most since the last half of the 1980s.
The Browns have a productive quarterback in Baker Mayfield (who is a contender for this this season’s MVP award, according to Sports Betting Dime), just like they did way back in the day with a guy by the name of Bernie Kosar.
They have two great running backs, and perhaps the best duo in the game, in Nick Chubb and Kareem Hunt, just like Kevin Mack and Earnest Byner.
Thy have a dangerous trio of wide receivers in Jarvis Landry, Odell Beckham Jr. and Donovan Peoples-Jones, just like Webster Slaughter, Reggie Langhorne and Brian Brennan. Landry and Beckham are two of the older players in the group.
The Browns have one of the best lines in the NFL, including Joel Bitonio, Jack Conklin, JC Tetter and Wyatt Teller, just like Mike Baab, Cody Risien and Dan Fike.
On defense, they have one of the best ends around — perhaps THE best — in Myles Garrett — and a highly-regarded running mate in Jadeveon Clowney, and talent in the back end in Denzel Ward, John Johnson III and Greg Newsome, just like Hanford Dixon, Frank Minnifield and Felix Wright.
And they have an up-and-coming leader in Kevin Stefanski who, in his first season ever as a head coach at any level, took a losing team from the previous season and turned it into a playoff qualifier (for the first time in 18 years) with an 11-5 record, just like Marty Schottenheimer.
So, then, with all those positives — all those look-alikes from such a great era, with Browns teams that, from 1985-89, made five straight playoff appearances, captured four division titles and played three times in the AFC Championship Game — what could possibly be the negatives?
Oh, how soon you forget.
While those Browns were really good, they weren’t quite good enough. They would get very close, only to lose in excruciating fashion, blowing late leads when the window of opportunity seemed to be wide open and the stars looked to be all aligned in just the right way for the franchise to make its first Super Bowl appearance.
But in the end, there were no such appearances, let alone the ultimate, a Super Bowl championship.
OK. Relax and get your head up, because these new Browns haven’t been around long enough in a gilded time to have experienced any tease yet.
Oh, how soon you forget — again.
Last season, after vanquishing the Pittsburgh Steelers 48-37 — at Heinz Field, no less — in the wild-card round of the playoffs, the Browns went to Kansas City in the divisional round and had the defending Super Bowl champion Chiefs sweating bullets, trailing just 22-17 in the fourth quarter and having the ball following an interception in the end zone, with some guy named Patrick Mahomes — perhaps you’ve heard of him — sidelined with an injury.
That drive stalled, but the Browns had a chance to get the ball back and try again after backing up the Chiefs offense into a third-and-14 situation. However, golden-ager quarterback Chad Henne — Chad Henne, for goodness sake! — happened upon the Fountain of Youth and made two straight dynamic plays to get a first down and seal the deal.
A missed opportunity for the Browns?
Or was it simply that the young Browns weren’t quite ready to take that next step, and will be ready to do so with more experience?
Everyone thought the latter was the case in 1985 when the Browns had a 21-3 third-quarter lead over the defending AFC champion Miami Dolphins at the Orange Bowl and couldn’t close it out, losing 24-21.
That morphed into what happened against the Denver Broncos in the AFC Championship Game in 1986 (The Drive) and ’87 (The Fumble), and to a little lesser degree in another loss to the Broncos in the title game in 1989 and on a wild-card setback to the Houston Oilers by a point the year before that.
The Browns never broke through, year after year after year, until those players all got old at the same time and the Bernie Kosar era ended with only good memories, not great, lifelong ones.
So, while the current Browns have conjured up memories of the 1980s teams, which is good, and hopeful, they need to make some of their own memories by doing a little better. Their legacies will depend on it.
Just ask those former players.
“That was so long ago, but do you ever, in quiet a moment, think about those games against Denver and how it kept you guys from making it to the Super Bowl?” I once said to Hanford Dixon.
“Only every single day of my life,” he replied, his almost constant laughing and joking disappearing, being replaced by a look that invoked a few tears.
The Browns can only hope those tears don’t come back years from now on these players’ cheeks.
