If you’re a longtime Browns fan and you’re thinking that the San Francisco 49ers’ injury-riddled quarterback situation looked eerily familiar, you’re not imagining things.
You’re exactly right.
The 49ers went through four different quarterbacks this season, with all of them being lost to injury at one time or another, including the last two, rookie Brock Purdy (elbow) and veteran Josh Johnson (concussion), being knocked out of Sunday’s 31-7 loss to the Philadelphia Eagles in the NFC Championship Game. When Johnson exited, Purdy had to go back in even though he could basically only hand the ball off. Running back Christian McCafferty even went under center briefly.
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The same thing — just more extensive — happened to the Browns 34 seasons ago as they lost quarterbacks to injuries five different times, including Bernie Kosar twice.
Kosar started the season but was lost early in the opener at Kansas City with an elbow injury. He gave way to Gary Danielson, who got hurt in the next game and gave way to Mike Pagel.
Pagel would get hurt, and Kosar returned and then got hurt again late in the next-to-last game at Miami. He was replaced by former longtime Dolphins backup Don Strock, who was lured out of retirement and signed on a golf course. Strock started in the finale against the Houston Oilers six days later at Cleveland and, after a slow start, ended up passing for 302 yards and three touchdowns in leading the Browns, who trailed by 16 points with 9:32 left in the third quarter, to 21 unanswered points to end the game and a 28-23 win that enabled them to finish 10-6 and make the AFC playoffs.
In the wild-card round game again six days later, again against the Oilers and again at Cleveland, Strock got hurt and gave way to Pagel, who had to play even though he wasn’t really physically ready. The Browns lost 24-23.
Just like this season’s 49ers, who finished 14-5, the Browns had such a strong team overall that they were able to withstand all the injuries at quarterback.
Despite doing his best job during his time as head coach in Cleveland in steering the Browns through all of this adversity, Marty Schottenheimer resigned/was fired — whatever you care to believe — several days later in a standoff with Art Modell after his refusal to follow the owner’s demands and fire his I brother, special teams coordinator Kurt Schottenheimer.
Whew! It was a lot!
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Steve King
I remember listening to the game on the radio when Pagel was injured the first time (I needed to finish some yard work on a nice Sunday). It was difficult to believe after Kozar and Danielson went out in the earlier games.