A story from the past with present-day relevance

By STEVE KING

I mentioned the Kardiac Kids Browns teams of the late 1970s and early ’80s in my previous post.

That era, which produced the franchise’s first AFC Central championship in nine years when the Browns went 11-5 in 1980, would not have happened had it not been for the presence of Brian Sipe. The quarterback that season became the first Brown in 15 years (since Pro Football Hall of Fame running back Jim Brown in 1965) to win the NFL Most Valuable Player award when he broke most of the team’s single-season passing records,
It was a rags-to-riches story for Sipe, an undersized — and at first pretty much disinterested — player who spent his first two seasons on the taxi squad, the forerunner of today’s practice squad, after being an after-thought kind of NFL Draft pick, taken in the 13th round in 1972. He bounced in and out of the lineup for a while after he finally made the roster in 1974, having some good games and some not-so-good ones, then became pretty much the starter in 1976 after Mike Phipps was lost for the season with a separated shoulder in the opener. Still, though, he did not appear to be in any way, shape or form the franchise quarterback for whom the team was looking. He was just too inconsistent.

When Sam Rutigliano was named head coach just after the 1977 season ended, his first order of business was to call Sipe and tell him that he was his starting quarterback. After a good start in the 1978 season in which he helped the Browns get to 3-0, however, Sipe began to really struggle, so much so, in fact, that Rutigliano, though he vehemently denies it now, privately wondered if he had over-estimated Sipe. Was Sipe, as some football people believed, really too small And did he lack the strong arm necessary to make all the throws?

Following a dismal showing by Sipe and the offense in a 19-7 home loss to the Denver Broncos that reduced Cleveland’s record to 5-6, Rutigliano had just about reached the end with his quarterback. He was going to give Sipe one more chance to prove himself the following Sunday in a road game against the Baltimore Colts. As fate would have it, Sipe responded big-time, recording his first 300-yard passing performance (309, to be exact, completing 15-of-22 attempts for four touchdowns and no interceptions) in a resounding 45-24 victory. 

That changed everything — for both Sipe and the Browns — as his career took off, giving the team the biggest piece of the puzzle in its development and maturity, and the Kardiac Kids were born.

There is a point to all this as it relates to the present, and I will discuss that below.

Was this Mayfield’s – and Browns’ – seminal moment

The turning point for both the Kardiac Kids Browns teams of 40 years ago and Brian Sipe came late in the 1978 season when the quarterback recorded the first 300-yard passing performance of his career and threw for four touchdowns in a blowout win over the Baltimore Colts, Sipe’s career blossomed from there and the Kardiac Kids were born. Every great team needs a great quarterback, and the seeds for both were sown that day.
Now fast-forward to the future. Did the same thing happen last Sunday with quarterback Baker Mayfield and the current Browns?

Mayfield was named the AFC Offensive Player of the Week after completing 22-of-28 passes, including a team-record 21 straight after an 0-of-5 start, for 297 yards and five touchdowns, three of which came in the fourth quarter, including the 24-yard game-winner to rookie wide receiver Donovan Peoples-Jones  with 11 seconds left, as the Browns rallied past the Cincinnati Bengals 37-34 at Paul Brown Stadium.

He was the first Brown to throw three fourth-quarter TD passes since Dr. Dave Mays, the Browns’ first African-American quarterback and a Shaker Heights dentist, on Nov. 13, 1977 against the Pittsburgh Steelers. Mays, who came on for an injured Sipe on that cold day at Three Rivers Stadium, rallied the Browns from a 28-3 halftime deficit, and a 35-10 hole entering the fourth quarter, in an eventual 35-31 loss. All three of his scoring passes went to former Akron Garfield High School and Kent State star running back Larry Poole.

Last Sunday’s victory was huge. The Browns appeared headed for an upset defeat after the one-win Bengals went ahead 34-31 with a touchdown pass with 1:06 remaining, but Mayfield calmly — and aggressively — passed the Browns 75 yards down the field for the winning points. The Browns are now 5-2 and, with a win over the Las Vegas Raiders on Sunday at FirstEnergy Stadium, can get to 6-2 for the first time since 1994 as they hit the halfway point of the regular season and head into their bye week.
And the victory was huge for Mayfield personally, and also for the Browns big-picture-wise as they try to determine if he’s the franchise quarterback that the team needs. He was being skewered after his — and the Browns’ — miserable performance in a 38-7 loss to the Pittsburgh Steelers the previous Sunday. Most had all but written him off, saying that while the Browns would give Mayfield the rest of the season to prove himself, he had pretty much already shown that he wasn’t capable I never believed that. I have said all along that Mayfield is the guy and just needs to play like it, which he did in Cincinnati. Now he must keep doing it. He’s not going to be lights-out overall like that every week, of course, but he must be consistently good and he must be lights-out when the Browns need him to make big plays late in games. That’s what big-time quarterbacks do.

And if Mayfield does indeed turn into the player the Browns want him to be, leading them to the playoffs and beyond, then the seminal moment will have come in Cincinnati when most had counted him out and all seemed lost.

Somewhere out in California, to which he returned after his playing days were over,  perhaps Brian Sipe is watching all of this play out.