Beating the Denver Broncos was a really big deal

By STEVE KING

Beating the Denver Broncos the other night at FirstEnergy Stadium was a big deal.

Indeed, especially so for the gray-haired people who remember Hula Hoops, black and white television and big cars with big fins, it’s a really big deal any time the Browns defeat the Broncos.

It could be 17-14, such as it was the other night, or 50-49, 2-0 or 100-99. It could be in Cleveland, Coshocton, Cambridge, Celina, Canton, Canal Fulton or Copley. It could be on Thursday Night Football, Sunday Night Football, Monday Night Football, Tuesday Afternoon Football, Middle-of-the-Night on Wednesday Football.

It doesn’t matter — not one bit.

For you see, there was a time back in the last half of the 1980s, which seems like a veritable blink of an eye to us old-er-timers but is admittedly nothing more than some story from a dusty history book to those who wouldn’t know a Hula Hoop it if rolled right past them, that the Broncos topped the Browns three times in four years in the AFC Championship Game.

Ladies and gentlemen, those games took years off the lives of us now seasoned citizens.

The Drive, consisting of 15 plays covering 98 yards into the Dawg Pound in the final five minutes of regulation, denying the Browns a chance to go to the Super Bowl and sending the game into overtime, making a Chinese water torture seem like getting a relaxing message. Are you kidding me?

The Fumble, with Earnest Byner dropping the ball as he prepared to run through a gaping hole and into the end zone with a minute left to score a touchdown and tie the score. “Excuse, if you’re not using that bucket, can I have it to get sick into?”

Yeah, those games, those nightmares, those unmitigated disasters. Those are the ones I’m talking about.

What happened the other night can’t erase those long-ago horror stories, but it does make it a little better to stomach.

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