Dave Adolph, the Mogadore native who passed away Sunday night at age 79, was, as Sam Rutigliano told me Monday, “a defensive guru.”

Rutigliano was head coach of the Browns when in 1979 he hired Adolph as his defensive line coach, replacing Buck Buchanan, who was a Pro Football Hall of Fame defensive lineman with the Kansas City Chiefs but a horrible coach. When Adolph, after a year hiatus, returned the Browns in 1986, head coach Marty Schottenheimer made him his defensive coordinator.

Adolph excelled in the coordinator role even more than he did as line coach, building great defenses for three straight seasons before Schottenheimer was fired/resigned after the 1988 season.

But there were two hiccups along the way for Adolph’s defenses, both of them coming at the most inopportune times, in the 1986 and ’87 AFC Championship Games against the Denver Broncos. In 1987, Adolph’s guys got rocked in a 38-33 loss, and then in ’86, they collapsed late, allowing John Elway to execute The Drive – all 98 yards of it – en route to a come-from-behind 23-20 Denver win in overtime.

Now, over 30 years later, that 1986 loss, in particular, still hurts – a lot. The Browns had a 20-13 lead with five minutes left in the fourth quarter but couldn’t seal the deal. The stars were all aligned in just the right way for the Browns to make it to the Super Bowl for the first time, but they failed to jump through that wide-open window of opportunity. Not before, or since, have the Browns had that good of a chance to get to the big game.

I thought about that when the Atlanta Falcons a week and a half ago blew a 25-point lead with two minutes left in the third quarter and lost 34-28 to the New England Patriots in Super Bowl LI.

What the Falcons will find out is what the 1986 Browns and the late, great Dave Adolph found out is that you never get a second try with a picture-perfect chance. The football gods don’t allow it. They give it to someone else the following season.