FINALLY, SIPE GAVE SAM 300 REASONS TO BELIEVE IN HIM

EDITOR’S NOTE: This is the third in a series of stories about former Browns head coach Sam Rutigliano as he turns 90 on Thursday.

By STEVE KING

Sam Rutigliano’s decision to install Brian Sipe as the starting quarterback in 1978 in his first season as head coach, almost immediately looked like a stroke of genius.

And then it eventually didn’t – or at least there were some grave concerns.

The Browns started 3-0 for the first time in 15 years (in 1963 in Blanton Collier’s first year as head coach). Sipe and the offense were playing well, and as a result, so was the team overall. Thst’s usually the way it works.

There was only limited concern when the Browns lost 15-9 in overtime to the defending Super Bowl champion Pittsburgh Steelers because a horrible call at the start of overtime – the Steelers fumbled the return of the opening kickoff in OT and the Browns recovered, but the officials missed it.

But three losses in the next four games followed, including a 17-3 embarrassment to the lowly Kansas City Chiefs, and the concern was so thick that you could cut it with a knife. The offense was sputtering because Sipe was doing so. That’s how it works in reverse.

A win, followed by back-to-back losses in which Sipe and the offense just kept getting worse, put the Browns at 5-6 and had Rutigliano privately rethinking his decision to the point that, if things didn’t get markedly better in a Nov. 19 road game against Baltimore Colts, he was likely going to bench the quarterback.

Then something happened, just when it needed to happen.

Sipe put together the first 300-yard passing performance of his career, throwing for 309 and four touchdowns, the first three of which went to running back Calvin Hill, and the Browns, after falling behind 10-0 in the second quarter, reeled off 31 unanswered points en route to a 45-24 win. That was the moment that everything changed for Sipe, the team and a heaving-a-big-sigh-of-relief Rutigliano, and the quarterback never looked back from there as he began his journey toward winning the NFL Most Valuable Player award in 1980.

Ah, yes, that 1980 season.