“The Great Lakes Classic” is in the books and the Browns preseason is over
THANK GOODNESS THE BROWNS PRESEASON IS OVER
By STEVE KING
The Browns and Detroit Lions played the preseason finale at Ford Field on Thursday night in something former Browns President Carmen Policy deemed years ago as “The Great Lakes Classic.”
He even paid for the creation of a big barge trophy – it weighed almost as much as a nose tackle – that would go to the winner of the game every year. Talk about a booby prize – an incentive to lose.
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And they say Policy wasted Al Lerner’s money. How untrue!
Policy is a good guy. He meant well. He really did.
But this was not one of his finer moments.
Calling what happened on Thursday night “a classic” in any way, shape or form is like calling a 1962 Volkswagen with no floorboards and rusted-out fender wells “a classic.” A 1957 Chevy this was not.
The Browns and Lions, just like the Browns and New York Giants, who met in Week 2 of the preseason, used to play a bunch of games in the 1950s – and with the Giants, into the ’60s – that could be, and were, called real classics. Cleveland and Detroit met four times in the NFL Championship Game in the 1950s, including three years in a row.
The last game of preseason, a throwaway contest if there ever was one since it is played mostly by guys who, as former Browns head coach Butch Davis, in his Southern drawl, used to say, “are going to be selling shoes at Walmart next week,” is at the bottom of the food chain of NFL excitement. It is as far away from those Browns-Lions title games as the very tip of the Upper Peninsula of Michigan is from the southernmost tip of Ohio (about a 13 ½-hour drive, in case you’re wondering).
As it has also been said for many years in the league, “Nothing is forgotten more quickly than the final preseason game.” Indeed, it’s like forgetting a bad dream, or that date that turned out horribly. You just wipe it clean from your memory and move on.
Teams just hope to get out of the final preseason game without any major injuries. It’s why they don’t play any of their starters. It’s too risky.
Just ask former Browns head coaches Sam Rutigliano and Marty Schottenheimer.
For some inexplicable reason, Rutigliano had Cody Risien, one of the top right tackles in the game at the time, playing deep into the fourth quarter of the 1984 preseason finale at Philadelphia. Risien ended up suffering a season-ending knee injury on the horrible Veterans Stadium artificial turf, and his loss dd in the Browns offensive line. It also did in Rutigliano, who was fired at the midway point of the season with the Browns, who were picked to in the AFC Central, staggering along with a 1-7 record after they had finished 9-7 the year before and just missed the playoffs.
Schottenheimer, who was the defensive coordinator on that 1984 team and was promoted to head coach after Rutigliano was dismissed, didn’t learn a lesson from what he witnessed. Also for some inexplicable reason, Schottenheimer had Gary Danielson, a very valuable backup quarterback who was starter Bernie Kosar’s confidante, playing in the fourth quarter of the 1987 preseason finale against the Los Angeles Raiders. Danielson suffered a broken ankle and was lost for the year.
Indeed, there’s only one thing worse than a bad game. It’s having a key player suffering a bad injury in it, because now that the preseason is over, the Browns and all 31 other teams can focus entirely on beginning to get ready for the season – and the games – that really count. They’d like to do so with a full complement of players.
