Are the football gods getting even with the Browns?
That sounds silly – and it is – but in late February, more than two weeks after the season ended with the New England Patriots’ stunning 34-28 comeback victory over the Atlanta Falcons in Super LI and with the fact we’re now in one of the few mini-lull periods in the NFL year, our idle football minds have some time to drift to silly things.
The Browns played in 10 straight league championship games in their first 10 years of existence, winning seven titles. No team in pro football history has won with that kind of consistency – not one year without a championship contest! — and with that, then, no quarterback in pro football history has won with the kind of consistency exhibited by Otto Graham. In all 10 seasons that he played, he led the Browns to a title game. Call it a perfect 10.
After Graham retired following the 1955 season, Milt Plum had some good seasons as an interim replacement – in 1960, he led the NFL with 2,297 yards passing and threw for 21 touchdowns with just five interceptions for a club-record 110.4 quarterback rating, and he followed it up in ’61 with 18 scores, 10 picks and a league-best 2,416 yards – but it took until Frank Ryan got the starting job in 1963 before the Browns found their bona fide successor to the Pro Football Hall of Famer. From 1963-67, Ryan was one of the best quarterbacks in the game by throwing for 117 touchdowns, and three in the 1964 NFL Championship Game blowout of the Baltimore Colts.
After Ryan, gutsy Bill Nelsen in 1968-69 took the Browns to back-to-back league title game appearances and to the doorstep of a Super Bowl berth.
A decade later, Brian Sipe began laying the groundwork for the greatest season by a quarterback in Browns history in leading the Kardiac Kids to a division title in 1980.
Bernie Kosar, who idolized Sipe while growing up in Boardman Township in suburban Youngstown, arrived two years after Sipe departed and led the 1985-89 Browns to five straight playoff appearances, including four Central Division titles and three trips to the AFC Championship Game.
But after Kosar was unceremoniously jettisoned out of town midway through the 1993 season – admittedly, after his skills truly had eroded greatly, but also when there was no viable young replacement waiting in the wings – the Browns have tried unsuccessfully to find their guy at quarterback. That is going on 27 years. Ouch!
To the surprise of absolutely no one, the Browns have gone through their worst stretch ever since then, with only two playoff appearances and but one postseason victory – and that came way back in 1994. Bill Belichick was the head coach then. Perhaps you’ve heard of him.
No quarterback, no victories. It’s just that simple.
The early Browns discovered that. The year after Graham retired, 1956, they went from 9-2-1 and their second straight NFL title to their first losing record at 5-7 and tied for fourth place in the Eastern Conference.
The later Browns discovered that, too. The year after Sipe bolted to the USFL, 1984, the Browns went from 9-7 and within an eyelash of making the postseason to 5-11. Then when Kosar arrived, things, as already mentioned, immediately got better in 1985.
Imagine that.
The football gods, who were so good to the Browns back in the day, and at other times throughout the years, are now paying them back by letting them experience the other side of things since the first term of the Clinton administration.
Hey, gods, can we stop the laughter now and throw the Browns a bone?
Thanks for listening.
