THE BROWNS’ MOVE TO BALTIMORE STARTED IN JANUARY 1987
By STEVE KING
The press conference to announce the hiring of Browns head coach Freddie Kitchens will be held at noon Monday at FirstEnergy Stadium.
As such, then, all the news of the day on this website, brownsdailydose.com, and everywhere else going forward for days, weeks and, in a lot of cases, even months going forward, will be this hiring and all the other things that go with it. It is obviously an extremely important hiring, and, understandably so, it’s what you all will want to read.
So, before all that begins – and we’re all anxious for that to happen, to read about it and hear about it and think about it, because of the excitement it brings – I want to circle back to the story last week about Friday having been the 32nd anniversary of “The Drive,” the 23-20 loss in overtime to the Denver Broncos in the 1986 AFC Championship game on Jan. 11, 1987 at Cleveland Stadium. I said in the piece that the extremely tough, hard-to-swallow loss started into motion all kinds of negative things, the biggest of which was the eventual move of the original Browns franchise from Cleveland following the 1995 season. The franchise, of course, went to Baltimore and is now known as the Ravens.
There was the expectation of everybody in Cleveland – even their staunchest critics in the media – that the Browns would win that game and make it to the Super Bowl for the first time. One of those media critics, Akron Beacon Journal Browns beat writer Ed Meyer, stated in his prediction, “Is there anybody in Northeast Ohio who believes the Browns will not win this game?”
Indeed, after going 12-4, capturing the Central Division title for the second straight year and securing home-field advantage throughout the AFC playoffs, it seemed like the Browns were destined to get to the Super Bowl. And their dramatic 23-20 double-overtime win over the New York Jets in the division playoffs eight days before at Cleveland, a game in which they miraculously rallied from 10 points down wit h 4:14 left in the fourth quarter to tie it and force OT, appeared to substantiate those Super Bowl thoughts. The stars in the heavens looked to be all aligned in just the right way for that to happen. It looked like it was truly the Browns’ year – their time.
And when it didn’t happen, followed by two more AFC title game losses to the Broncos following the 1987 and ’89 seasons (the one in 1987 was a real gut-wrencher, too), plus a one-point loss in the wild-card round of the playoffs in 1988 when the Browns all had all kinds of injuries at quarterback, generated frustration to the very top of the organization. That caused some horrible decisions born out of that frustration, such as, following the 1988 season, the forcing out of head coach Marty Schottemheimer and replacing him with Bud Carson, and the trading of star running back Earnest Byner for Mike Oliphant.
The more Browns owner Art Modell tinkered with his team, the farther it moved away from the target of going to the Super Bowl. It was during this time that Modell, seeing the sweetheart stadium deal the Colts got in Indianapolis after their move from Baltimore in 1984, began looking at his own shaky stadium situation. That, coupled with his frustration with the team’s failings, and the fans’ incredible anger after head coach Bill Belichick cut popular quarterback Berne Kosar midway through the 1993 season, only made things worse. Even a playoff appearance in 1994 didn’t stem that ugly tide.
And it all originated with that 1986 loss to the Broncos. Had that not happened – had the Browns won and made it to the Super Bowl, getting that monkey off their back – I am positive that the team never would have moved. The good feeling of going to the Super Bowl would have been the elixir to fix all the problems that arose.
Anyway, now it’s back to focusing on the hiring of Freddie Kitchens, who, hopefully, will guide the Browns not just to a Super Bowl appearance, but also a Super Bowl victory.
