Can the return of its iconic, incredibly popular, longtime radio play-by-play announcer from a sabbatical to focus on his battle against leukemia inspire an NFL team?

Perhaps I’m way off-base, but in the case of Jim Donovan and the Browns, I think it can. I really do.

Indeed, if it can, then it will happen in Sunday’s huge game against the Pittsburgh Steelers at Cleveland Browns Stadium.

Everybody in the region had a pep in their step I when it was announced late Thursday morningthat the 67-year-old Donovan, now in his team-record 25th season as “The Voice of the Cleveland Browns,” will be back in the booth. It made everyone — and I do mean everyone, even those who don’t necessarily follow the Browns and know of him only for his three decades spent as the sports director at Cleveland’s NBC affiliate, WKYC-TV (Channel 3) — happier and excited and incredibly thankful.

Donovan is the guy in Cleveland. If you want to know anything about sports in Northeast Ohio, especially the Browns, then you go to him. When he says it — whatever it is — you know it to be a fact. He is the voice of truth, and the purveyor of reason.

The sports world around here was less than what it could be because of his absence. And now that he’s back, that world is back spinning on its axis.

Steve King