The record books will always state that the Browns lost to the Denver Broncos 23-20 in overtime in the 1986 AFC Championship Game, played Jan. 11, 1987 at Cleveland Stadium.

 

But in actuality, though no one knew it then, the Browns lost that game – and were denied their first trip to the Super Bowl — even before the 1986 season started. In fact, they lost it about a month before training camp started that year.

 

They lost it 30 years ago tomorrow, on June 27, 1986, when free safety Don Rogers, at his bachelor party in Sacramento, Cal. on the night before he was to be married, died of cardiac arrest brought on by a cocaine overdose.

 

He was 23.

 

You might say it was also that day that the Browns lost 38-33 to the Broncos in the 1987 AFC Championship Game, and then fell 37-21 to the Broncos a third time in the 1989 title contest.

 

Yes, three big, Super Bowl berth-denying losses all suffered in one day.

 

Hard to believe, but it’s true.

 

I truly believe that, and so do other people.

 

Rogers was an emerging star in the NFL, destined for greatness unless something unforeseen happened.

 

Taken by the Browns in the first round, at No. 18 overall, in the 1984 NFL Draft out of UCLA, he was a starter from the beginning of his rookie season. Paired with the best set of cornerbacks in the NFL in the 1980s, Hanford Dixon and Frank Minnifield, the Browns had the makings of the top defensive backfield in the game.

 

Dixon and Minnifield were so good in man-to-man coverage on the outside that quarterbacks were forced to try to go into the middle of the field. But once Rogers began to establish himself – and that didn’t take long at all – the middle of the field was no longer available, either.

 

While the calling card for both Dixon and Minnifield was their ability to stay with receivers as tightly as glue, enabling them to get their hands in the way to deflect, or intercept, passes, Rogers brought a different strength – brute strength, that is – to the table. It’s not that Dixon or Minnifield lacked toughness or physicality, because that was hardly the case. In fact, just the opposite was true.

 

But Rogers was in an entirely different category in that regard. He was more than just a hard hitter. Rather, he brought the force of a sledgehammer. It’s not a stretch – not at all, really – to say that Rogers, though he played just two seasons, was the hardest-hitting defensive back in Browns history.

 

Indeed, Rogers hit receivers with such force that it seemed as if he would tear them in half. As such, pass catchers, knowing that Rogers was lurking back there, just itching to come up and separate them from the ball with a thunderous blow, wanted no part of going over the middle.

 

Rogers did just that in the last game he played, the 1985 divisional playoff against the Miami Dolphins, when he popped a receiver going over the middle just as a Dan Marino pass arrived. Rogers caught the carom and returned the interception 45 yards to set up a Cleveland touchdown.

 

In John Elway’s epic 98-yard drive to get the Broncos the tying touchdown with 37 seconds left in regulation to force overtime, you’ll recall that he really worked the middle of the field with the passing game. And when no one was open, he took off and scrambled for big yardage. In both manners, he made a number of key plays to sustain the drive just when the Browns thought they had Denver stopped.

 

Now, if Rogers had been back there staring him down, would Elway had used the middle of the field as much as he did? And, more so, would he have been so eager to tuck the ball under his arm and take off on a scramble?

 

Perhaps not.

 

Probably not.

 

Both Dixon and Minnifield told me as much several years ago. Minnifield was very strong in his statements.

 

They are certain – convinced — that with Rogers there, The Drive would have never happened, for at some point, he would have made a big play to stop it, or at least would have changed and re-directed the Broncos’ offensive thinking to such an extent that they would have had to try other things — Plan B-types of things — that wouldn’t have worked. Thus, The Drive would have died a slow death on its own.

 

And if the presence of Rogers had had such a big impact in the 1986 title game, why wouldn’t that have also been the case in the 1987 and ’89 contests as he matured and developed and just got better and better, and more confident? If so, then it would have skewed history drastically.

 

But Rogers wasn’t there to do it.

 

That was because of that horrific night 30 years ago tomorrow.

 

So, perhaps when LeBron James and the Cavs won the NBA championship a week ago tonight, they would have not have been ending a championship drought for Cleveland teams that began in 1964, but rather one that started sometime in the late 1980s with Don Rogers and the Browns.

 

Regardless, even with all the time that has passed since Don Rogers’ death, it is impossible for Browns fans to forget him, or what might have been.