Let’s give a hand for old No. 85 – Browns Daily Dose with Steve King

In having followed this team all my life as a fan growing up in suburban Akron, and then following it professionally as a writer for 26 years, I have been asked any number of times who my all-time favorite Browns player is.

The question has always inspired a lot of fun thought. There are plenty of candidates.

There’s Jim Brown, who was once called “the closest thing there’s ever been to Superman on a football field” by the late, great Chuck Bednarik, the Pro Football Hall of Fame middle linebacker of the Philadelphia Eagles. “He’s stronger and faster than everyone else, and he’s almost indestructible,” Bednarik explained. Come on, who doesn’t want to be Superman?

There’s Paul Warfield, the most graceful player I ever saw. Lynn Swann was graceful, too, but not as much as Warfield, a product of Warren Harding High School and Ohio State. Every bone in his body worked in unison. He looked like a gazelle when he ran. Indeed, I would pay just to see him run. Plus he never changed his mood on the field. You didn’t know if he had just dropped a pass, or if he had scored the game-winning touchdown. He never let anyone see him sweat. He was so cool. Come on, who doesn’t want to be cool?

There’s Eddie Johnson. No one played with more heart and soul than he did. He played every play as if it were his last. Plus he hit like a sledgehammer. When he would crush a ball carrier, you just prayed that the poor guy back up. Come on, who doesn’t want to hit like a sledgehammer?

There’s Kevin Mack. Speaking of hitting like a sledgehammer, no one did it better on offense than this guy. Nev Chandler used to call him “the Mack truck,” and with good reason. Remember when he hit Greg Lloyd so hard that it knocked the Pittsburgh Steelers linebacker out – completely out? Come on, who doesn’t want to knock a linebacker out, especially one from the Steelers?

There’s Bill Willis. I never got see him play, but I got to interview him once. When you look up the words “class” and “dignity” in the pro football dictionary, there’s a photo of this former Columbus East High School and Ohio State great. When you can say that about someone who went through as much discrimination as he did in teaming with Marion Motley to permanently break the color in pro football coming out of World War II, that’s saying something. He was a historic figure, not just in football but in society as well. Come on, who doesn’t want to be a classy historic figure – a walking, talking legend?

There’s Bobby Mitchell. Much of what I said about Willis I can say about him. He’s a Hall of Famer, yet he was OK with checking his ego at the door so that Jim Brown, his running mate in the backfield, could be the man. And no one appreciated more what it meant to be a Cleveland Brown. Come on, who doesn’t want to be very good, very humble and very team-oriented?

There’s Doug Dieken. He is the next generation of Mitchell in that he also really understands the being a Brown thing. Plus he made hating the Steelers an art form. And he was an ironman. He never missed a game. Come on, who doesn’t want to be an ironman?

There’s Brian Sipe. He was the triggerman of the Kardiac Kids, the most fun and exciting teams in Browns history. He was the Browns’ last NFL MVP. He was so cool. He was at his best when the situation was most dire. Come on, who doesn’t want to come through when the chips are down?

There’s Bernie Kosar. Yes, he was a great player and the leader of great teams. But more than that, he was a Boardman kid who grew up wanting to play for the Browns at a time when no one wanted to come to Cleveland. And he got to do it. Come on, who doesn’t want to realize his dreams?

There’s Phil Dawson. So many Browns players from the expansion era have had no knowledge of, or respect for, the team’s tradition from the days of the original franchise. But Dawson did. And did we mention that on a team that has had five great kickers, he was the best of the bunch? Come one, who doesn’t want to be the greatest of the greats?

But as much as I like all these guys – as special as they are to me – none of them is my favorite Browns player of all-time.

Rather, that man works for the Denver Broncos and will be at FirstEnergy Stadium today for the game against the Browns.

His name?

Dave Logan, a wide receiver for the Browns – and the Kardiac Kids – from 1976-83 and now the longtime radio play-by-voice of the Broncos.

Logan was a standout and should be in the Cleveland Browns Legends. Hopefully, he’ll make it into that exclusive club soon. He certainly deserves it.

One of the best wideouts in team history, he caught 262 passes for 4,247 yards (a 16.2 yards-per-reception average) and 24 touchdowns. His 46-yard game-winning TD grab from Sipe against the Green Bay Packers midway through the season was the play of the year for the 1980 Kardiac Kids.

But Logan is not my most favorite player because of any of that. Rather, he is such for a play he made in 1979 against Pittsburgh at Cleveland Stadium, and the memories it forever invokes in me.

A little history: The biggest hero in my life was my dad. A lot of guys will probably tell you that, and I am one of them. I think about him every day, and he’s been gone for over 35 years.

My dad was a big Browns fan growing all the way back to the team’s inception in 1946. He was the general age of all those early players. I was weaned on stories of Otto Graham, Lou Groza, Marion Motley, Gunner Gatski, Bill Willis, Horace Gillom, Dante Lavelli, Mac Speedie and all the rest. That inspired me to do what I’m still doing today in writing about the Browns.

My dad and I would go to one Browns game a year. We would watch on TV, or listen to on the radio, the other games. As I got older and became more of a smart aleck than a smart young man, I used to do things that I knew would irritate my dad. I pushed his buttons as if punching the keys of a typewriter.

I’m not proud of that and wish I could take it all back, but I can’t. It’s too late. I’m greatly ashamed of that. I never had the chance to apologize. By the time I realized the error of my ways, he was gone.

Darn it.

But no matter how much of a knucklehead I was concerning all that, I behaved myself around him when it came to the Browns. Our love of the Browns and the delight in watching the games together served as a common ground — a demilitarized zone, if you will. It was the one subject on which we could always agree. I relished that, and I’m pretty sure my dad did, too.

Now for Logan and how he fits into all of this: My dad and I were watching that nationally-televised Oct. 7, 1979 game against Pittsburgh in front of a crowd of 81,260. The Browns fell behind 27-0 in the second quarter, then put on a furious rally to close to within 44-35. They completed that rally when Sipe, who torched the Steelers for 351 yards passing and five touchdowns on the day, threw his second consecutive scoring pass to Logan in the fourth quarter. It was on a 13-yard fade route to the back left corner of the end zone at the closed end of the Stadium on which Logan beat cornerback Mel Blount by reaching up with one hand and effortlessly plucking the ball out of the air, got two feet down and than ran into a group of photographers. It was as if Logan was reaching up and taking a can of soup off the top shelf of the pantry.

My dad was a big man who never said much, but when he did talk, it meant something. When Logan made that play, my dad sat up in his recliner and said, “Did you see that?! He caught that ball with one hand?!”

Then he sat back down.

As I said, my dad and I spent every Sunday catching the Browns, so there were other games we watched together after that. I just don’t have a recollection of any of them.

As such, that Steelers game – and the catch by Logan – form my last remembrance of that special bond that we had.

As it turned out, a photo of Logan’s catch, with him reaching for the ball, graced the cover of Sports Illustrated NFL preview issue for the following season in 1980. SI has always had great photos, and that one will forever be on the top of my list.