With big-armed quarterback Joe Flacco, the Browns are throwing more deep passes than they have in years.

And that’s a great thing, not just for the big plays it generates but for what it does to defenses.

Former Browns quarterback Bernie Kosar used to say when he was playing — and he still says now — that an offense should throw deep at least once a quarter. He contends that it pushes the safeties back, away from the box. If you don’t, and they have no fear of the ball being thrown over their heads, they creep toward the line of scrimmage and actually become extra linebackers, jamming up the running plans. When you throw deep, you make them respect that possibility, and it opens those running lanes up back up.

A great — and historically significant — example of that occurred 37 years ago Thursday. It was Dec. 14, 1986 when the Browns, in the next-to-last regular-season game, played the rival Cincinnati Bengals at Riverfront Stadium.

It was a crucial matchup, with the AFC Central championship on the line. The 10-4 Browns, trying to win their first division title in six years, were in first place, a game ahead of the 9–5 Bengals. Cincinnati had won the teams’ first meeting three months earlier, manhandling the Browns at Cleveland Stadium 30–13 on Thursday Night Football. If the Bengals could beat the Browns again, then they would pull into a tie for the lead and would hold the tiebreaker advantage over Cleveland from having swept the season series. But if the Browns won, then they would clinch the division crown.

Kosar, thinking that the offense, with its trio of talented wide receivers in rookie Webster Slaughter, Reggie Langhorne and Brian Brennan, had a big a big edge over the Cincinnati secondary, went to Browns head coach Marty Schottenheimer on Monday of game week and asked him if he could throw a bomb on the first play.

“I’ll think about it,” Schottenheimer said.

Kosar asked him again on Tuesday.

“I’ll think about it,” the coach said.

On Wednesday, he did the same thing. Schottenhriner gave the same reply: “I‘ll think about it.”

The exchange occurred on Thursday. “I’ll think about it,” Schottenheimer said.

Undaunted, the persistent Kosar went back to him Friday gor one last try. If the decision wasn’t made then as game preparations were being all but completed, then it would be hard to make any last-minute changes thereafter.

When Kosar asked him this time, the coach had a different answer.

“Yes, we can do it,” Schottenheimer said directly, without any hesitation. He had studied it and believed it was the right move.

Kosar, who never met a long pass he didn’t like, was ecstatic beyond words.

The Browns won the toss and took the ball. On the first play from scrimmage, Kevin Mack ran for a short gain. Expecting another run, the Bengals safeties took several steps forward and peered into the backfield, focusing on Mack again.

Kosar faked it to him this time and then looked at Langhorne streaking down the right sideline. As expected, he had one-on-one coverage and had several steps on the Bengals defender. The quarterback hit him in stride for a 66-yard gain to the Cincinnati 1. Two plays later, Mack scored a touchdown on a one-yard run and the rout was on.

The Browns continued to attack throughout the cold, sunlit afternoon, keeping the Bengals completely off-balance. Kosar hit another big pass, a 47-yarder to Slaughter for a score. On the other side of the ball, the Cleveland defense was suffocating, thwarting quarterback Boomer Esiason and the potent Bengals offense at every turn. The Browns scored the last 27 points of the game and won 34-3, and it wasn’t even that close as they turned in one of the most complete and dominating performances in team history.

Esiason screamed to his teammates in a pre-game huddle that the Browns weren’t going to celebrate winning a division title on the Bengals’ field, but they did so anyway.

Wouldn’t it be cool, all these years later, if Flacco, against the Chicago Bears on Sunday at home, aired it out on the first or second play of the game, and then again on Jan. 7 at Cincinnati when a playoff berth, or even just playoff seeding, might be on the line?

And wouldn’t it be even cooler if it worked?

Steve King