No Hail Mary This Time

By STEVE KING

As the Browns get ready to visit Minnesota on Sunday, it’s easy to remember some of their past games with the Vikings.

That includes the hum-dinger of them all, the Browns’ Dec. 14, 1980 trip to Minnesota. The Browns needed a win over the Vikings to clinch their first AFC playoff spot in eight years, and seemed to have it secured with a 23-9 fourth-quarter lead.

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The Browns were in complete control, and had been the whole game. Indeed, what could possibly go wrong?

But ah, these were the Kardiac Kids, for whom no lead was too safe to squander and no deficit was too big to overcome.

The Vikings came storming back to make it 23-22 and then won it 28-23 on a 46-yard Hail Mary touchdown pass from Tommy Kramer to Ahmad Rashad as time expired.

The Browns, and their fans back home in Cleveland watching on TV, were absolutely stunned. As Browns head coach Sam Rutigliano recalled, no one was more shocked than the top people surrounding team owner Art Modell.

“Art’s lieutenants were all ready to jump out of the plane on the flight back to Cleveland,” Rutigliano quipped. “I told them to relax, that everything was going to be fine.”

And it was — but only barely. Needing to beat the Bengals at Cincinnati the following week to win the Central Division title — they could not get in via the wild-card route — the Browns rallied from a quick 10-0 deficit to win 27-24. They kicked the deciding 22-yard field goal with just 1:24 left and then cornerback Ron Bolton sat on Steve Kreider at the Cleveland 14 as time expired to secure the win after the wide receiver caught a long pass from quarterback Ken Anderson and was trying to get up while the rest of Bengals frantically sprinted downfield to try to run another play.

Let’s hope — and pray — that something like what occurred in Minnesota 41 years ago doesn’t happen to the Browns on Sunday. We’re all much, much older now, and our aging hearts would not be able to take it.

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