As I wrote way back when just as this site was getting started, longtime Browns fans had to be snickering at the words of Seattle Seahawks head coach Pete Carroll.

Now they are snickering more than ever.

There was a story last year in the Aug. 3 edition of Sports Illustrated, just as teams around the NFL were ramping up their training camps, in which Carroll said he had moved on from what happened to him and his team in the final seconds of Super Bowl XLIX seven months before.

With his club, trailing the New England Patriots 28-24, having ripped off a four-yard run to the 1-yard line on the previous play, it was expected the Seahawks would run the ball again for the game- and world championship-winning touchdown, allowing them to accomplish the difficult feat in this parity-driven NFL of capturing two consecutive Super Bowl titles. But for some reason – still inexplicable – the Seahawks threw a pass that was intercepted by cornerback Malcolm Butler.

An unbelievable play if there ever was one.

A kick to the gut if there ever was one.

A dark day in club history forever if there ever was one.

Browns fans know all about that feeling – a feeling of snaring a big postseason defeat from the hands of victory — after enduring “The Drive,” “The Fumble” and “Red Right 88.”

But Carroll said he was going to learn from it and then turn the page. He would use it as a teaching tool to improve in the future.

It doesn’t work that way, though. That’s because the window of opportunity doesn’t stay open forever. If you fail to jump through it when it is open – wide open, just begging for you to do it at a time when the stars are aligned in just the right way for it to happen – then you’re out of luck. You’ll have to wait a while until your turn comes around again.

That’s just the way it is. To believe otherwise is to well… whistle as you walk past the graveyard.

It happened to the Browns in the 1980s.

In 1980, because of a Brian Sipe pass that was intercepted by slippery-fingered Mike Davis in the end zone in the waning seconds, the Kardiac Kids lost 14-12 to the Oakland Raiders in an AFC divisional-round game they should have won.

In 1986, in large part because of a 15-play, 98-yard touchdown drive by John Elway and the Denver Broncos in the waning seconds of regulation, the Browns went on to lose 23-20 in overtime in an AFC Championship Game they should have won.

In 1987, in large part because of Earnest Byner’s fumble that was recovered by Jeremiah Castille at the Denver 3 with 1:05 left, the Browns lost again to the Broncos, 38-33, in another AFC title game they should have won.

With those kicks to the gut, the Browns lost more than just three big games. They and their fans nearly lost their minds as well.

And they haven’t regained them in all those years since.

They kept thinking that the window of opportunity would stay open for a long time and that they would eventually jump through it. There was no need to panic. Plenty of time to get it done. Just be patient and stay on task.

They were wrong.

I never forgot that story written during the dog days of last August, and it really came to mind as I was watching Sunday’s NFC divisional-round playoff game between the Seahawks and Carolina Panthers. For all intents and purposes, the verdict was settled when the Panthers went ahead by a rollicking 24-0 just 2:19 into the second quarter.

Yes, the Seahawks came back to make it a competitive game in the second half, but they wore themselves out in doing so and, with no room for error, had nothing left to get over the hump and ultimately lost 31-24.

As such, the Seahawks, who should have won last season’s Super Bowl to make it two titles in a row, got blasted out of their shoes in the divisional round this year.

Now the Seahawks know how those old Browns teams felt like.

Now Carroll knows how Sam Rutigliano and Marty Schottenheimer felt like.

Certainly, the Seahawks got their Super Bowl championship – something those old Browns clubs never got — but this is not about that. This is about having so much more out there at your fingertips and letting it slip right through.

And this is about Carroll, who is overall a very smart guy and a tremendous coach, being silly enough to believe – or at least say he believed — that he and his Seahawks were somehow different than everyone else.

Move on from it?

Learn from it?

Using it as a teaching tool to improve in the future?

Huh?

Really?

No, no. no.

The only thing to be learned here – for the Seahawks, the Browns, the early 1990s Buffalo Bills or anyone else in that situation – is to make sure to climb through that window whenever it is open. The only guarantee if you don’t is that you will regret it forever.

Just like the Seahawks are.

And just like the Browns still are.

By Steve King