Last-minute reversals.

In football, they might be called end-arounds.

So what Northeast Ohio native Josh McDaniels did earlier this week to the Indianapolis Colts, in deciding to turn down their head-coaching job, and for the New England Patriots, with his return to them as their highly-prized offensive coordinator, was an end-around.

And just like in the on-the-field games between the two teams, whether it’s in the 2014 AFC Championship Game or during the regular season, New England, in this off-the-field game, always find a play – and a way – to frustrate, and ultimately defeat, the Colts.

But all teams – not just the Patriots and Colts — have had dramatic, 11-hour end-around-like decisions that left everybody stunned. The Browns are included on that list.

In the spring of 1994, the Browns had Phil Simms, who had retired from the New York Giants, all set up to be their quarterback. Browns head coach Bill Belichick liked quarterback Vinny Testaverde’s physical skills, but didn’t trust his decision-making ability, or lack thereof. Belichick knew he had a really good team, but he also knew he needed a really good quarterback to get it where it wanted to go, to the franchise’s first Super Bowl. He thought that with some combination of Testaverde’s and Simms’ divergent brawn and brain skill sets, with the latter, who had played on two Super Bowl champion teams with the Giants in 1986 and ’90 while Belichick was serving as defensive coordinator, either playing or just serving as the former’s mentor and confidante, the Browns could create their perfect guy under center.

It was a really good idea – a great one, really – in theory.

But it didn’t work out in the real world.

While media members downstairs at Browns Headquarters in Berea waited – and waited and waited and waited – for the press conference, and stared at the wall behind the podium where the white No. 11 Browns jersey, with Simms’ last name on the back, was hanging while team execs and Simms and his representatives were upstairs and going through the formalities of dotting all the I’s and crossing all the t’s on the contract before it was signed, he reneged and decided to stay retired.

Just as was the case with the Colts the other day, there was enough egg on the Browns’ faces that late afternoon to cook up Egg McMuffins for everybody in Northeast Ohio.

Precisely as Belichick had thought, the Browns had a really good team in 1994. They finished 11-5 and earned an AFC wild-card berth, making the playoffs for the first time in five years. And also precisely as Belichick had thought, Testaverde’s decision-making ability, or lack thereof, came up to bite the Browns in three key losses to the Pittsburgh Steelers, the last, and biggest, of which was in the divisional round of the playoffs.

This time, Belichick is on the other end of the end-around in his job as head coach of the Patriots, and played a major role in convincing McDaniels to stay. We’ll see if it works out in his favor. He knows how it feels when it doesn’t.