PART 2 OF KICKING IT AROUND WITH BROWNS-STEELERS
By STEVE KING
While I acknowledge the extreme difficulty of kicking at Pittsburgh – and it is certainly challenging – it is definitely not as bad as kicking at Cleveland, both way back when or now, it doesn’t matter.
And it never will be.
If you had any doubts about that, then you needed to look no further than to the Browns’ 19-16 win over the Buffalo Bills at FirstEnergy Stadium.
There were three important kicks missed, all of which were at the northeast (Dawg Pound) end of the stadium.
Hmmm.
It started when, following his 17-yard touchdown reception in the game’s opening minutes, Browns wide receiver Jarvis Landry was penalized for his foolish, mindless and selfish taunting of a Bills player. The penalty yardage made what is now long extra points in the NFL, even longer, 48 yards, to be exact. That was a bit much for rookie kicker Austin Seibert, who missed the attempt wide right, keeping the score at 6-0. That plagued the Browns for the rest of the game.
The Browns still led 9-7 at halftime after the Bills’ Stephen Hauschka missed a 34-yard field goal wide left in the waning seconds of the second quarter.
OK, so you would figure that Hauschka, based on what happened to Seibert and him earlier in the game, and the fact that he is a 12th-year pro, would be able to make the needed adjustments and hit the game-tying field goal when given the chance in the final seconds of the fourth quarter. If you had, then you would have been wrong. Like a scene out of “Groundhog Day,” he hooked his 53-yard try wide left, allowing the Browns to hold on for the triumph.
That end of FirstEnergy Stadium has always been extremely tricky for kickers, just as it was in the stadium that sat on the exact footprint, Cleveland Stadium. Former Kansas City Chief Nick Lowery, then one of the game’s best kickers, missed four field goals, most of them at that end of the field, in a 10-10 tie with the Browns in 1989.
Former Browns kicker Matt Bahr used to talk about missing a short field-goal try at that end of Cleveland Stadium during his short time with the Steelers 40 years ago. As he told it, the winds, as they often did in the old place, began swirling around, blowing both ways, after they got into the stadium. Bahr said the uprights of the goal post were blowing back and forth, as if they were doing a hula dance. He thought he had guessed right, but the win pushed the kick just inches to the outside of the swaying left upright.
In 1972 in a game against the Steelers at Cleveland, Browns kicker Don Cockroft hit a 26-yard field at that same end in the waning seconds to give his team a 26-24 win. He said it was the most important kick of his career, launching him to greatness, because it provided a huge victory and it came only minutes after he felt he had just lost the game by missing from that same spot.
Who would have thought that all those issues would occur at that end of the field after Pro Football Hall of Famer Lou Groza, in the Browns’ first year in the NFL in 1950, was there when he made the most important kick in club history, a 16-yarder in the final seconds to give Cleveland a 30-28 victory over the Los Angeles Rams in the league championship game?
Certainly not Don Cockroft.
Or Matt Bahr.
Or Nick Lowery.
Or Austin Seibert.
Or Stephen Hauschka.
In any event, enjoy the Browns-Steelers game on Thursday Night Football at FirstEnergy Stadium. Will more history be written tonight on kicks at the Dawg Pound end? We’ll see.
