Don’t panic.

Whatever you do, don’t panic!

Indeed, if you can stay calm and keep your head about you when everything is going sideways, then you have a much better chance of managing it and making things work.

It’s a great philosophy for life, and football, too.

And it’s why the Browns, once ahead by 20-7 in the second half before coming apart at the seams and falling behind by a point with a little over a minute left, were able to regroup, march down the field
and put rookie Cade York into position to boom a 58-yard field in the waning seconds for a 26-24 win over the host — and stunned — Carolina Panthers on Sunday in the regular-season opener.

With all the issues the Cleveland offense had in the game, especially at quarterback, game manager Jacoby Brissett and the rest of those guys never flinched. And neither did York, of course, the hero of the day in his first NFL game.

It’s been a proven formula for success for the club through the many decades.

Those great Browns teams of the early days never panicked. The men had fought in World War II, so they sure weren’t going to sweat the dicey moments of a silly football game.

Those super Browns clubs of the 1960s had players like Frank Ryan, who was too cerebral to sweat, Jim Brown, who was too cool to do so, and Paul Warfield, who was too silky smooth.

Brian Sipe and the rest of the Kardiac Kids of the late 1970s and early ‘80s were bored unless their backs were to the wall.

The Browns of the last half of the 1980s were so calm and collected that late in the fourth quarter of a game in Pittsburgh in 1987 that they needed to win to clinch the AFC Central title, the members of the offense played “Name That Tune” with the music blaring out of the PA system during a TV timeout as they waited in the huddle to try to run out the clock to preserve a six-point lead. All the while, the fans back home in Northeast Ohio watching on the TV, unaware of their heroes’ utmost confidence In themselves, were sweating bullets.

Alfred Neumann of MAD magazine fame really did have it all figured out with his trademark line, “What, me worry?”

Steve King