Rich Karlis fateful kick

By STEVE KING

Remember the 1986 AFC Championship Game?

Of course, you do.

Indeed, how can you forget it?

I think about that game every time I hear about the New Orleans Saints and their fans spitting and moaning about the apparent missed pass interference call that cost the team to some degree in its 26-23 loss in overtime to the Los Angeles Rams in the NFC Championship Game two months ago.

But, as I mentioned in my last post, enough is enough already. Quit whining. It’s just one call. How about putting the focus – and responsibility – on the Saints for their inability to do much of anything after sprinting to a 13-0 first-quarter lead – at home, no less?

The Browns deserve blame, too, for what they did – and didn’t do – to lose 23-20 to the Denver Broncos in overtime on that fateful day just over 32 years ago.

The Browns were at home. They took a 20-13 lead – and looked for all intents and purposes to have sealed the deal – after Bernie Kosar threw a 48-yard touchdown pass to wide receiver Brian Brennan with just under five minutes left in the fourth quarter.

Yes, Brennan – and Kosar, of course – were almost the forever heroes who put the Browns into their first Super Bowl by coming up big down the stretch in regulation. But their efforts got lost in the shuffle because of those of some guy named John Elway. Perhaps you’ve heard of him.

The winning points came on a 33-yard field goal by Salem, Ohio native Rich Karlis. It was his third field goal of the day and proved to be the biggest kick of his career.

But was it good?

If you recall, Browns special teamer Chris Rockins was shown on the cover of the following week’s Sports Illustrated signaling that it was no good – wide left. And he had a point.

There was a photo in SI of the kick, which came at the closed end of Cleveland Stadium, taken from the Dawg Pound end of the field. The ball soared high over the height of the goal post uprights, but if you take a straight edge – a ruler or whatever – and use it to draw a straight line from the left upright up to the ball, it seems to go right through the ball. If that upright had been considerably higher, would the ball have struck it and caromed away, making the attempt no good and thus continuing the game?

We’ll never know. But why it has never spurred conversation about somehow extending the height of the uprights by netting, is beyond me. It is certainly needed.

And it was certainly needed that day.

But the Browns and their fans never harped it, never really mentioned it much.

The Saints and their fans could learn from that.