Monday, Aug. 24 (AM) – You may wonder why none of the starters play in the preseason finale. It’s been an unwritten rule for some time now for every team and every head coach in the NFL.
It’s because of the fear of injuries, and the dire consequences of them. These fears are not unjustified. They happened any number of times back in the day, and in some cases helped grease the skids for a head coach to get fired.
Just ask former Browns head coach Sam Rutigliano. The move for him to lose his job was put into motion 31 years ago yesterday, on Aug. 23, 1984.
Back then, starters played some, but not much, in the last preseason game. They certainly weren’t in there late in the fourth quarter, however.
But this time, they were. At least one of them was, the Browns’ Cody Risien. For whatever reason, the Browns were determined to finish the preseason with a win at Philadelphia against the Eagles. As such, Risien, one of the best right tackles the Browns have ever had, and one of the best in the game at the time, was still on the field with 3:02 left when he suffered a season-ending knee injury.
The Browns ended up losing the game, 20-19, but they lost a whole lot more when Risien went out.
The Browns had been picked before the year to win the AFC Central for the first time since that Kardiac Kids season of 1980, which was Risien’s second year. But it never happened – not even close.
Without Risien to help anchor the line and protect the blind side for left-handed quarterback Paul McDonald, who was in his first season as a full-time starter after Brian Sipe defected to the USFL following the 1983 season, things disintegrated right away. The Browns lost their first three games, including 33-0 at Seattle in the opener, and just kept losing. When they fell 12-9 at Cincinnati on a last-play field goal on Oct. 21 to fall to 1-7 at the midway point of the season, Browns owner Art Modell, who hated losing to the Bengals and his arch nemesis, Cincinnati owner Paul Brown, fired Rutigliano, ending his 6½-year run as coach.
Defensive coordinator Marty Schottenheimer was promoted to full-time head coach, bypassing the interim tag that most coaches are given when they take over during the year. Whatever the case, it didn’t help – at least immediately — as the Browns dropped their next game to the New Orleans Saints, 16-14, and lost two of their first three under Schottenheimer. They recovered and won three of their last five, but the damage had long since been done. The Browns finished a dismal 5-11.
But the next year was much different, and so was the rest of the 1980s. With Risien back entrenched at right tackle and a kid from Boardman, Ohio by the name of Bernie Kosar as quarterback, the Browns, in the five-year period from 1985-89, made the playoffs five times, won four Central Division titles and advanced to the AFC Championship Game on three occasions.
And in the preseasons leading into those years, Schottenheimer made sure that Risien and the rest of the starters were already resting on the bench as that last preseason game wound down. The lesson had been learned the hard way.
