Former Browns quarterback Bernie Kosar and his old teammate, running back Kevin Mack, were seated together on the club’s team bus heading from the hotel to an early-season 2009 road game against the Denver Broncos at what is now known as Empower Field at Mile High.

Mack was there in his role as the director of alumni relations for the club. Kosar had been brought back into the fold in an unspecified capacity by then Browns owner Randy Lerner.

As the bus rolled across the stadium’s big parking lot, Mack looked out the window and said to Kosar, “I think this is about where the old place stood.”

He was referring to Mile High Stadium, the former longtime – and historic – home of the Broncos which was demolished to make way for the new stadium a short distance away.

Kosar then looked out the window and, after pausing for a moment, said, “Yeah, I think you’re right. Let’s get out of here.”

“Step on the gas!” Mack exclaimed.

The two men chuckled, but only for a milli-second. It could be called gallows humor, for indeed, there was – and still is — nothing funny to Kosar, Mack and the rest of their teammates from 35 years ago, including linebacker Clay Matthews and cornerback Hanford Dixon, about Mile High Stadium and what happened there.

The Browns lost to the Broncos at Mile High twice in three seasons, including by 38-33 in 1987 in “The Fumble” nightmare, in the AFC Championship Game.

On the doorstep of the Super Bowl three times in four years – the Browns also fell to the Broncos 23-20 in overtime in the conference championship contest in 1986 at Cleveland in another nightmare known as “The Drive” – those great, worthy Browns clubs were stopped just short.

Ugh.