I attended the 1986 AFC Championship Game against the Denver Broncos — as a fan, with two of my friends; we sat upstairs in Cleveland Stadium, down the third-base line, in Section 32, seats 1, 2 and 3 — and all these years later, the lasting memory of that afternoon is of a lady in a white coat and a stocking cap, sitting in the lower deck behind the third-base dugout, turning around to someone in the row behind her and hugging them as they both jumped up and down in sheer delight. In fact, there were fans hugging everywhere you looked.
It came after Bernie Kosar threw the 48-yard touchdown psss to wide receiver Brian Brennan with just under five minutes left in the fourth quarter to give Cleveland a 20-13 lead, and then Broncos returner Gene Lang fumbled and bumbled the ball on the ensuing kickoff and finally fell on it at the Denver 2 before being covered up by a horde of Browns.
Right then and there, everyone in that full-house crowd of 79,915, everyone in Cleveland and everyone in Northeast Ohio almost exactly 39 years ago to the day, on Jan. 11, 1987, were absolutely certain beyond any shadow of a doubt that the Browns were going to the Super Bowl for the first time. All of us were all in. It was a sure thing. You could see it, smell it and almost touch it, it was that close.
After all, quarterback John Elway, who had done nothing extraordinary that day or in his short career overall, had to drive the Broncos 98 yards into the Dawg Pound against a good Browns defense to score a touchdown just to tie the game, let alone win it. And just wasn’t happening, no way, no how.
But, as we all know, unfortunately, it did indeed happen, and the Browns have never been that close to the big game since.
I thought about all of that last Sunday on the anniversary of that game, and it made me wonder —again — if the Browns will ever get there in my lifetime.
I also thought of all that when a Cleveland media person said the other day that the Browns, in yet another search for both a head coach and a quarterback, although I think they already have their quarterback in Shedeur Sanders, have to get it right this offseason. We’ve been saying that for going on four decades.
Steve King
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