He’s gr-r-eat!!

Indeed, Gary Danielson has had a long, iconic career in football — on several different fronts, actually — and it will finally come to an end on Wednesday when Duke and Arizona State meet in the Tony the Tiger Sun Bowl, set to begin at 2 p.m. on CBS (including Channel 19 in Cleveland).

Check out this Gary Danielson Card on Amazon

Danielson, who will serve as the color analyst on the broadcast with his longtime partner in the booth, play-by-play announcer Brad Nessler, and sideline reporter Jenny Dell, will retire following the game, ending a distinguished 36-year career in TV as a college football game analyst.

Browns Legend, Gary Danielson@Bottlegate @REFLOG18 https://t.co/9a9uGUmLkS pic.twitter.com/rOBacLYiIc

— Kub (@The_Real_Kub) December 31, 2025

Browns fans will remember Danielson, who turned 74 — can you believe that? — as this season was starting, as the greatest backup quarterback in team history. The longtime veteran came to Cleveland, via a trade with the Detroit Lions, in 1985, the same year that Bernie Kosar arrived as the No. 1 overall selection in the NFL Supplemental Draft. They played together for four years, during which time Danielson served as Kosar’s confidante and quasi-assistant coach. Danielson, who played nine seasons with Detroit after starting his pro career with two years in the USFL, was to Kosar what quarterbacks coach Jim Shofner was to Brian Sipe just five years before in the Kardiac Kids era, They were joined at the hip. They were inseparable. The first guy Kosar looked for when coming off the field was Danielson. They would go sit down and talk over what went well, and wrong, and why. It was an accelerated class of offensive football.

What gets lost in the equation, though, is that Danielson fully understood his main job was to tutor Kosar and hold down the starting job only until the rookie was ready. He never complained a bit about having to suppress his ego and remain on the sideline.

Even with all that, there’s something else about Danielson you’ve probably never heard, or even considered. It is that he is one of the most iconic players in Browns history for what he did on the field in a game just over 40 years ago. In fact, if it weren’t for his performance, then the history of the team might well be quite a bit different.

The game in question occurred Dec. 1, 1985 as the Browns played the New York Football Giants at Giants Stadium. The Browns, in their first full season under head coach Marty Schottenheimer, entered the day at 6-6, which, at first glance, appears to be just a so-so record. However, it was actually a dramatic improvement over the previous season’s mark of 5–11. Their year was marked by runs, as a three-game winning streak was followed by four losses in a row and then two straight victories. Because of that inconsistency, it was hard to tell if the Browns were a good team, or even if they could someday develop into one with that big group of talented young players. Cleveland needed a signature win, something that would get its season, and perhaps even its era, jump-started.

The Giants, under third-year head coach Bill Parcells, and with a young, up-and-coming defensive coordinator named Bill Belichick, had already started to arrive. Coming off a season in which they had gone 9-7 and made the playoffs as a wild card, they were 8-4 and had won five of their previous six games.

Plus, the Giants were at home, where, like most teams, they played better than they did on the road. In addition, the game was being televised to most of the country, giving the Giants a chance to show people from coast to coast just how good they were getting. They saw the Browns as a team against which they could get that done.

In the same way, defeating the Giants in that situation would really lift the Browns. But it would certainly be an uphill battle.

As such, then, there was a lot at stake.

The Browns, after falling behind by a touchdown, scored three straight of their own on runs of 42 and 2 yards by Kevin Mack and Earnest Byner, respectively, and a 37-yard interception return by safety Al Gross, to go ahead 21–7 in the second quarter. Then, in this see-saw game, the Giants got two TDs, missing the extra point after the first one, a fact that would later come back into play, to cut their deficit to 21-20 at halftime.

Kosar had taken over as the starter nearly two months earlier when Danielson got hurt and generally played well during that time, but he began to struggle against New York. The Giants took advantage of that to score 13 more points to open the second half, giving them a run of 26 unanswered points, to go ahead 33-21 in the fourth quarter. It seemed the Giants had the game well in hand.

Not so, though.

The Browns inserted Danielson, despite the fact he was battling a shoulder injury and had no business playing. He could barely throw the ball. But desperate times call for desperate measures, and Danielson gave it a shot and tried to do the best he could. As it turned out, his effort was more than good enough.

In one of the most heroic performances in Browns history, especially by a quarterback, Danielson led the club on two touchdown drives, somehow throwing a 25-yard pass to wide receiver Clarence Weathers on the first one, with the second one coming on a 9-yard run by Byner, to retake the lead, 35–33.

But the game wasn’t over. The Giants now had the ball for one last drive, and they took advantage of it, piecemealing their way down the field. They moved into Cleveland territory and then got into field-goal range for Schubert to try the game-winner as an entire region of fans back home in Cleveland and Northeast Ohio held their collective breath. Schubert, with the memory of that extra-point miss still fresh in his mind, lined up and booted the ball, but, once again, he shanked it as it went wide left as time expired. The Browns came running onto the field as if they had just won the Super Bowl, and for a team that was looking for something big to hang its hat on, this was, to be sure, their defining moment — their mini-Super Bowl, as it were.

It was a huge victory, indeed, and using it as a catalyst, the Browns played well enough down the stretch to finish 8-8, clinching the AFC Central crown in the next-to-last regular-season game.

This was the first of three straight division titles for the Browns, and five straight trips to the playoffs. During this time, they made three trips to the AFC championship Game. They didn’t get to the Super Bowl, but on two occasions, they came awfully close.

If Danielson had not done what he did that afternoon at Giants Stadium, though, then it is reasonable to believe that the Browns’ string of playoff appearances would not have begun in 1985, but rather 1986, if
they began at all. Who knows? With that, then, Danielson opened the door to one of the best periods in the modern era of the Browns.

So, was he also iconic in the overall history of the team?

You bet!

Steve King

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