The stars are all aligned in just the right way
By STEVE KING
Is this 1986 all over again for the Browns, only better?
Perhaps.
Oh, all right, I’m going to say yes, it is.
That’s a huge statement, especially considering where the Browns have been in recent seasons, and where the Browns were in that season 34 years ago.
But I truly believe — I really, truly believe — that there is magic about this 2020 season, that the stars are all aligned in just the right way for the Browns to do something special — not just a little special, either, but very much so.
I started thinking this way later in the regular season as things kept falling in the Browns’ favor and they continued to hang on at the end of games to win them. Whenever they needed to make a play at the end to seal a win, they did so. I was initially stunned — and dissuaded — by the loss to the hapless New York Jets in the next-to-last game of the season, but then I considered how short-handed the Browns were and thought all along that they were going to beat the Pittsburgh Steelers at home in the finale to earn their first playoff berth in 18 years.
And then, as the teams got ready to meet again, this time at Pittsburgh, in the first round of the postseason last Sunday and the whole nation scoffed at the notion that the Browns could be competitive, let alone take the battle into the fourth quarter, I kept having the notion that they could do something even better than that — that they not only could, but would, win.
And now here they are going on the road once more to meet a much tougher foe than the Steekers in the defending Super Bowl champion Kansas City Chiefs, a team that everyone nationally seems to think will squash the Browns like a bug hitting the window of a semi going 70 miles per hour on the interstate on the way to doing what doesn’t get done much anymore in pro football, that is, winning two straight Super Bowls.
It will take a herculean effort — their best and most complete one of the year, by far — and the Browns can ill afford to make any big errors, but I think they will stun the world and win. Yes, I do.
And I think they will then win next week in the AFC Championship Game against the winner of Saturday’s other AFC divisional playoff contest between the Buffalo Bills and Baltimore Ravens to earn their first-ever trip to the Super Bowl. Yes, I do.
Why?
Because of that magic.
In 1986, the Browns had a great team, finishing 12-4 and clinching home-field advantage throughout the AFC playoffs. Then they survived a divisional game against the New York Jets, coming from 10 points down in the last four minutes of the fourth quarter to force overtime, and then won in double-overtime, 23-20.
The stars seemed to be all aligned in just the right way for the Browns to make it to the Super Bowl, and then when they went ahead of the Denver Broncos 20-13 with five minutes left in the AFC title game, those stars seemed even more aligned and the window of opportunity appeared to be open even wider.
But we all know what happened.
This current Browns team is good, but not nearly as talented — not nearly as good — as that one in 1986. However, these Browns have something that the 1986 team may have lacked a little — that is, a junkyard dog, or dawg mentality in which they refuse to even believe that they could lose, let alone that they will.
Stay tuned Sunday .Don’t leave that TV set for any reason. I really believe you’re going to see something that is so wonderfully unbelievable — even more so than last week’s Pittsburgh game — that it will make you laugh, scream and cry — happy tears — all at the same time.
