Doug Pederson, who is the new head coach of the Philadelphia Eagles, is an interesting – but mostly unknown figure – in Browns history.
A career backup quarterback in his playing days, Pederson was signed in an act of desperation by then Browns head coach Chris Palmer in 2000, the season in which he made the well-known “runaway train” comment when the team lost first Ty Detmer and then Tim Couch due to injuries and the wheels quickly began to come off what had been a surprising 2-1 start, with back-to-back wins over the Cincinnati Bengals and Pittsburgh Steelers.
Pederson was the starting quarterback on Nov. 12 of that year when the Browns hosted the New England Patriots at what was then known as Cleveland Browns Stadium.
I’ll never forget the ashen look on Palmer’s face when he announced that Pederson was going to be the starter. It was the same expression the coach had when he walked into the media room at Browns Headquarters in Berea three weeks before and announced that Couch had been lost for the year with a broken thumb suffered on the last play of practice three days before the rematch with the Steelers in Pittsburgh.
Anyway, the game with the Patriots was not exactly the featured second half of a CBS double-header shown to most of the country. Both teams were stuck in the mud, going nowhere fast. The Browns had dropped seven in a row and were 2-8 on the way to a 3-13 finish. The Patriots had lost their last three and were 2-7 as they headed toward a 5-11 disaster.
And both clubs were also really challenged offensively. The Browns had been held in single-digits scoring for the last three games and had already been shut out twice. The type of prolific offense that the Patriots carry into today’s AFC divisional-round playoff game against the Kansas City Chiefs was just a pipe dream back then. They had been held to 19 or fewer points in six games.
So this figured to be a low-scoring game between two bad teams. What an attraction!
The first-year head coach of the Patriots was a guy named Bill Belichick, who was making his first trip back to Cleveland since coaching the last five seasons (1991-95) of the original Browns’ 50-year existence. When he unceremoniously cut Browns icon Bernie Kosar midway through the 1993 season, he became Public Enemy No. 1 in Cleveland. He dropped to No. 2 only when Art Modell moved the Browns to Baltimore. He was still No. 2 when he brought the Pats to Cleveland.
After being 37-45 with the Browns and having only one winning season and playoff appearance, and then stumbling and bumbling as he was early in his reboot with the Pats, New Englanders hated Belichick then as much as they love and revere him now. The only way he could have been more despised was if he had been a member of the New York Yankees or Los Angeles Lakers, or if his name was Bill Buckner.
To be sure, if things didn’t improve soon, then there was going to be a modern-day Boston Tea Party. Only this time, Belichick would be nailed into one of the crates of tea being thrown into the chilly waters of Boston Harbor.
And Browns fans were hoping that their team would beat the Pats and pound another nail into Belichick’s crate — er, coffin – to further the chances for his demise.
The Browns won 19-11, building a 19-3 fourth-quarter lead on Pederson’s nine-yard touchdown pass to rookie tight end Aaron Shea and four Phil Dawson field goals covering 39, 43 and 35 (twice) yards. Pederson was 20 of 37 passing for 138 yards with the TD and no interceptions. Another rookie, Travis Prentice of Miami (Ohio), ran for 84 yards in 19 carries.
In what would turn out to be his last full season as starting quarterback of the Patriots, Drew Bledsoe, who had started against Belichick’s Browns in the 1994 playoffs, completed 21 of 35 passes for 212 yards and a TD with one interception.
Afterward, I cornered Pederson in the Browns locker room.
“Are you aware of what you just did?” I asked. “You beat Bill Belichick. The fans here are going to love you.”
He stared at me as if I had three heads. He had absolutely no idea what I was talking about.
Now it’s 2016, a little over 15 years after that game. Pederson is a head coach in the NFL, now in the same elite club of 32 with Belichick, who is one of the most popular coaches in Boston sports history, right up there with the Celtics’ Red Auerbach. More important than that, he is now considered one of the greatest coaches in NFL history.
And Belichick is about as popular in Cleveland as he is in Boston. Browns fans wish he were still coaching their team, which has had just two winning seasons and one playoff appearance since his tenure two decades and change ago.
The latest coach who will try to change that is Hue Jackson, who was offensive coordinator and quarterbacks coach at USC in 2000 when the Pats and Browns battled like two punch-drunk fighters, and was an assistant coach at Arizona State and Cal State Fullerton, and with NFL Europe’s London Monarchs, when Belichick was coaching the Browns.
By the way, Jackson’s Browns will play Pederson’s Eagles in Philadelphia sometime next season. Wonder if Pederson will think about his brief time – just that one season – with the Browns, and specifically that day in Cleveland against the Pats?
And one more thing: Perhaps Pederson was right when he gawked at me with that quizzical look. In actuality, we were both right.
Pederson did indeed get his 15 minutes of fame – at least his first 15 minutes of fame, since being an NFL head coach is pretty cool, too – for sticking it to Belichick. But now Browns fans couldn’t pick Pederson out of a lineup.
