It is a sad, sad day for the Browns.

Lindy Infante, the greatest offensive coordinator they’ve ever had and one of the key figures in team history, died earlier today in St. Augustine, Fla. after a lengthy illness.

He was 75.

The real essence of Infante’s greatness as an offensive mind, and the seriousness with which he approached his job, were both spelled out in a photo in the Cleveland Plain Dealer on Dec. 14, 1987.

The Browns had improved to 8-5 with a one-sided 38-24 win over the Cincinnati Bengals the day before at Cleveland Stadium and were on their way to their third consecutive Central Division title and their second straight appearance in the AFC Championship Game.

Yes, it was a great time for the Browns and their fans. Every game was a party, and the games against the three other division foes, including the Bengals, were even bigger parties.

And such was the case on this day as the Browns, after having already scored three unanswered touchdowns in the second quarter, were cruising along with 21-3 lead.

But the Bengals refused to give up, piecemealing their way down the field toward the goal line at the Dawg Pound end of the Stadium as quarterback Boomer Esiason kept working underneath the coverage with quick-out routes to the right, in front of the Cleveland bench.

Clay Matthews, one of the best outside linebackers in the game at that time and also one of the best in Browns history, had had enough. He read the play perfectly, stepped in front of another out route, this time to tight end Rodney Holman at the Cleveland 4, intercepted the ball cleanly and took off up the Cleveland sideline.

Matthews was always a go-to guy for the media even when he wasn’t an integral part of what had happened in the game, so it was no surprise that he talked at length afterwards about the play. It made for a great story, and a hilarious one as well. And Plain Dealer columnist Bill Livingston told the whole tale in a super piece that was accompanied by the aforementioned photo.

Matthews kept himself in great shape. Still, he was a 6-foot-2 and 245 pounds and in his 10th season, all with the Browns. So he wasn’t a sprinter, nor he could run forever. There were clear limits in that regard, and we were to see them that day.

Thus, as he ran with the ball on that dark, dreary, early winter day, it wasn’t long before he started to get winded. He turned around to see if there was a safety valve – a teammate to whom he could lateral the ball — but he saw only Carl “Big Daddy” Hairston, a 6-3, 270-pound defensive lineman who was in his 12th season, in close proximity. If Matthews were a panel truck rumbling down the highway, then Hairston was an 18-wheeler carrying a full load – and a wide load at that.

Matthews knew he couldn’t flip the ball to Big Daddy – it would be like a track team handing the baton to an elephant for the leg of a relay race — so he kept chugging along.

He went a little further and, becoming even more tired, looked again for a lateral recipient. Again, only Big Daddy was nearby, so Matthews continued on.

It wasn’t long before Matthews really started to wear out. He had to find someone to give the ball to, but that someone couldn’t be Big Daddy. So he reached down for every last bit of energy he had and staggered along.

After just a few more seconds, Matthews had reached the end. His gas tank was completely on empty, his engine was sputtering and leaking oil badly, and parts were starting to fly off in great numbers. He looked behind him for some help, hoping, praying that Big Daddy finally had some company. He didn’t, so Matthews had only two choices: He could just drop to the ground right there, get touched down by a Bengal and be happy that he had returned the interception 40 yards to the Cleveland 44, or he could do the unthinkable and pitch the ball to Big Daddy.

Matthews chose the second option and tossed the ball into sizable gut of No. 78, one of the most popular players on the team.

Big Daddy took off as if he had just robbed a bank and was running off with the loot.

Or as he laughingly said to reporters in describing what happened after he caught the lateral, “Then I put on my moves.”

Using all of 6.5 seconds (the Browns went back and looked at the play on film and timed him), Big Daddy rambled along like a runaway fright train for 36 more yards, to the Cincinnati 20, before he was tackled, bringing to an end a combined 76-yard interception return and, more importantly, the funniest play in Browns history.

And as for the Bengals, they were determined to catch up to Big Daddy and drag him down before he reached the end zone, even if it were on the one-inch line. There was no way they were going to let a defensive lineman, just two days shy of his 35th birthday, take it to the house on them and score a touchdown.

Losing to the hated Browns in a rout was bad enough, but allowing Big Daddy’s name to get into the scoring column would have been even worse. It would have been humiliating – and then some.

Now for the gist of this story, that photo.

Taken from the opposite (north) side of the field, it shows Big Daddy racing along the Cleveland sideline, with nearly everybody associated with the club, from players to coaches to trainers to ball boys to doctors to equipment men to all the rest, doubled over in laughter, as if tears were running down their faces, as they watched the spectacle before them.

We said “nearly everybody.” The only person on that sideline who was not taking in the action with a big guffaw was Infante. He knew what was taking place, and knew that the Browns were going to get the ball somewhere deep in Cincinnati territory. As such, he was already studying his play chart to see what plays might be best to call when the offense trotted onto the field.

Infante knew what he was doing. The Browns needed just two plays to move the 20 yards for their fourth TD of the quarter, which came on Bernie Kosar’s two-yard pass to backup tight end Derek Tennel. Three of the scores in that run had come on throws by Kosar.

By the time of that Bengals game, Infante was nearing the end of his brief, but productive, stay in Cleveland. His fine work with the Browns, in fact, got him the head coaching job with the then woebegone Green Bay Packers less than two months later.

Infante had been head coach of the Jacksonville Bulls in 1984 and ’85 before the USFL folded. The Browns wisely hired him in 1986 to re-do an offense that had been way too simplistic and not very explosive in 1985. The Browns went 8-8 and won the AFC Central title based on a great defense and a tremendous running game in which Kevin Mack and Earnest Byner both rushed for over 1,000 yards, becoming the third set of backs from the same team to do so in NFL history.

But the passing attack left a lot to be desired. When the Browns fell behind by a lot of points, or it was late in the fourth quarter, in both cases keeping them from using their running game, they were in trouble. That had to change since the Browns had pulled off a blockbuster trade with the Buffalo Bills in 1985 to get the No. 1 overall pick in the 1985 NFL Supplemental Draft, which they used to select Kosar, whom they considered their franchise quarterback.

Kosar and veteran Gary Danielson, acquired in an offseason trade with the Detroit Lions, shared the quarterback duties in 1985, and owner Art Modell was looking for Kosar to take over the job and have a pass-heavy offensive scheme with which to work. Infante, a one-time tailback at Florida who was actually taken by the Browns in the 12th round of the 1963 NFL Draft but never ended up playing for the team, was considered an expert in the passing game.

At first, Infante was not impressed with Kosar, but the Youngstown Boardman High School product soon won him over. With Infante’s guidance, Kosar quickly became one of the best young quarterbacks in the NFL and Cleveland soon had a top-tier passing attack, which was the catalyst in the team’s dramatic rise to consecutive AFC Championship Game appearances in 1986 and ’87.

Everybody on the offense bought into the huge change in scheme, including Byner and Mack, who were convinced by Infante that while their number of rushing attempts would go way down, the number of times they would be targeted in the passing game would go way up. The coach was right. In fact, in 1987, Byner led the Browns with 52 receptions in 1987.

How valuable was Infante and his presence on the Cleveland coaching staff?

So much so that in their first game without him, in the 1988 opener at Kansas City, the Browns missed a blitz pickup in the second quarter, causing Kosar to get hit and blow out his elbow. He was still good when he returned later in the season, but he was never quite the same. He never reached the heights forecast for him after his play in 1986 and ’87.

The success, not just offensively but overall, that the Browns had from 1986-89 was jump-started by Infante. It still would have happened to some degree had he never set foot in Cleveland, but it certainly would not have happened anywhere close to the level that it did.

He has never gotten all the credit he deserves for that. Sadly, often times, that type of praise comes only in memoriam, which is definitely the case in regards to Lindy Infante, who, as mentioned at the beginning of this story, is by far the best offensive coordinator the Browns have ever had and stands as one of the more important figures in team history.

And if you doubt it, look up that photo of the Cleveland sideline from that Dec. 13, 1987 game against Cincinnati. You’ll realize that the only guy not smiling was the one who, when it came to great offensive thinking and creativity, has ended up getting the last laugh.

Too bad that it happened on such a sad, sad day.

By Steve King