Sometimes the final score isn’t the most compelling memory of a game.
Rather, it’s something much more far-reaching.
Such was the case in two Browns contests 11 years apart on this day, Sept. 19. Let’s take a look:
*1993 – Browns 19, Los Angeles Raiders 16 – at Los Angeles – Coming off an emotional home win over the San Francisco 49ers just six days before on Monday Night Football, and then having to travel across the country, the Browns (2-0) were understandably sluggish against the Raiders, trailing 10-0 after one quarter and 13-0 at halftime. A scoreless third quarter set up a wild finish.
The Browns finally got on the scoreboard on Matt Stover’s 32-yard field goal, but Los Angeles answered that with a booming 53-yard field goal by Jeff Jaeger, keeping the lead at 13 points, 16-3.
That’s when head coach Bill Belichick made an earthshaking change at quarterback, removing struggling Bernie Kosar, the triggerman behind the Browns’ great run through the last half of the 1980s, with Vinny Testervade, Kosar’s former teammate with the Miami Hurricanes who had been signed in free agency in the offseason.
While everyone watching back home in Cleveland gasped at seeing Kosar benched, the insertion of Testaverde did indeed park the offense. He threw a 12-yard touchdown pass to Lawyer Tillman – perhaps the only significant play the wide receiver made in his injury-plagued career – to make it 16-10.
The Raiders took an intentional safety when another ex-Browns special teamer, punter Jeff Gossett ran out of the back of the end zone for a safety to cut the deficit to 16-12 with just over 1½ minutes left. The Raiders were willing to do that, thinking the distance of their free kick, plus the lack of time left on the clock, would be enough to keep Cleveland from having a legitimate chance to score the game-winning touchdown.
The Raiders were wrong.
Eric Metcalf returned the free kick 37 yards to midfield, then Testaverde went to work again, marching the Browns to the Los Angeles 1 with six seconds left.
With everyone at Memorial Coliseum thinking fullback Tommy Vardell was going to get the ball up the middle, Testaverde instead faked the hand-off and pitched the ball to Metcalf on a naked jet sweep around left end. The Raiders had been completely fooled. He walked into the end zone untouched for the winning TD. In fact, no one was within 10 yards of him.
The excitement of the victory, and the fact it kept the Browns unbeaten after three games for the first time since way back in 1979, was greatly overshadowed by the dynamics of the monumental switch at quarterback. While Belichick insisted afterward that Kosar was still the starting quarterback, no one believed him. It was hardly a secret that the two men already didn’t see eye to eye, and that divide had just been widened considerably. Kosar was fuming in the locker room. He knew exactly what was going on, that it was the beginning of the end for him in Cleveland.
Three games later, Testaverde was named the starter. In one way, it was a shocking move, and in another way, it wasn’t surprising at all. The skids had already been greased for such a change, in large part because of what happened that day in Los Angeles 22 years ago.
*2004 – Dallas Cowboys 19, Browns 12 – at Dallas – The Browns lost the game to fall to 1-1, but they lost much, much more than that. They lost rookie tight end Kellen Winslow for the rest of the season with a broken leg suffered while being involved in his team’s onside kick at the end of the game.
Winslow had been taken in the first round, at No. 6 overall, of the 2004 NFL Draft. The Browns – and head coach Butch Davis, who had recruited Winslow when he was coaching at the University of Miami – expected big things from him. They believed he would completely transform their offense.
The injury would signal the start of a series of major health issues for Winslow. He missed all of 2005 after getting badly injured in a motorcycle accident in the ensuing offseason and as such didn’t return to the field until 2006. And while he did a lot of good things that year and for the rest of his time in Cleveland, the injuries took their toll. He was never the same.
A much older Testaverde – he was nearly 41 years old by this time – also played in this game, but this time it was as a member of the Cowboys. While he was intercepted three times, he also passed for 322 yards and a touchdown.
Browns quarterback Jeff Garcia, who had been so good in the 20-3 victory over the Baltimore Ravens the week before in the season opener, was horrible. He completed just 8 of 27 passes for but 71 yards with three interceptions, giving him a quarterback rating of 0.0. That’s as bad as it gets.
As newsworthy as Garcia’s struggles were, and how much they were responsible for the defeat, they paled in comparison to a much more significant negative in the loss of Winslow.
