I had the distinct honor and privilege of helping former Browns kicker/punter Don Cockroft write his 648-page monster of a book that was released five years ago, “The 1980 Kardiac Kids, Our Untold Stories.”

Bob Moon, a tremendous writer from Columbus, served as Cockroft’s official “co-author,” but make no mistake about it, Moon was steering the ship both in terms of writing the book and laying it out. He farmed out most of the actual writing to me, and then he edited my work to Cockroft’s liking.

Cockroft was part of the tremendous lineage of great Browns kickers. And he’s a really good guy.

He wanted to be a writer – he really loved it – but his skill was instead that of a kicker. And that’s fine. I respected that. I still do, in fact.

So Moon had to talk Cockroft into some things that only a writer would know. And when Moon would need a little extra push every so often to convince Cockroft of something that was good for the book, he would quietly ask me to help him.

I’ll never forget one such time that underscored the whole theme of the book and, as such, also the Kardiac Kids and that wonderful 1980 season.

Cockroft, Moon and I were in a three-way phone conversation discussing the size of the book. The number of pages kept growing like a giant on steroids. It was all great stuff – the book really is the encyclopedia of that 1980 season – but Don was worried about all the costs he was incurring, which was understandable.

Cockroft wanted to cut the game stories out of the book, all of which Moon wrote, to reduce the number of pages in a big way.

“We don’t need them,” Cockroft kept saying.

I had said nothing to that point. I was the third wheel in this, and I knew it. The less I said, the better for everyone involved.

But this was my cue. This point of the conversation was why Moon asked me to be involved. As such, I spoke up

“Don, it’s your book so you can do what you want,” I told him, “but I would definitely not cut those game stories. I would cut just about anything else, but not the game stories – never, ever.

“All three of us on this phone call remember those games and that season. We know how unbelievable it all was. You really had to see – to live it – to believe it.

“Our older readers will know that, so from that standpoint, we’d be fine. But we want to market this book to younger readers as well, those who know of these games, that season and Kardiac Kids only through black-and-white photos in some dusty book on a back shelf in a long-forgotten corner of a library.

“If we don’t put in the details – the documented facts and figures — of those games, then it will be a turn-off to the younger readers. They’ll think the stuff referred to throughout the rest of the book was all made up by a bunch of old guys who were sitting around a pot-bellied stove and having a beer.”

Cockroft relented – if I had something to do with that, great – and the stories went into the book uncut. I think it made the book a whole heckuva lot better.

That was 1980. It was off-the-charts amazing. It was the most exciting season in the history of the Browns. It wasn’t the best – it’s not, and I didn’t say that – but it was the most thrilling.

I know the people running the Browns now are doing a lot to make the gameday experience better at FirstEnergy Stadium. That’s as it should be.

But all that gimmickry pales in comparison to the real thing – the exciting spectacle of scoring a lot of points, making a lot of big plays just when they are needed to be made and winning a lot of games. That was 1980 in a nutshell, which was why it was so darn cool.

I don’t expect the Browns to replicate that era. You can’t. It stands alone. But they’ve got to get closer to it, especially as they move through this transitional era of rebuilding the franchise. It acts an appetizer. And when your fans are starving for something – anything – that serves the purpose.

In recalling all this Kardiac Kids stuff in the last week with last Sunday’s tragic passing of the center on those teams, Tom DeLeone, I hope – I sincerely hope and pray – that that message got through.

If it did, that’s wonderful. And if it didn’t, it needs to.