Though Super Bowl week is an annually painful reminder of how terrible my beloved Browns was, is and probably will continue to be into the untold future, I fashion myself an aficionado of football excellence--30-plus years of rooting for the Browns give you an appreciation of good football. With that said, this list are the moments that have left an indelible mark on my psyche that bring back the who, what, when where and why of the Super Bowl party that I was in attendance when they happened.
Not all the moments are individual plays, but, instead, the lasting the impressions had on the historical perspective, my overall football sensibilities, and some were simply Super Bowl moments that stuck out to me.
Quarterback Doug Williams led the Washington Redskins on five touchdown drives in the second quarter on their way to winning their second Super Bowl championship in six years. William threw four touchdowns for 165-yards in that quarter according to Pro-Football-Reference.com.
With that performance, Williams has become a little-known-Black-History-fact, he is the only “Black” quarterback to win a Super Bowl and the only one to win the Super Bowl MVP. Though it should be noted Tennessee Titan QB Steve McNair came close in 2000 (see CoachBMc’s Super Bowl Memory #6) and Philadelphia Eagle QB Donovan McNabb pulled a Willie Beamen in the fourth-quarter, which kept him from pulling the upset against Tom Brady and the New England Patriots in 2004.
This Super Bowl bring back especially painful memories for Cleveland Browns fans, and for me personally because this was the first Super Bowl after my father's death. So I carried on the tradition of betting on trivial things within the game with my little brother. Unfortunately, it lasted only one year because I was a senior in high school, proving to be the last time I would watch the Super Bowl in the home where I grew up.
John Elway and the Denver Broncos used the momentum of “The Fumble” in the AFC Championship Game because if you ask most Browns fans we honestly felt we would have won the Super Bowl that year (the Browns ranked in the NFL top-five on offense and defense).
Offensively, that Browns team was probably their most balanced with QB Bernie Kosar throwing to Web-star Slaughter and Ozzie Newsome before he got old and had no more YAC in those old legs. Running backs Kevin Mack, led the Browns in rushing with over 700-yards in 12-games and Earnest Byner led the team with 55 receptions.
They ranked second against the run and shut down Eric Dickerson in the AFC Divisional Round—Timmy Smith would not have ran for 204-yards on them. Can you believe that one-hit-wonder still hold the Super Bowl rushing record! Corner Backs Hanford Dixon and Frank Minniefield, considered the best CB duo in the NFL at that time, would have shut the Redskin wide receivers Gary Clark and Ricky Sanders down.
Getting blown out was not those Browns’ forte; they preferred to break their fans hearts into piece in the most dramatic of fashions (Google “The Drive” and “The Fumble if you’re under 35-year old) like they did that year with 'The Fumble,' and their heartbreaks always have a name (Red-Right-88, The Fumble, The Drive, The Shot, The Move, Blow-se Mesa, The Decision) and the Cavaliers and the Indians shared in the misery for Cleveland sports fans. That's a blog post in itself--the top five Cleveland Sports heart-breakers!
The New York Giants, with Lawrence Taylor, Phil Simms and ‘little’ Joe Morris, would have destroyed the Browns like they did the Broncos in Super Bowl XXI.
Like I mentioned in the first post in this series, we Browns fans can only lament on the ‘would-of’s-could-could-of’s-should-of’s’ during Super Bowl week. But as my Linebacker Coach at Slippery Rock University would so eloquently say, "if all the if's, buts and maybe's were apples, nut and candy, we'd all have a very merry f#$%-ing Christmas!"
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