Meadowdale H.S. graduation 2012
Middletown H.S. graduation 2012
Dunbar H.S. graduation 2012
Home > Blogs > Dawging the Browns > Archives > 2009 > November > 11
Wednesday, November 11, 2009
Just another reminder of the futility
Brady Quinn (yawn) is the starting quarterback again for your favorite football team. He has this going for him: The offense can’t get any worse, and he can’t be any worse, statistically, than Derek Anderson.
Much more interesting today was the release of Don Cockroft’s book called “The 1980 Kardiac Kids — Our Untold Stories … A Season of Destiny … A Moment of Despair … A Lifetime of Memories.”
Cockroft was the placekicker on that team and it was his injury that led to quarterback Brian Sipe’s infamous decision to force a pass to Ozzie Newsome in the waning seconds of a playoff loss to Oakland rather than heave it “to the blonde in the first row,” as then-head coach Sam Rutigliano later would say.
Mike Davis intercepted the wobbly aerial, forever securing “Red Right 88” (the shortened name of the play) a place in Cleveland sports lore.
Ultimately, all the Browns won that year was an AFC Central Division title, and the fact that this warrants a book speaks volumes for how frustrating it’s been to be a Cleveland football fan, with rare exception, since about 1972.
Rutigliano is revered in Cleveland and still pops up on local TV and gets off a good one-liner now and then, but 1980, when the Browns went 11-5, was his only playoff season and the team crashed to earth the next season.
I’m sure Cockroft’s book is full of insights and maybe it will sell a few copies, but it’s not like they went to the Super Bowl, let’s remember. They won a lot of close games in miraculous fashion only to lose in the end when Sipe, the league MVP that season, made a bad decision.
Great season. Enjoyed every minute of it, and as I sat through “Red Right 88” in the sub-zero cold Jan. 4, 1981, I truly thought they would win that game. From my perspective of Row X in the lower deck, it was hard to tell right away if Davis had caught the ball. Eventually, there was no doubt and all that remained was the long, numb walk back to my friend Steve’s Gremlin (he had this annoying habit of parking very far away because he was morally opposed to paying for parking).
Some years ago, Pat McManamon of the Akron Beacon-Journal wrote at length about that play, that game.
I don’t know about you, but I don’t need any more reminders.
