Do you need any reason to get pumped about Sunday’s game in Cincitucky?
Playoffs on the line. Cross-state banter between the players, without the Pepto this time. Intrastate division rivalry. Sequel to September’s 51-45 shootout. Tiebreaker of a 34-34 all-time series.
It’s a big one, all right. Equivalent to a playoff game. Win, and the Browns are in the postseason, with an outside chance to capture the AFC North title the following week. Lose, and they’ll be home for the playoffs if the Titans win their final two games.
It’s the biggest Browns game in southwest Ohio since 1980, when the Kardiac Kids, fresh victims of Ahmad Rashad’s winning Hail Mary catch, needed to rebound against the ornery Bengals in the final week to make the playoffs. If you think Carson Palmer and Chad Johnson are relishing their potential spoiler role, try Paul Brown and Forrest Gregg, the two deposed Browns head coaches on the other side back then.
That epic clash in Riverfront Stadium, played 27 years ago today, was the high-water mark for my boyhood fascination with the Browns. It was three years in waiting, which is an eternity to a 12-year-old. Still, much of my knowledge of the game is reconstructed, as memory often favors impressions over episodes. I do still recall Thom Darden’s wicked hit on receiver/punter Pat McInally, third wideout Ricky Feacher coming up big with two TD receptions, and Don Cockroft’s late straight-on boot to break a 24-24 tie.
I’ve since been refreshed with some other details, crucial at the time, but eroded in my mind with the ebb and flow of each passing year. There was tiny returner Dino Hall recovering two Bengal muffs, the Browns needing to rally from ten points down, MVP Brian Sipe passing for 308 yards despite getting sacked six times, injured QB Ken Anderson replacing Jack “The Throwin’ Samoan” Thompson for the last-ditch drive, which expired on the Browns’ 13.
Fortunately, a relic from this day survives in my family, my mother later acquiring one of the footballs used in this game in a charity auction. Its provenance is verified by a hand-signed letter from the donor, Bengals owner Paul Brown.
The next summer (or was it the summer after that?), my dad and I toted that football to Bowling Green for a scrimmage between the Browns and Lions. Afterwards, we waited amid a horde of Browns fans between the stadium and the team busses, hoping to get a few autographs. Players would file out sporadically, with various degrees of willingness to sign for their fans. We never did spot everyone’s prized target, Brian Sipe. It was a confusing scene.
If you knew my dad, this would be funnier — it’s a family classic for us — but some pen-wielding dude even asked him if he was Dino Hall. At the time, Dad stood 5-foot-2 (“and three-quarters!”), packed all of maybe 135 pounds onto his ex-wrestler frame, and was in his mid-30s.
In the end, the two men we got to sign our ball were Sam Rutigliano and, sure enough, the real Dino Hall. Two of the biggest hearts in Browns history.
That ball rests on my dad’s rec room Browns shelf, and as I go there today to celebrate an early Christmas before heading out of town to visit more family, I am grateful to all of those who have enhanced my life with enjoyment, inspiration, excitement, and love, in all its miraculous manifestations. I wish that all Browns fans will find their own stories of emotional resonance to experience and share with their friends and families over this holiday season.
A win on Sunday would make it nicer.
