On reflection you are right.
1994 was a good season. Best defense in the NFL with Eric Turner, Pepper Johnson and old man Carl Banks. Beat the Patriots in the first round. Metcalf and LeRoy Hoard.
2002 was a good season. Kardiac Kids 2.0. Five games won in the 4th Quarter within a touchdown. We thought the Couch Browns had turned the corner. And then the playoff game happened.
2020 was a good season as we all know.
I was alive for the Bernie Browns AFC Title games but way too young to remember anything.
Reading this and the other replies - it strikes me how many/most of you have never really known a good Browns team. That speaks to how devoted as fans you are (we all are; nobody wanders through this mess for 25+ years without having serious fan credentials; but you've had even less payoff, which makes your continued fandom that much more impressive).
My first Browns memories were the late 70s. Greg Pruitt. Mike Pruitt. Brian Sipe. The Kardiac Kids of 1980, ending in Red Right 88. (Which for the record was one of the coldest days I can recall. Holy shit, was it bitter that day.).
Then they stepped back for a couple of seasons. But then came Bernie. He was/is so beloved not just because he was a terrific QB -- he WANTED to be here, and worked the rules to end up in Cleveland. Cleveland has always had that inferiority complex -- but it was ten times worse in the early 1980s -- so the idea that a talented athlete actually wanted to play in Cleveland was completely foreign.
Once Bernie came in, the Browns improved. Made it into the playoffs that first year and had a big lead in that playoff game against Miami before choking it away. While the loss stung, it didn't stung as badly because the Browns were an up-and-coming team, with that promise of better things to come.
And they did -- 1986 was the best season I recall as a Browns fan. 12-4 and the AFC road to the Super Bowl went through Cleveland. The double-OT win against the Jets, coming back from 10 down with four minutes to go to tie the game. Then the AFC championship game against the Broncos. The one that ended in The Drive.
1987 was a great season too. Got to the playoffs again, smacked the Colts in the first round, then the rematch against the Broncos, this time in Mile High. Falling behind, but staying close enough to keep us believing. Still down a touchdown late, but driving yet again. Byner going into the end zone with the game-tying score ... but having been stripped of the ball by a little-known Denver DB named Jeremiah Castille. The Fumble. I still remember being with a group of guys in my friend's basement, watching it on his shitty TV (most TVs were pretty shitty then), and all of us screaming at the TD, and then the dead silence as we realized that there was no TD.
1988 was a sort of lost season, marred by a Kosar injury (he got hit on the arm by a little-known Chiefs DB named Lloyd Burruss; Bernie was never the same again; while he was good, he never regained the pinpoint touch that was his superpower). They got back to serious contention in 1989, and made their way to Browns-Broncos III at Mile High. But we all kind of knew that (a) they probably weren't good enough to get past Denver (Narrator: they weren't) and (b) this was probably the Last Dance for this group (Narrator: it was).
Nothing else since has come close. Sure, there were the one-off playoff games here and there, every decade or so. But that 1986-1987 stretch was the best Browns I've seen.
My two final thoughts:
1. Whenever there's a good Cleveland sports team (or anything else good in life -- family, friends, pets, job, hobbies, whatever), enjoy it. Enjoy every second. Soak up the good memories and the excitement as though you're using a sponge, and then wring out the sponge to get every last drop. It will all go by much more quickly than you expect.
2. If and when the Browns ever do get back to being a top team, this city could go crazy in a way we haven't seen. That's what I remember from 1986-1987. The constant Browns songs on the radio. Cars decorated in Browns colors. Not that we didn't get excited for the Cavs and Indians' great seasons along the way -- but there's just another gear that the town could hit if it's the Browns.
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