PRO FOOTBALL ’88 : COACHES, PLAYERS, TEAMS AND TRENDS TO WATCH THIS SEASON : Hopes High for Browns Once Again

CLEVELAND —  It began eight years ago with The Interception.

Two seasons ago, it was The Drive.

Last season, it was The Fumble.

Will this season finally be The Vindication?

Every team that narrowly loses a championship one year is said to be on a mission the next. But in Cleveland, it has become a crusade.

It’s not just that the Browns haven’t won a National Football League title in a nearly a quarter-century and have never been in a Super Bowl. There are worse cases. Look at the Rams, who haven’t won an NFL title in nearly 40 years, or the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, who may not win one in the next 40.

No, the zeal in this city revolves around the feeling that the Browns deserved to be there the last two years. But they came up short--by 98 yards two seasons ago, by just three yards last season.

In 1980, Cleveland came close to beating the Oakland Raiders in the playoffs before losing, 14-12, with the Browns’ fate sealed on a crushing interception thrown by Brian Sipe.

It was a fitting opening to a decade of frustration for Cleveland.

The city regularly suffers through seasons of agony with the Indians and the Cavaliers, but it is the Browns who consistently lead the city’s fans to the altar, then jilt them.

It appeared that things might finally change at the end of the 1986 season. The Browns not only advanced to the AFC championship game, but they thought they had their opponents, the Denver Broncos, right where they wanted them on a cold, snowy afternoon at Cleveland Stadium. The Broncos were stuck on their 2-yard line on the short end of a 20-13 score with 5 minutes 32 seconds left.

Any football fan who had a pulse that day knows what happened. The legend of John Elway was forever assured. He swaggered into the huddle, lined up the troops and marched down the field in a manner unseen since Patton was last in a tank.

The snow was falling, the Cleveland “Dawg” fans were howling and the dog biscuits were flying, but none of it seemed to bother Elway. Nor did the third-and-18 that appeared to have killed The Drive at the Cleveland 48. Elway found Mark Jackson over the middle on that play for 20 yards, then later found Jackson in the end zone with a 5-yard pass for the tying touchdown.

When that dark day in Cleveland finally ended, the Broncos had won in overtime, 23-20.

So all spring and summer, the Browns plotted their revenge and, indeed, one year later, found themselves back in the AFC title game, facing the Broncos again, this time in Denver.

How sweet it would be.

And for a while, it was. The Broncos had soared to a 21-3 halftime lead, but Brown quarterback Bernie Kosar brought his team back from the brink, completing 16 of 22 passes for 246 yards and 3 touchdowns in the second half.

And finally it came down to the last 72 seconds, to the Denver 8-yard line, where Kosar, down, 38-31, handed off to running back Earnest Byner. Trying the left side, Byner had the tying touchdown nearly within his reach.

Nearly.

All he had to do was cut back inside to avoid the waiting figure of defensive back Jeremiah Castille in the corner, and the end zone was his.

Byner made it. The ball didn’t. Castille slapped it free at the 3, fell on it at the 2 and that was that. After a safety, the Browns lost, 38-33.

It seems that hardly a conversation goes by without somebody mentioning The Fumble.

Never mind that Byner had one of the best days of his career on that less-than-super Sunday against the Broncos. He rushed for 67 yards and a touchdown, and he caught seven passes for an additional 120 yards and another touchdown.

But he will always be stuck in the personal hell populated by such unfortunate figures as Bill Buckner, Isiah Thomas and Ralph Branca, people who suffered their most embarrassing moments with the national spotlight on them.

Byner got hundreds of letters in the off-season, assuring him that his fans won’t forget the pluses in his career. So many letters, he still hasn’t read them all.

He remains friendly and cooperative with reporters, until the inevitable question comes up.

Yes, he said last week, he’d had a pleasant spring, playing a lot of golf and generally kicking back. Yes, he figured the ’88 Browns might be the best edition of the decade. Yes, he figured they would be back in the AFC title game, but there was a lot of unfinished business to attend to first.

But when The Fumble was mentioned, the smile vanished. He looked downward into a bag at his feet, suddenly in search of a pair of socks, his voice lowered.

“It’s over with,” he said. “It happened. I’m not speaking about it anymore.”

Byner said he feels no insatiable thirst for vindication, no uncontrollable urge to get a football back in his hands and the end zone back in sight. He is enjoying his months away from the pressure cooker.

But his fans are not so serene. Not even those in his own household.

“I can’t wait for the football season,” his wife, Tina, told him recently.

“We just got through,” Byner replied. “Let me rest.”

There will be little rest for any of the Browns in the months ahead. They have become’s America’s cover boys for this season, the consensus powerhouse. Sports Illustrated picked them to go to the Super Bowl and put Kosar on the cover of its football preview edition. A national newspaper poll tabbed Kosar as the favorite for this season’s most valuable player award, relegating Elway and Jerry Rice to also-rans.

Here, understandably, the fever is running highest. With more than 51,000 season tickets already sold, a record is about to be set. The club drew approximately 100,000 just to watch the team in training camp.

The Browns held a workout at a suburban high school--a workout, not an exhibition game, not even a scrimmage--and 11,000 turned out.

So far, no fans have shown up to watch the team uniforms being cleaned, but that’s probably because they weren’t invited.

“Once June comes around here, the Indians being so bad, people start thinking about the Browns,” said Tony Grossi, who covers the Browns for the Cleveland Plain Dealer. “This June, the Indians, on cue, took their dive, and people started talking football.”

And talk can get out of hand, as the Indians know only too well. Last year, they were featured on the cover of Sports Illustrated as the coming force. But their pitching couldn’t live up to the billing, and another dynasty died at birth.

“I’ve heard all the talk about this being our year,” said Brown Coach Marty Schottenheimer. “Our goal has never changed. We have great expectations every year. What’s happened is that the expectations of the community have come up to the expectations we’ve had of ourselves. I told my players that we can only achieve our own goal. We can’t do it for someone else.”

The Browns knew they had to strengthen the defense that was unable to stop Elway the last two years, especially on third and 18.

As a result, they used their first 5 draft choices, and 7 of their first 10, on defenders. The only starter to emerge from that group is 10th-round selection Brian Washington of Nebraska, who will start at strong safety in Sunday’s opener at Kansas City. But also expected to get plenty of work are linebacker Clifford Charlton, a first-round pick from Florida; defensive lineman Michael Dean Perry, a second-round choice from Clemson, and linebacker Van Waiters, a third-rounder from Indiana.

Schottenheimer also has made changes at linebacker, trading Anthony Griggs and demoting starter Eddie Johnson in favor of second-year man Mike Junkin.

The other big difference is on the other side of the line. Lindy Infante, the offensive coordinator for the past two seasons, left to become head coach at Green Bay, and Schottenheimer has taken over many of Infante’s chores himself, putting more emphasis on the running game.

But not too much. Not as long as Kosar is back there, offering some leadership and perspective, on and off the field. He knows where everybody expects him to be, come AFC championship time.

“We’ve had a lot of expectations, but you can’t really get too caught up thinking about a game that isn’t going to be played until January,” he said. “You also don’t want to dwell too much on the past. It’s unhealthy. You want to learn from the past, but if you get too caught up in it, it can affect what you do in the present.”

But sometimes you just can’t seem to get past your past.

A kickoff luncheon for the Browns was held here last week. Broadcaster Merlin Olsen, a featured speaker, was trying to fire up the crowd. But midway through his speech, he mentioned The Fumble.

Up at the head table, Byner squirmed a bit.

It will take a trip to the Super Bowl. Nothing less. Only then can the Browns hope that the frustrations of a decade will finally come to The End.