Nearly 44 years ago, I was among the swarm of youngsters who stormed the field at Kent State’s Dix Stadium seeking autographs from our beloved Cleveland Browns at the conclusion of their controlled scrimmage against the Buffalo Bills.
It was July 1978. I was 10 years old, enjoying the summer time off between fourth and fifth grade. That was back when the Browns held their training camp at Kent State, which they did from 1975 to 1981 (before that, the Browns had training camp at Hiram College from 1952 to 1974). And on this beautiful summer day in the late ’70s, I wandered, starstruck, from player to player, each standing like a giant among Lilliputians, gathering as many signatures as I possibly could and relishing the feel of the soft Dix Stadium grass beneath me — the same grass our orange-and-brown gladiators had just done battle on against the Bills.
As I braved the hordes around me for players’ scribbles that I could barely read, one central thought dominated my mind: Maybe, just maybe, this was the year the Browns would reach the Super Bowl. After all, up to that point there had already been 12 of them, so the law of averages, I figured, were stacked strongly in the Browns’ favor. In my young mind, with Super Bowl XIII looming that season, how many more of them could the Browns miss?
Well, here we are, Super Bowl week. It’s been over four decades since that day at Dix Stadium, and the Browns are still waiting to play in the sport’s most hallowed event.
If you are a fan of the Cleveland Browns, you are in the midst of the most excruciating week of any year. Sunday, Feb. 13, will mark the NFL’s 56th Super Bowl, and it will mark the 56th time the Cleveland Browns have not been a participant.
It’s hard to believe, actually. There are 32 teams in the NFL, and the Browns are one of only four that have never played in a Super Bowl, the others being the Lions, Jaguars and Texans. In fairness to the latter two, the Jaguars and Texans didn’t start play until 1995 and 2002, respectively. The Browns, meanwhile, have been in the NFL since 1950 (actually starting play as a franchise in 1946 in the old All-America Football Conference) and the Lions since 1930 (originally playing in Portsmouth, Ohio, as the Spartans before relocating to Detroit in 1934).
The Super Bowl began with the 1966 season. So the Jags and Texans can be excused for their Super Bowl absences considering the Browns and Lions have been around for the duration of the big game — except, of course, when then-owner Art Modell moved the Browns to Baltimore after the 1995 season, renamed them the Ravens and left Cleveland without a team from 1996-98.
But a lot happened in those three years. While Cleveland was scrambling to set up an expansion franchise as soon as possible, Modell and the Ravens built what eventually became a Super Bowl champion in the 2000 season, continuing a series of football injustices to Browns faithful that continues to this day. Let’s take a painful look at a Super Bowl-less history that seems like it could continue for eternity:
— Super Bowl LVI on Feb. 13 will pit the Los Angeles Rams against the Cincinnati Bengals. As a Browns fan, this one is tough to stomach on a lot of levels. First, the Rams: Odell Beckham Jr. has been a huge pickup at wide receiver for LA since the Browns dumped him on Nov. 5, ostensibly due to a perceived bad attitude because he wasn’t getting the ball thrown to him enough either by design or because of a personal conflict with quarterback Baker Mayfield. In six games with the Browns this past season, OBJ caught 17 passes with no touchdowns. In eight regular season games with the Rams, he had 27 catches and five touchdowns. He has 19 catches and a TD in LA’s three playoff games thus far. Yes, the Rams have the best wide receiver on the planet in Cooper Kupp, which gives OBJ room to operate, whereas he was the No. 1 receiver in Cleveland. Except he wasn’t. For some reason, the Browns/Mayfield just stopped seeing Beckham as a go-to guy, leaving many to speculate that the offense was actually better without him. The Rams beg to differ, and they — and OBJ — will be playing in the Super Bowl. The Browns, meanwhile, are still waiting.
Adding insult to injury, the Rams were born in Cleveland, playing there from 1936-45 except when operations were suspended in 1943 due to World War II. To rub salt in the wound, they moved to Los Angeles in 1946 — after winning the 1945 NFL title in their final year in Cleveland. They are in their third Super Bowl as the LA Rams and played in two as the St. Louis Rams, winning Super Bowl XXXIV after the 1999 season. The Browns, meanwhile, are still waiting.
Which brings us to the Cincinnati Bengals, who are basically the Browns’ evil twin. They were started as an expansion franchise in 1968 by legendary Browns coach Paul Brown, who had been fired by Modell in 1963. Brown had coached the Browns since their inception in 1946 and led them to four straight AAFC titles, followed by NFL championships in 1950, ’54 and ’55 (making a mind-boggling eight NFL title game appearances from 1950-58). Counting their time in the AAFC, the Browns reached their league championship game 10 years in a row under Brown, a feat which has never been duplicated in the history of North American professional sports. But when it comes to playing in the Super Bowl itself, the Browns are still waiting.
A year after Brown’s firing, Modell was vindicated when coach Blanton Collier, who replaced Brown, led the Browns to the 1964 NFL title and followed that with an NFL runner-up finish in 1965 — one season before the start of the Super Bowl era. That 1964 triumph represents the Browns’ most recent title — and also was the city of Cleveland’s most recent until the Cavaliers won the NBA championship in 2016. Since 1965, when it comes to playing for all the proverbial marbles, the Browns are still waiting.
Paul Brown, meanwhile, looking for a little vindication himself, started another Ohio NFL franchise, this time in Cincinnati. He made his new team look a lot like the Browns with the same exact shade of orange, except black was used as the other color instead of brown. Still, the uniforms looked awfully similar. The Bengals, Paul Brown’s stick-it-to-Modell creation after he was unceremoniously run out of Cleveland, are now playing in their third Super Bowl after losing to the 49ers in 1981 and ’88. The Browns, meanwhile, are still waiting.
— Speaking of vindication, there is the little matter of Bill Belichick. It seems like a hundred years ago now, but Belichick cut his NFL head coaching teeth in Cleveland, leading the Browns from 1991-95 — their last head coach before the franchise moved to Baltimore. Belichick became infamous in Cleveland for things such as “Metcalf Up The Middle,” Bernie Kosar’s “diminishing skills” at quarterback and snarky statements to the media following a loss like “you saw the game,” with little to no further elaboration. Belichick ran beloved hometown hero Kosar out of Cleveland, releasing him in November 1993, only for the Dallas Cowboys to pick up Kosar as an insurance policy behind starting QB Troy Aikman on their way to winning Super Bowl XXVIII. So while Kosar was busy getting a Super Bowl ring, the Browns were still waiting.
Belichick went 36-44 in his five seasons in Cleveland. Fans and media wanted him out sooner because of what they saw as an unimaginative offense, a generally boring style of football predicated on defense and the running game, and a personality that was as charming as cardboard — on a good day. The exact same traits that Belichick, as coach of the New England Patriots, has parlayed into a record six Super Bowl championships, a record nine Super Bowl appearances overall and a record 31 playoff victories. When it comes to the greatest NFL coach of all time discussion, it begins and ends with Bill Belichick. And his Patriots are the greatest NFL dynasty of all time, surpassing even Pittsburgh’s “Steel Curtain” and its four Super Bowl titles in six years in the 1970s. The man finishes eight games under .500 in Cleveland, then goes on to win more Super Bowls than any coach in history in New England. While the Browns are still waiting.
— Which brings us to the Baltimore Ravens, a topic worth revisiting. In their fifth season in Baltimore after bolting from Cleveland, Modell finally got his coveted Super Bowl victory when the Ravens beat the Giants in Super Bowl XXXV after the 2000 season. They added another championship when they beat the 49ers in Super Bowl XLVII after the 2012 season. Browns fans see it as the ultimate injustice: the villain who stole their team triumphantly hoisting the Vince Lombardi Trophy in another city, while their Browns are still waiting.
— If the Bengals are the Browns’ evil twin, then the Pittsburgh Steelers are their cruel big brother, pummeling and punishing them with disturbing regularity and getting everything Cleveland wants but can’t seem to have. The Steelers have six Super Bowl victories to their credit (tied with the Patriots for the most ever) and eight Super Bowl appearances overall — while, of course, the Browns are still waiting.
But it’s worse than that. The Steelers’ coach during the Steel Curtain heyday of the 1970s, Chuck Noll, not only was from Cleveland — he was born and raised there and attended Benedictine High School — but played for the Browns as a guard and linebacker for Paul Brown from 1953-59. For Browns fans, it was soul-crushing to see one of their own go on to coach the hated Steelers to four Super Bowl victories in four tries — while their team is still waiting.
Yet, it’s even worse than that. The coach who replaced Noll after he retired in 1992, Bill Cowher, brought a long Cleveland Browns pedigree to Pittsburgh with him. Cowher was a linebacker for the Browns from 1980-82 and later an assistant, coaching the Browns’ special teams in 1985 and ’86 and defensive backs in 1987 and ’88. Just when it seemed he was being groomed to eventually become the Browns’ head coach, Cowher landed in Pittsburgh and coached the Steelers to 10 playoff appearances, eight division titles and two Super Bowl appearances, including a victory over the Seahawks in Super Bowl XL after the 2005 season. It barely helps salve the wound for Browns fans that Cowher is a Pittsburgh native. All that really matters is he played and coached in Cleveland, then led the Steelers to the NFL promised land — while the Browns are still waiting.
— Noll and Cowher are members of the Pro Football Hall of Fame. As is Don Shula, who attended Harvey High School in Painesville, played college football at John Carroll and then two seasons as a defensive back with the Browns in 1951 and ’52. Shula took what he learned from Paul Brown and became the NFL’s all-time winningest coach with 347 career victories from 1963 to 1995. He took the Baltimore Colts to one Super Bowl before building one of the NFL’s great dynasties in Miami, leading the Dolphins to five Super Bowl appearances, including three in a row from 1971-73. Miami was victorious in the latter two, including a 17-0 season in 1972 that still stands as the NFL’s only perfect season. Shula was the first coach to reach six Super Bowls, while the Browns are still waiting.
Over the last half-century, players and coaches have honed their craft in Cleveland, only for Browns faithful to maddeningly watch them lead other cities’ teams to the Super Bowl. Even the timing has been exasperating: Unlike most professional sports teams, the Browns were great right from the start, a model football franchise glittering with championships from their birth in 1946 right up to the mid-1960s — then inexplicably stopping on a dime at the dawn of the Super Bowl era. Yet, it’s not like the Browns haven’t come close to stepping foot in the NFL’s Holy Land. They were one victory away from the Super Bowl in the 1968, 1969, 1986, 1987 and 1989 seasons. But they are still waiting.
As a gleeful, awestruck 10-year-old boy darting across the Dix Stadium grass that sunny July day in 1978, I couldn’t have imagined in my wildest nightmares that, four-plus decades later, I would be staring out the window at a glum, snow-covered landscape as a 53-year-old man getting ready to watch the Rams and Bengals play in the NFL’s 56th Super Bowl — while the Browns are still waiting.
But at least I have those autographs.
Tom Hardesty is a Portager sports columnist. He was formerly assistant sports editor at the Record-Courier and author of the book Glimpses of Heaven.