It felt like the good times were back in Cleveland. After inheriting a 3-13 team in 1991, a young head coach named Bill Belichick had overseen steady improvement. In 1994, that led to a playoff appearance and advancement. The franchise’s most recent era of success—the Dawg Pound Days led by Bernie Kosar and Marty Schottenheimer […]
Bill Belichick became a staple of the NFL playoffs during his legendary 21st century tenure in New England. But his first trip to the postseason came with the 1994 Cleveland Browns. Following a 3-13 disaster in 1990, the Browns tapped Belichick, fresh off coordinating the defense of the Super Bowl champion New York Giants. At […]
The good run the Cleveland Browns enjoyed through the latter part of the 1980s had come to a crashing end with a disastrous 1990 season. That meant it was time for a coaching change and the Browns hit the jackpot—they hired a New York Giants assistant by the name of Bill Belichick. In turn, Belichick […]
To young football fans, the Browns struggling through an awful season is pretty much par for the course. But the world of 1990 was different. In that world, the Browns were coming off a strong decade, where they made the playoffs each year from 1985-89, including three appearances in the AFC Championship Game. The complete […]
The 1980s Cleveland Browns were the high point in the modern era of a franchise that hasn’t enjoyed much success since winning three championships in the first half of the 1950s and again in 1964. When the Super Bowl era arrived in the NFL, the Browns disappeared from its biggest games. But in the 1980s, […]
After four years of regular success and playoff disappointment, the 1989 Cleveland Browns opted for new leadership. In ways both good and bad, the season looked a lot like what had come before it. GREAT 1980s SPORTS MOMENTSStart reading today. Marty Schottenheimer coached Cleveland from 1985-88 and made the postseason all four times. Playoff heartbreak came […]
The 1988 Cleveland Browns were hungry for a Super Bowl breakthrough. The first three years of Marty Schottenheimer’s tenure had ended in postseason heartbreak. The Browns lost a crusher to the Dolphins in 1985. They lost two of the most famous endings in AFC Championship Game history to the Broncos in both 1986 and 1987. […]
The 1987 Cleveland Browns came into the season off consecutive playoff appearances, but with each one ending in heartbreak. In 1985, they lost an AFC divisional round game in Miami after leading 21-3. In 1986, they lost an AFC Championship Game at home to Denver when the Broncos drove 98 yards in the final five […]
The 1986 Cleveland Browns came closer than any team has in franchise history to reaching the Super Bowl. After a stellar regular season and an epic playoff win, it took the signature moment from one of the NFL’s signature players to deny them at least a chance at the Vince Lombardi Trophy. GREAT 1980s SPORTS […]
The football-crazed city of Cleveland was hungry in 1980—maybe not starving, as is the case today—but the Browns were on a bit of a dry spell. After making the playoffs in 1971-72, Cleveland had been out of the money, while the rival Pittsburgh Steelers won four Super Bowls in that same timeframe. The 1980 Cleveland Browns returned to the playoffs and in memorable fashion, with a series of exciting wins that gave them the nickname “The Kardiac Kids”
No team had ever won four postseason games prior to the 1980 NFL season, although was just the third year of the wild-card round, so the opportunities to do so had been pretty limited. It was the 1980 Oakland Raiders that were the first team to do what is now fairly common, as they took the long path to a Super Bowl win.
The organization that chased Marty Schottenheimer after the 1988 season because he only made the playoffs, but not the Super Bowl, was desperate for anything even resembling those excellent Brown teams of the late 1980s, coached by Schottenheimer and led by quarterback Bernie Kosar.