Scott Scherer: ‘The Last Days of the Old Cleveland Browns’

Source:Scott Sherer- that famous 1987 AFC Championship Game between the Cleveland Browns and Denver Broncos, with Browns RB Earnest Byner's fumble.

Source:The Daily Journal

“With the recent start to the football season, Art Modell’s passing, and the recent showing of “Cleveland ’95” (NFL)

on the NFL Network, it seemed timely to put this video I made up for viewing. When I first heard the song “These Days”, the storyline of the Browns immediately came to mind.

“But its alright, yea its alright, say its alright…easy for you to say”

From Scott Sherer

This looks more like the story of the 1990s Browns before they relocated to Baltimore and became the Ravens and the New Browns came into existence in 1999. To me this looks like the story of the Bill Belichick Browns which is a good story because it’s about a guy who was getting his first shot as a NFL head coach and something he deserved, but he inherited a bad football team in 1991.

Coach Belichick’s first season where the good days of the Browns of the 1980s were gone and they had become a team that you could expect to lose ten plus games every year. And Bill Belichick didn’t get off to a good start in Cleveland. And started with three straight losing seasons from 1991-93 where progress was slow, but where it finally paid off.

In 1994 the Browns becoming winners and a playoff team for the first time in five years. But financial problems in Cleveland with the Browns playing at a mammoth, aging, stadium in Cleveland Municipal Stadium and these issues were real and the Browns simply wouldn’t have been successful in Cleveland playing in that stadium.

Jesse Shipp: Don Coryell- The Air Coryell Chargers

Source:Jesse Shipp with an NFL Films clip about former NFL head coach Don Coryell.

 
Source:The Daily Journal

“A short video about Don Coryell from the “History Of The San Diego Chargers”

From Jesse Shipp

I wouldn’t put the 1981 San Diego Chargers on the NFL Films list of teams that didn’t win Super Bowls, that would’ve and what they call Missing Rings. For the simple fact that they didn’t have a Super Bowl team, they had a Super Bowl passing game.

But so did the San Francisco 49ers, Los Angeles Raiders, Washington Redskins all teams that had Super Bowl passing games. But all teams that won Super Bowls in the 1980s because they had Super Bowl teams. They all had great running games as well as great defenses so they didn’t have to score 30-35 points a game and get into shootouts to win.

Great teams are able to put up a lot of points, when their defense has a bad game, or when they are blowing their opponents away that much it was, because they were blowing teams away because their defense is also playing well.

The Chargers at least of 1981 and look at their playoff games of 1982, 1980 and 1979 and when they became playoff contenders in 1978, they were a passing team without a great running game, at least at playoff time that struggled on defense in the playoffs as well.

So I would put the Chargers in the level of the Miami Dolphins of the early and mid-1980s. Great quarterback and receivers, but not much else that stands out as being part of a great team.

I would put the 1981 Chargers on a list of teams that what would’ve been if they had a good defense as well. And then maybe we are talking about the 1981 Chargers like we are talking about the 1999 St. Louis Rams. A team with basically the exact same offense, but with a great running game as well and also one of the best defenses in the NFL in 1999.

What Air-Coryell was, is basically what I call the Spread Vertical Offense: where basically everyone on offense except for of course the QB and offensive line, are receivers and targets in the passing game where you throw the ball to everyone all over the field.

With a spread offense the defense has to cover the whole field, but where there’s at least one deep option on every pass play sending at least one corner back to go downfield. And hopefully a safety as well leaving the rest field open to other players for the QB to get the ball too.

The problem with the Air-Coryell version of the SVO is that it was a warm dry weather offense. That once the weather goes bad, the Chargers running game wasn’t good enough to pick up the slack for the passing game struggling. When the defenses know that you have to run the ball. The 1981 AFC Final against the Cincinnati Bengals otherwise known as The Freezer Bowl, perfect example.

The reason why the Chargers lost the 1981 AFC Final to the Cincinnati Bengals in what’s known as the Freezer Bowl, horrible football weather is because the Bengals were a big running team that got their big pass plays off of play-action with QB Ken Anderson. That were better defensively and a tougher team than the Chargers and well-suited to win in bad weather.

The Chargers were too single-dimensional, too reliant on the passing game to win. With not enough of a running game and defense to pick up the slack when the passing game was off.

NBC Sports: NFL 1980-AFC Final-Oakland Raiders @ San Diego Chargers: Dick Enberg Intro

Source:NBC Sports intro for the 1980 AFC Championship.

Source:The Daily Journal

“Battle of the Bay. Chargers and Raiders. AFC Championship Game. The great Dick Enberg on the mic with the late great Merlin Olsen. Also notice the fan showing a poster with the N logo even though NBC already switched to a new logo (not bright) 

I OWN NOTHING!! EVERYTHING BELONGS TO NBC/COMCAST/NFL AND ONLY THEM!!”

From Jean

Dick Enberg with a real good intro here. Not his best, but I believe he was one of the better announcers at the intro because of his voice, his passion for sports, perhaps especially football and he knew what he was talking about as well. So he brought a realness to his work.

As far as this game, I wish I could’ve found something more than just this intro, but this was all that was available at this time. But the Raiders-Chargers AFC Final was a classic matchup of a very good and talented, well-coached intelligent team in the Raiders. Against a very explosive offense especially in their passing game in the Chargers. Who also had a good running game, but never played enough defense to get actually get to a Super Bowl. And still have only been to one Super Bowl in their entire history.

NFL Films: The Kansas City Chiefs Super Bowl Highlights

Source:NFL Films- Kansas City Chiefs WR Otis Taylor catching a 42 yard TD pass from QB Len Dawson.

Source:The Daily Journal

“Yesterday Kansas City beat Green Bay, ending the Packer’s 19-game winning streak. This video shows another notable Packers vs. Chiefs game along with the Chiefs other Super Bowl appearance.”

From Gwllyamz

This is going to sound simplistic, but it is so true and important that I have to say it anyway: The difference between the 1966 Kansas City Chiefs and the 1969 Kansas City Chiefs, is that the 69 Chiefs won the Super Bowl.

And why do I say that? Because the 69 Chiefs knew what it was like to lose a Super Bowl on national TV and most of the players on the 66 team were also on the 69 team.

The 69 Chiefs knew that just getting to the Super Bowl was not enough. Or just getting to the Super Bowl and playing a good first half was not enough. That if you didn’t actually win the game, you failed and didn’t accomplish your ultimate goal which was to win the Super Bowl.

There is no second place in the Super Bowl. You either win it or you lose it and that was one of the motivators that served the 69 Chiefs very well in Super Bowl 4.