One of the most iconic blunders in sports, 'The Fumble,' happened on this day in history
Believe it or not, there was a time when it was heartbreaking to be a Cleveland Browns fan.
And we’re not talking about recently, when the Browns followed up a dreadful 1-15 season in 2016 by going winless this year.
Yes, being the laughingstock of professional football is depressing. But feeling like the football gods are against you is just as hopeless of a feeling.
That was the case in the 1980s for Browns fans, whose team was really, really good for a period of time. In fact, Cleveland made it to three AFC championship games in four years.
You’ll notice we didn’t mention a Super Bowl appearance. That’s because the Browns never won any of those AFC title games. They faced John Elway and the Denver Broncos three times and lost, three times.
The first two of those losses were gut punches for Browns fans. In the 1986 AFC title game in Cleveland, Elway led the Broncos on a 98-yard scoring drive in the fourth quarter to tie the game at 20-20. Denver went on to win in overtime, 23-20.
A year later, the teams met in a rematch in Denver on Jan. 18, 1988.
Browns fans didn’t have much to cheer about early in this contest, with Denver grabbing a 21-3 lead at halftime. But quarterback Bernie Kosar led Cleveland to four consecutive scoring drives, and early in the fourth quarter the game was tied at 31.
Elway put Denver back on top 38-31 with less than four minutes to play, but Kosar and the Browns marched down the field and seemed on the cusp of tying the game.
With just over a minute to play, Cleveland had the ball on Denver’s 8-yard line. Kosar handed the ball to star running back Ernest Byner, who went around the left side of the line. He avoided a Broncos tackler at the 4-yard line and had only one more Bronco — defensive back Jeremiah Castille — standing between him and the end zone.
Browns fans watched as Byner carried Castille with him into the end zone, but what they didn’t see right away was that Castille had poked the ball away from Byner.
As players began diving to the ground at the 2-yard line, the nightmare became apparent — Byner had fumbled, Denver had recovered, and Cleveland’s next best chance at finally making it to the Super Bowl had again fallen painfully short.
After watching their Super Bowl hopes crushed a year earlier by “The Drive,” Browns fans now had to live with one of their favorite players — Byner — being the goat of what has become known as “The Fumble.”
Two years later, the Browns made it to the AFC title game one more time, and again they were beaten by the Broncos 37-21.
It was little consolation to Cleveland fans that Denver went to three Super Bowls at their expense and lost all three.
In the years that have passed, Cleveland had to endure something more painful than Byner’s fumble or a winless season. Owner Art Modell moved the franchise to Baltimore after the 1995 season. That team became known as the Ravens.
The NFL allowed a new Browns franchise to begin play in Cleveland in 1999. The post-Modell version of the Browns has had just two winning seasons and is one of just four NFL teams — joining the Lions, Texans and Jaguars — to have never played in a Super Bowl.
Meanwhile, the Ravens have won two Super Bowls since the franchise went from Cleveland to Baltimore, and Byner, who spent his last two seasons with the Ravens, was the inducted into the team’s Ring of Honor in 2001.
As painful as memories of “The Fumble” are for Byner and all Browns fans, they can at least look back and remember the days when their favorite team was considered one of the best in the NFL.
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