Watching a 1980 Browns-Bengals game that I missed on account of my mom was taking my sister and me to The Nutcracker on a frigid Ohio Sunday 45 years ago yesterday.
God, damn.
It was a very important game in a very important season, for me—the “Kardiac Kids” year, and the year I fell in love with sports, and the Browns.
The last of the season and one game after a total last-minute heartbreak on the frozen tundra in Minneapolis. Now we’re on the frozen turf in Cincinnati.
As I finally watch it now on YouTube tonight, it suddenly feels like it is a very important game. Important to the inner sixth-grader who still powers my soul.
Important to the Browns, too. They need to win to make the playoffs.
Maybe that’s why, on the Bengals’ first drive, Browns’ safety Thom Darden almost beheaded Bengals’ receiver Pat McInally in a hit that would rank decades later as one of the dirtiest hits of all time.
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“We’re going to require a stretcher to remove McInally from the field,” NBC play-by-play man Dick Enberg says, before trying to explain Darden’s vicious hit. “And when you get in a game of such importance … these men have been playing since July to ready themselves for a potential playoff … Thom Darden, who’s a fine man, one of the most likable guys you’d ever wanna meet, he like every one of the Browns, they all know how important it is for them to win … I’m sure if he had it to do all over again, he would not have done it quite that way.”
McInally is still lying on the field, more than 10 minutes later.
Soon after play resumes, color commentator Merlin Olsen worries whether Thom Darden will be able to get over McInally’s apparently profound injury. “I’m certain, again … had he been given an opportunity to go back and hit McInally in a different way, he certainly would have done it, because, even if the blow was a very aggressive one, and even a vicious one, I’m sure it was unintentional.”
The Bengals come away from their long opening drive with a field goal by placekicker Jim Breach, who Enberg has mockingly told us, has a men’s shoe size of six.
Enberg, after a commercial break: “As the Browns take the field, a quick word on Pat McInally, confirmed that it is a neck injury. X-rays are being undertaken at the moment.”
There is hatred in this Bengals’ team that goes far deeper than what just happened to Pat McInally. The Bengals were founded by Paul Brown. Paul Brown, who had first founded the Browns in 1948 and made them almost as proud, in their day, as the New York Yankees or the Boston Celtics. And then was fired in 1963 by a new Browns owner named Art Modell who would go on to move the Browns out of Cleveland to Baltimore, and put them in purple fucking uniforms. Anyway, every Bengals game against the Browns has been a revenge game, and this one is a big one.
And so the vengeful Bengals defense stops the Browns. The Browns stop the Bengals. The Bengals stop the Browns. My mom and sister and I were probably being seated at about this point, by the ushers at E.J. Thomas Hall.
Back at Riverfront Stadium, Enberg addresses a nutty stunt from NBC the day before: an “annoucerless” Saturday game between the mediocre Miami Dolphins and the beleaguered New York Jets. What did a game without announcers show Enberg, about how essential he and his ilk were to the experience of watching sports? Enberg: “Basically, my feeling was this: It made me realize, Merlin, that we have a tremendous responsibility. We’re a necessary element, and we have to work harder than we do.”
The Bengals are driving under their backup quarterback Jack Thompson, “the Throwin’ Samoan.” Who is now down after a hard hit, wobbly and struggling to get off the field in time for a punt.
After one quarter, Bengals lead, 3-0.
Browns quarterback Brian Sipe throws a wonderful long pass to lanky Dave Logan, which Logan runs to the Bengals 20 yard line. Only to have the usually reliable Sipe fumble the ball back to the Bengals on the very next play.
Where is the Sugar Plum Fairy when you need him or her?
And now the Bengals drive to score a touchdown to make it 10-0. A nutcracker, indeed.
Enberg: “Pat McInally, what a good picture that is! Hallelujah.”
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The Browns are holding onto their own asses, on their own end. Now they are across the fifty. Near the forty. And a 42-yard bomb from Sipe to Reggie Rucker, easy score. “And with seven minutes six seconds left in the first half, the Cincinnati Bengals 10, and the Browns seven.”
The Bengals’ drive fails and who comes in to punt but Pat McInally, who is the Bengals’ punter as well as a receiver. He gets vaguely “roughed” by the Browns and fake-limps off the field with an Irish smile on his face as the Bengals retain possession of the ball.
(Are you agreeing with me that this game is getting a little weird?)
The Bengals and Browns trade a few blows and it looks like the first half is about to end. But a late Browns punt bounces off a Bengal’s leg and the Browns take over at the Bengals’ nine yard line with 34 seconds left in the half. An incomplete pass. “Twenty-nine seconds left,” Enberg says. Another incomplete pass; third down, with 24 seconds remaining. The third-down pass: also incomplete. But straight-ahead kicker Don Cockroft boots one through and ties the game at 10. We go to the half.
A wee Browns kick returner named Dino Hall—5’7”!—brings the second-half kickoff back to the Bengals’ 48.
Oh God. Bengals’ cornerback Ray Griffin intercepts a Sipe pass and returns it 54 yards for a Bengal touchdown. Bad guys lead, 17-10.
I wonder if Mom, also surely bored at the Akron fucking ballet, snuck a drink at intermission. I would have, if I was her. (And I am, right now.)
And Sipe hits wide receiver Ricky Feacher on another bomb, to tie the game again.
The Bengals start to drive but the Browns intercept a pass and threaten now. Sipe completes another long touchdown pass to Ricky Feacher. Browns lead, 24-17.
The camera alights on “Arthur Modell,” as Enberg calls him, who “watches with intense interest. Not only the pride of championships or playoffs but the financial matters also associated with a victory today.”
McInally is back in the game at wide receiver; makes a big catch for a first down before the Bengals’ drive bogs down and McInally has to punt. They do seem to be asking a lot of this lad.
The Browns offer a weak punt and the Bengals take over at the Browns’ 38-yard-line. They drive to the Browns’ 15 yard line, creating an easy field goal opportunity for “little Jim Breach,” who misses with a duck-snort smother hook to the left. Browns still lead, 24-17.
“Wasn’t many years ago that if you showed up on the field with gloves on your hands, they called you a sissy,” the retired defensive lineman Olsen points out, after a begloved Browns’ receiver Willis Adams drops a Sipe pass. “But most of the receivers, most of the linemen and plenty of the linebackers on cold days now wear a new kind of glove that really does allow for a good grip on the football.” Sissies.
Sipe is sacked for a huge loss, the Browns have to punt and the teams go back to exchanging blows. This game is not going to resolve itself easily.
The Throwin’ Samoan throws a game-tying touchdown bomb to … wait for it … Pat McInally. “An incredible catch … for a touchdown!” Enberg yells. “Oh my!”
In the annals of compelling regular season games in NFL history, this one is unjustly forgotten. Was everybody at the fucking Nutcracker on this day?
Browns drive into Cincinnati territory and punt. Cincinnati drives to the Browns’ 34 yard line. Was I begging my mom to put the game on the Subaru radio by this point? If so, I heard that the resurrected Pat McInally just caught another pass, down to the Browns’ 22. And now who but the game’s Most Villainous Player Thom Darden intercepts a pass, returning it to the 31 yard line. This game!
Now Sipe throws an interception. The Bengals punt. The Browns drive—there’s around five minutes left in the game. They’re down to the Bengals’ 18 with three minutes left. Now to the four yard line. Kicker Cockroft comes in with 1:29 left to try a 19-yard field goal. It’s good.
Injured Bengals’ starter Ken Anderson comes in to try to lead the Bengals on a last-minute drive. After several completions, Anderson has the Bengals down to the Browns’ 34. He completes a pass to the Browns’ 14 but time runs out, “And the Browns are in the playoffs!” Enberg exults, calling them “the most romantic team in the National Football League.”
In two weeks, the most romantic team will be eliminated from the playoffs by the least romantic team, in one of the bitterest days in Cleveland’s hemlockian sports history.)
But this victory was as sweet as a sugar plum. I’m sorry I missed it.
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