The 1980 season wasn’t the most successful in Browns history.
To be sure, the Browns did a lot of great things that year, winning 11 of their last 14 games after an 0-2 start to finish 11-5 and capture the AFC Central championship for the first time in nine years. It also marked their first playoff appearance in eight seasons.
That’s an incredible accomplishment, especially considering the strength of the division at that time with the presence of the Pittsburgh Steelers and Houston Oilers, who had met in the AFC Championship Game in both 1978 and ’79.
But there is one important category in which the 1980 club is, without question, No. 1 in Browns history -- better than any team, even the ones that claimed league championships.
And that category is excitement. No Browns team has provided as much of that as did the one exactly three decades ago in 1980.
The Browns had justifiably earned the nickname of “Kardiac Kids” in 1979, but it wasn’t until ’80 that the tag became indelibly linked to the team. A total of 13 of the 16 regular-season games that year were decided in the final two minutes. It becomes 14 of 17 if you include the divisional playoff contest against the Oakland Raiders.
Those weren’t really football games the Browns were involved in that year as much as they were good theatre segmented into three-hour acts performed mostly on Sunday afternoons.
The Browns would start off the games well, only to encounter a series of struggles or other unfortunate circumstances that put them squarely behind the eight-ball. Like those old westerns, the Browns would be tied to the railroad tracks with the train bearing down on them. All seemed lost, and then at the last possible second, they would miraculously free themselves and live to play another week.
And each time, it seemed, it would be a different hero, as if the players had lined up in some well-rehearsed, pre-determined form to take their turns in the limelight.
Every week, when it became evident that the Browns were headed for yet another one of those fantastic finishes, their longtime radio play-by-play announcer at the time, the late, great, Gib Shanley would turn to his color analyst and say, “Buckle your seatbelt, Jim Mueller. Here we go again.”
The fans listening to the game on the radio would use that as a cue to buckle theirs, too.
And all these years later, fans are still holding on tight. They haven’t let go of 1980, or its memories. They can’t. Their hearts -- still pounding like a drum -- won’t let them do it.
That’s why the shelf-life of the 1980 season remains fresh and vibrant to this day. Any time that members of the Kardiac Kids make a personal appearance, fans, their hair now gray or graying and maybe their weight and/or gait being not quite what it was back in the day, show up in droves. They carry with them frayed and yellowing programs, pennants, photos or other memorabilia, hoping to meet their heroes and get an autograph, an autograph not to sell on e-Bay, but to take home and cherish for their very own. Indeed, there’s not enough money in the world to pry the heirloom-like items away from those people.
But why was – and is – 1980 so special?
In a lot of respects, the fans saw in the Browns that year a little of themselves. Those players had been told over and over by coaches, scouts and personnel people through the years that they didn’t have enough of this, and had too much of that, to make it in the NFL. But that didn’t dissuade those players one bit from coming together, working hard and over-achieving as one, especially in that Kardiac Kids season.
Life is like that sometimes, with many more naysayers than cheerleaders in our ears and faces, but you can’t let it defeat you. The 1980 Browns didn’t, and that served as an inspiration to a Cleveland community that, with the city going into default and the Cuyahoga River catching on fire, making a laughingstock of the entire area and all its people, needed a real pick-me-up emotionally.
The 1980 Browns weren’t just beating the odds and winning games, but were doing so in such a way that it appeared that some higher power had become involved.
Week after week, it was there, left right out in the open purposely as if an inducement to believe that all of was not a dream. It was real.
Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus, and he wore seal brown and orange in 1980.
And to prove it, we’ve gone back, with the assistance of the Browns public relations department, and dug up the official game sheets from 1980. We’re going to use them to write game stories of all 16 regular-season contests.
It’s a trip down memory lane to help commemorate the 30th anniversary of that 1980 season.
As such, this will give younger fans an idea -- and older fans a remembrance -- of how wild, crazy and unforgettable that year really was.
Just be sure, as Gib Shanley said, to buckle your seatbelt, because here we go again.
