Written by Greg Popelka

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The Cleveland Browns were back in first place. They had reached the AFC Championship game three times in recent years, only to fall on hard times and bottom out as a last-place team by 1990. Upon signing young defensive mind Bill Belichick from the Super Bowl champion New York Giants, owner Art Modell now had (according to his public pronouncements) the last head coach he would ever hire in Belichick, along with the quarterback he considered a son in the wildly popular Bernie Kosar.

1993 saw the Browns jump quickly out of the gate. Game Two was a big home upset of the high-powered San Francisco 49ers. They would go 3-0 with a last-second road win over the Los Angeles Raiders.

Throughout much of the afternoon, it appeared the lifeless Browns offense would be unable to muster a score against the Raiders. To start the fourth quarter, Belichick substituted backup quarterback Vinny Testaverde for Kosar. Testaverde led the Browns to a 41-yard Matt Stover field goal, but things still appeared grim. Down 16-3, Testaverde (who had also backed up Kosar at the University of Miami) led the Browns to 2 late touchdowns. The last score came on a nail-biter, an Eric Metcalf sweep with two seconds remaining. Browns win!

As Browns fans are fully aware, this story involves an instance of a football player who publicly flouts the authority of his head coach. Let’s have a little fun with that theme. We all have stories from our past that make us smile; many involve activities that ran contrary to the ‘rules’. I’d like to share with you a couple of mine today.

The next game was in Indianapolis, where the Browns found themselves down 6-0 at halftime.  To begin the third quarter, Kosar was removed in favor of Testaverde, who drove the Browns to a touchdown in four plays. Cleveland’s lead was short-lived, as they fell to the Colts.

Vinnie Testaverde was inserted as quarterback for the third straight game, against Dan Marino and the Miami Dolphins. The Browns had led the game at the half, 14-10. Their fans had relaxed a bit as Marino suffered a ruptured Achilles tendon. Unfortunately, the meter on their emotions pegged at “horror” as Dolphins backup Scott Mitchell led Miami to two touchdowns and a victory. (This game ‘earned’ Mitchell a rich free agent contract in the offseason, although he’d never play this well again.)

Once, when I was in about 6^thgrade (so this would have been, say, 1973), there was a serious kid by the name of Richard who was maybe the smartest person I knew. He got teased some for not being the coolest kid, but he was fun enough to be around. 

“Wait- do that again!!!” Two or three of us had jumped up and were in Richard’s face. We had snapped to attention when we saw him shoot a BB about twenty five feet- from what appeared to be a closed fist.  He reached into his pocket and produced a new BB. He inserted it into a tube, pushed it down with a long narrow pin, and shot it at the side of the brick school building. 

“Let me see that!!!” He opened his hand, and showed us. It was a transparent, Bic pen. The insides had been removed, and a spring rested against the cap at the back end. When Richard inserted a BB into the writing end of the pen (now empty), it landed on the spring. He used a long, thin needle- perhaps a small knitting needle- to tamp the BB down, compressing the spring. For some reason, those pens had (have?) a tiny hole halfway up the side. Richard stuck a pin into that hole and through the end of the spring near the BB. When he removed the pin, the spring released and the BB shot out of the pen. Ingenious. 

“Make me one!!!” Each of us came to school the next day with BBs, and the correct type of Bic pen. Richard had springs, pins, and needles. We shot at the brick wall, at pine cones, at trees… 

This was one of those moments when the geeks became the coolest kids at school. Several boys began bringing pens, pins, needles, springs and BBs to school. Richard fashioned maybe a dozen shooters. Our teacher, Sister Adelaide, quietly noted the collection of BBs that began to appear on the classroom floor. They collected around her desk, at the front of the room, near the chalkboard wall. 

“I have an announcement to make,” Sister Adelaide told the class one day. She had our attention. “I have a friend at the FBI. They are able to take fingerprints from small items. They are going to identify who is responsible for all of the BBs that have been appearing lately.” 

Of course, it was a bluff. But we were naïve, and we bought the story (wistfully: “it was a simple time…”). Obviously, the 'hammer' had to come down, sometime. Anyway, she had every student in the class walk up to her desk, one at a time. It was our only chance to own up to the BBs; we were to tell her if we were responsible. It was our chance to avoid big trouble. Each boy walked up, said no, and returned to his desk (I think she had boys go “first”.) When Richard walked up, he remained at Sister Adelaide’s desk, with his back to the class. Their hushed conversation was longer than any of the others. Surely, he confessed. 

This was quickly confirmed. I don’t recall Richard getting into a whole lot of trouble. Life pretty much went on as before. As I reflect on Richard and Sister Adelaide, I assume she laid down the law, and also tried to channel his curiosity and resourcefulness. Good for her, and for Richard.

Bill Belichick, who liked to declare that he could “only go by what I see”, was sufficiently impressed by what he’d seen in Vinny Testaverde. Kosar was benched in favor of Testaverde for the next game, in Cincinnati. Nobody could dispute the results of that game: a 28-17 win to sweep the Bengals. Testaverde had staked the Browns to a 21-0 lead as they coasted to the easy win.

But the Cleveland fans- and media- were restless. Some Browns fans’ opinion was that Kosar was pouting; many didn’t agree, and to hardly any did it matter. He'd earned the right to be our quarterback. I still maintain that had the Browns focused on keeping the offensive line stocked, he could have been a Hall of Fame quarterback. He was extremely accurate, could throw it far enough, and he often rose to the occasion in a big game. And nobody every claimed he lacked the brainpower.

The Pittsburgh Steelers came to Cleveland for Game 7, with first place in the AFC Central up for grabs. Cleveland led, 14-0, before falling behind 23-21 in the fourth quarter.  Vinnie Testaverde had two touchdown passes to his credit, but was sidelined late in the game with a separated shoulder. Bernie Kosar entered the game to a deafening chorus from the home fans.

The Browns beat the Steelers, to take first place. But it wasn’t due to the heroics of the favorite son, Kosar. The hero on this day was Eric Metcalf. Cleveland’s electric punt returner scored on two long returns, the final dagger coming with about two minutes remaining in the game. The division-leading Browns were sky-high as their bye week approached.

Do you remember the biggest laugh you ever had, in your life? 

Once, maybe in 4^th grade, we boys were seated at the portable, rectangular tables in the gym. It was lunch time. The stern directive at that time was that no blowing of straw wrappers was allowed. It was a big deal, so it must have gotten out of hand at one point. Anyway, everyone had finished eating, and the gym was getting louder and louder with shouting and other various sounds kids make. Typical stuff. Amid the din, one boy- Danny-  produced a straw, with the paper wrapper intact. He tore away an end, slid the wrapper down about one inch, and twisted the loose portion. A few of us noticed, and waited to see if he had the guts to ‘do it’. We wanted him to, of course. We looked around, and no teachers were in sight. Only Larry, the quiet, easygoing janitor was there, leaning against the wall in the opening to the hallway. He was wearing his typical garb, a work shirt and pants not unlike those of a gas station employee. He wasn’t really watching us- he left us alone for the most part. He was probably just waiting for lunch to end so he could haul away the trash. 

It was like a scene from a movie, when the noise fades to background buzz as the concentration of a few becomes focused. Danny put the straw to his mouth, tilted his head straight back, and blew. The wrapper rocketed upward, toward the high ceiling of the gym. We watched as it crested, then began its descent. It headed over toward the hallway. Toward Larry. The wrapper shot straight down- and buried itself halfway into Larry’s shirt pocket. We waited for a second; Larry had been looking the other way, and hadn’t noticed it! We looked around the table, to see who had watched this one-in-a-million shot. A couple of us started giggling. Within a few seconds, all the boys knew. Our laughter began to take on a life of its own. Nobody was laughing at Larry, but we shot looks his way. He eyed us and chuckled some, and remained leaning against the wall. Some of us were laughing so hard we tried to stop. We couldn’t breathe, and our stomachs hurt. Finally, one of the boys looked at Larry and pointed to his shirt. Larry looked down, pulled out the straw wrapper, and began laughing as well.

With Testaverde out with the injured shoulder, Bernie Kosar got the Game 8 home start against John Elway and the Denver Broncos. The final score was 29-14, but the game was not even that close. With nine seconds remaining, Kosar threw a bomb to WR Michael Jackson for a touchdown – it was soon disclosed that in a move designed to defy his head coach, Kosar had drawn up the play in the dirt, in the huddle. The Browns’ coaches did not have input into the play.

The very next day, Bill Belichick cut Bernie Kosar. He’d had his fill of the veteran starter, and had convinced Art Modell and the rest of the team brass; the decision was announced as “unanimous”. Belichick’s phrase, “diminishing skills”, would echo through the annals of Browns history, perhaps forever.

A huge problem Belichick had in cutting Kosar was that Vinnie Testaverde was still out with the shoulder. Third string quarterback Todd Philcox was tabbed to start the next game, at Seattle. The Browns committed seven (7) turnovers in a thoroughly disgusting display, and finished the season losing six of their final eight games.

Thousands of Browns fans were- and perhaps remain- outraged. Belichick’s pyrrhic victory over the local icon was viewed by observers against the backdrop of the coach’s intentional, general dismissing of media and fans since his arrival in 1991. Also, this was all done within the context of Modell’s general modus operandi of running the Browns with public relations in mind. “Bill Must Go” chants (from the stands, to outside the stadium, to the home locker room  entrance) surfaced throughout the 1995 season, the year when Art Modell moved the team to Baltimore after having recently lobbied to keep the NFL from inserting an expansion team in that city.

Kosar would be picked up by the Dallas Cowboys, subbing for QB Troy Aikman in a key backup role for the Super Bowl champions. He later 'took his talents to South Beach', notably suggesting a successful ‘fake spike’ play on which Dan Marino and Mark Ingram connected for a key touchdown.

Years later, surprised fans would leard that when Al Lerner and Carmen Policy were assembling an expansion franchise in the wake of Modell's move of the team, Bernie Kosar offered his opinion on whom they should hire as head coach: Bill Belichick. The incredulous braintrust declined.

Thank you for reading. Sources included the cleveland.com game database, the Cleveland Browns website summary of the 1993 season by Steve King, Wikipedia.