Written by Andrew Clayman

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"The Cleveland Browns have never been to the Super Bowl"—or so say the masochists who choose to follow their favorite football team exclusively through the cold, hard lens of reality. For the rest of us, modern technology has provided a much rosier alternative—a recent history literally littered with postseason glory and delusions of accomplishment. These are the 7 Greatest Super Bowls in Browns (Video Game) History. Why seven? I don’t know. Because of touchdowns or something, I guess. Who cares?

#7. Super Bowl XVI: Browns 28, Packers 21
Game: Mattel’s Super Challenge Football for the Atari 2600
Date: November 12, 1982
Player: Timmy Simpson, age 7 (Hudson, OH)

In one of the greatest 5-on-5 Super Bowls ever played, the five blue stick figures that young Timmy Simpson identified as the “Browns” narrowly defeated five yellow stick figures that Simpson decided probably were the Packers. After stick-figure “Bwyan” Sipe found stick-figure Ozzie “Newton” in the end zone in the final seconds for the winning score, Simpson celebrated what he retroactively deemed to have been a Super Bowl triumph, and thus redemption for the Kardiac Kids.

#6. Super Bowl XXXVIII: Browns 105, Panthers 3
Game: Madden 2004
Date: December 4, 2003
Player: Matt Sanders, age 21 (Tiffin, OH)

College senior Matt Sanders had helped turn around the expansion Browns’ fortunes over night, both as team owner and star running back. And in a Super Bowl that the fans in his mind will never forget, Sanders’ unrealistically buff avatar rushed for 421 yards and 9 touchdowns, all while the relentless Cleveland defensive attack somehow held the unstoppable Jake Delhomme in check. The eventual 102-point margin of victory made this the twelfth biggest blowout in Madden Super Bowl history, but for Sanders, the greatest moment came after the game, when he became the first team owner in NFL history to fire his head coach (Butch Davis) during a trophy presentation ceremony. "This one's for Tim!" Sanders shouted as he hoisted the Lombardi trophy, referring to his predictably teary-eyed quarterback, Tim Couch. "And Butch, we've decided to go in another direction for next season. Sorry, Dude."

#5. Super Bowl XXVII: Browns 31, 49ers 21
Game: Tecmo Super Bowl
Date: January 26, 1993
Player: Luke Waggoner, age 16 (Akron, OH)

Between January 22 and January 26, 1993, high school junior Luke Waggoner coached the Cleveland Browns through seven complete NFL seasons. He would have liked to make it seven more, but with his rented copy of Tecmo Super Bowl overdue for return to the video store and his hippie parents unwilling to allow him another “mental health day” off from school, Waggoner had just one crack left at finally getting past the Chiefs’ untacklable Christian Okoye for a shot at the Super Bowl. Eighteen years later, Waggoner still beams with pride when he thinks of how Clay Matthews and the Browns defense stepped up that day, shutting down KC 20-7 in the AFC Championship and coming back later that same afternoon to beat down Joe Montana and the Niners for all the marbles. Waggoner is decidedly less proud, however, of his own brief obsession with peeking up the skirts of the pixilated cheerleaders during the Tecmo Super Bowl Halftime Show. "I knew it was a fruitless enterprise," he later said. "And yet my dedication was as boundless as it was confusing."

#4. Super Bowl XXVI: Browns 10, Lions 7
Game: Madden '92
Date: January 5, 1992
Players: Rebecca Williams, age 12, and Joey Williams, age 10 (Westlake, OH)

It had been over three decades since these storied franchises had last met for the NFL Championship. Now, the drama of Detroit and Cleveland’s magical return to glory was amplified by the fact that the teams were coached by siblings, both of whom were children and one of whom was a girl. Rebecca or “Becca” Williams earned the right to coach the Browns by crushing her brother’s “scissors” with “rock” during pre-game ceremonies. In the game itself, Joey's Lions took an early lead, but when QB Rodney Peete suffered a mild bone bruise in the second quarter, an ambulance driven by a drunken, raving lunatic was tragically dispatched to his aid. By the time Peete had been transported back to the sidelines moments later, four of his teammates had been crushed and killed under the wheels of the emergency vehicle. Fortunately, because of his yet-to-be-diagnosed ADHD, Joey Williams was completely oblivious to this carnage. But he still lost the game to his damn sister-- an embarrassment for the boy but yet another Super Bowl triumph for the Cleveland Browns!

#3. Super Bowl XXXIX: Browns 45, Las Vegas Rattlers 44
Game: Madden 2007
Date: February 1, 2007
Players: Stan Mendelson, age 32, Morris Caruso, age 33 (Cleveland, OH)

There have been several Browns Super Bowls that ruined friendships, but only this epic battle in year 14 of franchise-mode resulted in one man pummeling another into unconsciousness with the butt-end of his controller. After the Mendelson-controlled Bernie Kosar, Jr., had led the Browns on a 92 yard-drive to take a 45-38 lead late in the game, Caruso’s expansion Rattlers were left with 27 seconds to get a miraculous, game-tying score. In typical Madden fashion, this was easily accomplished with a couple halfback options and a Hail Mary toss. On the ensuing extra-point try, however, Browns coach Mendelson playfully jabbed Rattler coach Caruso in the ribs while his kicker (a Caucasian named Santonio Jackson) was on his approach to the football. As a result, Jackson shanked the PAT, giving the Browns the championship and setting the stage for a lawsuit later featured on an episode of "Judge Joe Brown."

#2. Super Bowl XXII: Browns 17, Blue F*ckers 14
Game: 4th and Inches for the Commodore 64
Date: November 30, 1987
Player: Reggie McGarrity, age 28 (Ashtabula, OH)

The red-shirted "Browns" had a fierce rivalry with the blue-shirted “Blue F*ckers” throughout the late ‘80s, and it all started here. Pizza deliveryman/Browns coach Reggie McGarrity initially called his computerized opponents the “Broncos,” in reaction to recent events from a less pleasant reality he’d been seeking to escape. Realizing the Broncos and Browns were both AFC teams, though, he astutely corrected his mistake, providing Cleveland’s foes with a new name befitting both their uniforms and what Reggie perceived to be their general temperament. The Browns and Blue F*ckers also occasionally squared off as "Pizza Hut vs. Dominos" and "The Reggies vs. The Two-Timing Skanks."

#1. Super Bowl V for Vendetta: Browns 42, Ravens 0
Game: Madden ‘97
Date: September 2, 1996
Player: Sam Rhodes, age 30 (Cleveland, OH)

After the Browns moved to Baltimore in 1995, most of Cleveland whined and moaned and eventually just mourned. But not Samuel Rhodes. In Sammy’s enviable universe, the Ravens were forced to earn their right to play in Baltimore by facing the “classic-mode” 1986 Browns in a battle to the death. It might not have technically been the Super Bowl, but it seems silly to just call it an exhibition game, either, since it magically tore a hole in the fabric of space time and eased the hearts and minds of a wounded city. Man, it was awesome, wasn’t it? There were the Ravens, making their Madden debut in those stupid purple uniforms. And here came the Browns of yore, charging on to the field like those ghost-pirates (or pirate ghosts?) from the final big battle scene in the Lord of the Rings. Who can forget the performance of QB #19 that day? Or the punishing ground attack of RB #34? To me, the first big touchdown pass to WR #84 set the tone for the evening, as the ’86 Browns dominated the Ravens from the first whistle to the last. Hell, who’s to say it wasn’t the Super Bowl? I can hear John Madden’s jowls flapping approval even now: "Boom, Ace is the Place and the Browns are the Super Bowl Champs... AGAIN!"