The Fumble

It's Super Bowl week, and I can only write so much about Pedro Feliz. So here's a little football nostalgia.

There’s The Play (I was there), The Catch (I shoulda been there), The Drive (1986 AFC Championship Game) and The Fumble (1987 AFC Championship Game). I imagine there is another “The” out there, but my focus today is on The Fumble.

Reading Posnanski’s blog, it is clear that as an old Clevelander, he has not yet recovered from the Browns losing the ’86 and ’87 AFC Championship games to the Broncos. He hates John Elway, who, by the way, was involved with three of those events mentioned above.

I was flipping channels last night and the Duece had a 90 minute retrospective on the 1987 AFC Championship Game. It was one of the great all-time games, and an incredible bookend for the ’86 game in which Elway drove the Broncos 98 yards in overtime to win it. In the ’87 game the Browns showed great heart, coming back from being down 21-3 at the half to tie it at 31, only to give the Broncos another touchdown with 4 minutes to go. That fateful drive by the Browns was tragic for their best player, Earnest Byner, who despite a fine NFL career, will always be remembered for his fumble at the 2 yards line as he was going in for the tying score. It was a Buckneresque moment.

As an old fantasy football player, it was fun to see those names from the past: Bernie Kosar, Webster Slaughter, Brian Brennan, Kevin Mack and Ozzie Newsome for the Browns, Sammy Winder, Ricky Nattiel, Mark Jackson and Vance Johnson (weren’t they the 3 Amigos or was that someone else?) for Denver. This game was about Earnest Byner, who strapped the Browns on his back and carried them back to the brink of the Super Bowl. He rushed 15 times for 67 yards and a touchdown, and caught 7 passes for 120 yards and another score. In PEFA terms, it was a 30 point game.

Byner was a hell of a player. A 4th round pick of the Browns in 1984, he had a 14 year career in which he rushed for 8,261 yards, which puts him 31st all-time. He was an all-pro three times including 1987-8, the year of The Fumble. He also caught 512 passes, which is a big number for a running back, and he’s 37th all-time in total yards from scrimmage. He’s probably not a hall of fame player, but he was a top player for a long time. He got a ring, too, as an all-pro running back for the Redskins in the 1991-2 season.

Byner and Mack were probably the greatest ever power running tandem. Mack was a brute, but he didn’t hit people any harder than Byner. And in this specific game, Byner was just killing the Broncos defense. On the play for which he will always be remembered, Jeremiah Castille, a cornerback, stripped him at the 2 and recovered the ball for what was surely his greatest moment ever. Castille was out wide covering Slaughter, and at the last second he dropped back a few yards instead of jamming him at the line. This gave Castille the perspective to see it was a run over tackle, and he abandoned Slaughter to fill the hole. Byner never saw him.

In an interview, Castille said that he had time to decide what he should do to try to stop Byner. He said that Byner had just been punishing everyone all day, and there was no way he could stop him if he tried to tackle him. He was faced with the desperation move – strip the ball. So he ran across Byner’s body, and swiped at the ball which he held wide in the crook of his arm. The ball came out clean, and Castille fell on it. What I like about this story is that it shows the respect the Broncos had for Byner, who could really give out punishment.

Everyone participating in the game likes to note that there would be no way the Browns would have come back without Byner’s great play. Unfortunately, he is forever remembered for that one, disastrous moment. Art Modell said that Byner was inconsolable after the game, having felt he let down both his teammates and the City of Cleveland. Byner said he tried to take it like a man, but on the plane back to Cleveland he broke down and cried. He’s never made excuses. Fine player, Hall of Fame heart.