Cleveland is coming!

Wednesday, Nov 01, 2006
By Josh Lewin, Chargers.com

Halloween is over.  Good.  Call me a killjoy, but if I see one more colorful tootsie roll, one more bite-size Butterfinger, one more Baby Ruth, one more pixie stick, one more peanut M&M, one more Skittle, one more orange-yellow-and-white triangle of candy corn, I’m going to… well, eat them all.  I’ve already done that, actually.  I feel like I’ve swallowed a suitcase full of cement. 

And what’s with the kids these days complaining about the quality of the candy?  Aren’t tootsie pops a universal?  Enjoying the hard candy shell and figuring out how many licks it gets to the center? (Answer: three.)  Next year I’m giving out Lobster Thermador.  Let the little urchins enjoy a succulent seafood meal. Why not?

Anyway, just when you thought you’d seen your last of the color orange for a while, now the Bolts are about to play the Browns, Bengals and Broncos all in a row.  Next time you see a traffic cone, it should remind you quickly of who’s on the upcoming schedule… the three teams leading the league in orange.

Marty Schottenheimer has strong ties to two of these next three opponents, and I bring this up only to revisit the fact that very quietly last Sunday, Marty passed Dan Reeves for sixth place on the all-time NFL coaches’ victory list… and appropriately, Reeves was there to see it happen, calling the game for Westwood One Radio two booths down from us Rock 105.3-types.

Schottenheimer and Reeves will be forever linked as the competing coaches in the incredible January ’87 playoff game between Marty’s Browns and Reeves’ Broncos. You know... The Drive.

Fifteen plays, 98 yards.  All the way down the field to the Dawg Pound at old Municipal Stadium.  It came to its incredible conclusion with 39 seconds to go… a 5-yard slant from Elway to Mark Jackson over the outstretched arm of Carl Hairston.  What people sometimes don’t remember about The Drive is that it didn’t win the game... it merely tied it. (This same phenomenon exists when recalling the 1980 Olympic hockey win and the ’86 World Series.  The US win over the Russians was to get into the Gold medal game vs. Finland.  The ball rolled through Buckner’s legs to win game 6 and set up game 7.)

The OT coin toss was actually won by the Browns, but they went three-and-out.  Elway then marauded downfield one more time; 9 plays, 60 yards, and a gut-wrenching 33-yard Rich Karlis field goal to send the Broncos to Super Bowl XXI against the Giants.

That game is at the heart of every inferiority complex ever suffered and sustained by a longtime Browns fan, at least until Art Modell became Public Enemy #1 for airlifting the franchise to Baltimore in ’96.  (I was hosting a talk show in Baltimore at the time of that stunning announcement.  My ears are still ringing 10 years later from when Mr. Modell first appeared on my show, and Browns fans jammed the lines to try and verbally carve him up like a Halloween pumpkin.)

Die-hard Browns fans will remember favorably Schottenheimer’s playoff win that set up that home game with Elway’s Broncos.  First order of business was beating back the Jets in a tour de force performance by Bernie Kosar.  Down 20-10 with 4:14 to go, the Browns tied it and eventually won it in double-overtime when Mark Moseley banged a 27-yarder through the uprights, having missed one in the first overtime period.  Kosar threw for close to 500 yards and Kevin Mack bulldozed for tough yards all afternoon.  

This weekend against the Browns, LT needs to be Mack and Philip Rivers needs to be Kosar.  No one’s looking for 500, Philly Boy, but half that would be splendid – just watch out for Sean Jones, the Browns’ DB who has all four of the team’s interceptions, including two this past Sunday in the win over those aforementioned Jets.  

A win this weekend would get the Chargers out to a 6-2 record and in a good frame of mind to tackle the daunting games @ Cin, @ Den about to leap from the schedule page.  

Woops- gotta go. Doorbell just rang again.  Halloween’s over, isn’t it?  Hmm, a paper bag full of something and it appears to be on fire.  I wonder what it is.  I’m going to go stamp it out with my good shoes.  I’ll let you know what that was all about in next week’s column.  Meantime, congrats, Marty on regular-season win #191 last week.  May none of your Halloween candy have a coconut middle.

To e-mail Josh Lewin... joshrock105@gmail.com.