January 11th, 2005

New Browns senior vice president and general manager Phil Savage wasn’t quite right when he said, "A lot of memories of Browns fans are in black and white."

After all, there was color TV in the 1960s.

But the thought behind his comment is accurate and understandable. It has indeed been a long time since the Browns were really the Browns as so many people remember them, when time stood still in Cleveland on Sunday afternoons.

How long? It’s been 1989 since there was a feel-good Browns season – one that was both successful and enjoyable. That was the year when, in Bud Carson’s first year as coach, the
Browns roared to the AFC Central title with a 24-20 comeback win in Houston in the regular-season finale. They then beat the Buffalo Bills 34-30 in the divisional playoffs when Clay Matthews intercepted Jim Kelly’s pass at the Cleveland goal line as time expired, but lost to Denver in the conference title game for the third time in four years, 37-21.

That ended a pretty good decade for the Browns. In the 10 years from 1989, they made it to the playoff seven times, got to three AFC title games and nearly made it to two more in 1980 and ’85.

But that was two decades ago. Fans watched those games in color, but after all these years, the colors are beginning to fade.

No one in the "new" Browns organization knows that better than Savage. He arrived in 1991, when memories of the 1980s were still vivid. And in addition, there were still enough members of the original Browns franchise who had been around long enough to tell him about everything that had happened from 1946 on.

But this is not the 1946, the 1980s or even 1991 anymore. This is 2005, and a lot has happened to the Browns – and their fans – from then until now. In fact, fans may not realize just how long it’s been or how much has transpired until they look back at each year separately, beginning with 1990:

This was titled "The Season from … (you know where), and with good reason, for after making the playoffs for five straight years, the Browns dropped like a rock as the players who carried them to success in the 1980s began to run out of steam – all at once. They won their opener over Pittsburgh despite the fact several key members of the defense had held out in contract disputes until the week of the game. But it was all downhill from there. The Browns were shut out three times by lopsided scores, giving up a combined 111 points in the process, and they were crushed by the Oilers, 58-14. They lost eight in a row and 10 of their last 11 to finish 3-13. Carson was fired halfway through and replaced on an interim basis by offensive coordinator Jim Shofner. Bernie Kosar, constantly under siege while working behind a line that never recovered from the retirements of tackles Cody Risien and Rickey Bolden, suffered through the worst season of his career and was replaced at quarterback for a time by Mike Pagel.

1991 – Browns owner Art Modell passed over former Browns assistant and player Bill Cowher to hire defensive coordinator Bill Belichick of the New York Giants to be head coach. Belichick clashed almost immediately with the media and some of the players clashed immediately, but the fans initially loved the coach because he quickly made the team much more competitive.

Following an opening loss to the Dallas Cowboys and a defensive assistant named Butch Davis, the Browns won two in a row, including a last-second win over Cincinnati at Cleveland. Belichick ran to the Dawg Pound right after the game and thanked those fans for all the noise they made, further endearing himself to them. The Browns were 6-7 and hanging in the playoff hunt by a thread until three straight losses to end the season doomed them.

1992 – The Browns once again faded down the stretch and lost their last three games en route to a 7-9 record. Their leading receiver from a year earlier, Webster Slaughter, was one of the first NFL players to test this new thing called free agency. His absence and that of the No. 2 wideout, Reggie Langhorne, whom Belichick cut, plus the fact Kosar broke his ankle in week 2, really hamstrung the offense. And the bloom started to come off the Belichick rose when, for whatever reason, he lifted Kosar’s replacement, former Ohio Stater Mike Tomczak, in favor of young, untested Todd Philcox when the Browns were beating the Vikings in Minnesota. One of Philcox’ passes was intercepted and returned for a touchdown as Minnesota stunned the Browns with a comeback win.

1993 – If you’re looking for the season when things started going horribly for Modell’s franchise, putting it into a hole that it never really recovered from and ultimately led to what happened in
1995, this is it. With the Browns at 5-3 and in first place in the division at the halfway point, Belichick unceremoniously cut Kosar because of "diminishing skills" at a time when Vinny Testaverde was hurt and unable to play. So he turned to Philcox. Belichick lost the team and fans – especially the fans - and never got them back. The Browns went 2-6 in the second half for another 7-9 finish, and Belichick and Modell, who went along with the decision on Kosar, were becoming co-public enemy No. 1. To make matters even worse, Kosar turns up in Dallas and helps Davis and the Cowboys win the Super Bowl.

1994 – The Browns made the playoffs for the first time since 1989, gaining a wild-card berth by finishing 11-5. One of the best defensive performances in club history, plus an offensive line that kept Testaverde pretty much unscathed, were the keys. The Browns even won a playoff game, as Belichick beat his old boss, coach Bill Parcells of the New England Patriots, in a first-round game, before they fell at Pittsburgh. But the season just wasn’t as enjoyable as it should have been. The fans couldn’t identify with the strong New York flavor of the club, and Belichick’s terse, dry personality sucked all the life out of things. It was, then, one of the strangest seasons in Browns history.

1995 – Picked by Sports Illustrated before the season to finally earn that elusive Super Bowl berth in this, their 50th year of existence, the Browns started as if they were indeed the real deal. They were 3-1, including an 18-point win over a Kansas City team that would finish 13-3, before things fell apart. The defense wasn’t same as the year before. The veterans Belichick had brought in to carry the team in 1994, had nothing left. And the defense wasn’t the same after coordinator Nick Saban left to become the head coach at Michigan State. Still, the Browns were hanging tough at 4-4 following an overtime win in Cincinnati. Then the biggest news in the history of Cleveland sports and one of the biggest in NFL annals – that of the team’s move to Baltimore following the season - was uncovered. The fans’ initial reaction of total dismay turned to unmitigated anger. Sponsors pulled their ads from Cleveland Stadium, Belichick and his family were harassed by over-zealous fans and the Browns lost seven of their last eight to finish 5-11. That one win? A 26-14 decision over Cincinnati in front of almost 56,000 teary-eyed fans in the final football game ever played at the Stadium. But in the end, the team wasn’t headed to the Super Bowl. Instead, it was headed to the East Coast.

1996 – For the first time since 1943, when the Rams suspended operations for a year because of World War II, there was no pro football team in Cleveland. But the fans refused to take it lying down. They burned up fax machines in team offices around the league until the powers to be met and promised Cleveland an expansion team – the Browns, with the colors and history intact - in 1999. That seemed like light years away, though, and for many fans, it was. Their hearts had been broken, their passion stepped on, as they endured the first of what would be three straight football- and Brown-less years.

1997 – This was an extremely difficult year – an in-between year. The emotion of The Move had settled some, and 1999 was still too far off for fans to get overly excited about. The only thing that whetted the fans’ appetite was the beginning of construction of the new stadium.

1998 – The team of Al Lerner and Carmen Policy was selected as the ownership group for the new Browns in September. That was the good news. The bad news? That the lateness of the decision set up an almost impossible timeline to get the expansion team up and running and ready to play a game in 11 months. The club had no players, no coaches and not even any footballs.

1999 – Chris Palmer wasn’t the team’s first choice to be head coach, but he got the job anyway. The Browns gathered players via an expansion draft, free agency and the college draft, getting two picks in rounds two through seven. But even with that, talent was at a premium. It showed, as the Tim Couch-led Browns started 0-7, losing 43-0 to Pittsburgh in their long-anticipated opener, and finished 2-14. The fans wanted wins, sure, but they wanted their team back more, so the horrible record was tolerable. And they liked the fact these new Browns beat the Steelers in Three Rivers Stadium, something the old Browns always struggled to do.

2000 – A series of devastating injuries, including one that shelved Couch for the final nine games, caused the Browns to limp home at 3-13 after an encouraging 2-1 start. They suffered the two most lopsided back-to-back losses in team history, 44-7 to the hated Ravens and 48-0 to Jacksonville, which is the last club the original Browns ever played in 1995. Having just a 5-27 record in his two years, Palmer was fired several weeks after the season and replaced by Davis.

2001 – Feeding off the enthusiasm Davis brought from the college game, the Browns bolted to a 6-4 start before they faded to a 7-9 finish. Marring that encouraging turnaround – and the fact the Browns set a team record with 33 interceptions – was an ugly "Bottlegate" incident in which angry Browns fans hurled hundreds of plastic bottles onto the field to protest a call late in a loss to Jacksonville. It gave the organization, the fans and the city a black eye.

2002 – After a 2-4 start, the Browns, behind the running of William Green, won seven of their last 10 games to finish 9-7 and earn a wild-card berth, making the playoffs for the first time since 1994. In two short years, Davis had completely resurrected the team and the Browns became the feel-good, Cinderella story in the league. But unfortunately, Lerner, whose drive and resources put the Browns back onto the field, wasn’t around to see it, as he passed away from cancer in late October. The Browns went to Pittsburgh, the same franchise they faced 10 years before in the last playoff game, for a wild-card contest. They seemed to have the game won, leading 24-7 in the third quarter and 33-21 with three minutes left, before somehow losing 36-33 despite the fact Kelly Holcomb threw for 429 yards, then the third-highest total in NFL history. It left the team and town numb. It was Red Right 88, The Drive and The Fumble all over again.

2003 – Davis purged a horde of key, well-respected veterans from the roster because of what he said were salary cap reasons, leaving the team a shell of what it had been in that playoff run. Holcomb, on the strength of his performance against the Steelers, unseated Couch after a red-hot quarterback competition in training camp and the preseason. But he and Couch both suffered through injury-riddled seasons, limiting their effectiveness. Ditto for the team overall. The offensive line was especially hard hit by injuries in the disappointing 5-11 finish. Green was suspended halfway through the season for off-the-field problems.

2004 – Buoyed by a two-year contract extension and with a new quarterback in Jeff Garcia, Davis enters the year with optimism. That increases with a 20-3 win over the Ravens in the season opener. But another ton of injuries, many again to the line, and back-to-back heartbreaking losses to Philadelphia and Baltimore, doom a decent start. With the 3-8 Browns having lost five straight, including a wacky 58-48 decision in Cincinnati, a fatigued Davis resigns. The Browns lose their first four under interim coach Terry Robiskie but beat Houston 22-14 in the finale to go 5-11.

Now in steps Savage to try to get the Browns back on course.

"The last thing I would say in terms of why I’m here and what I’m going to do and what we’re going to try and do over the coming weeks, months and years ahead is to reach out to the incredible fan base of the Cleveland Browns," he said upon being hired last Friday. "I’m asking the fans to believe in us and trust us to do the job.

"I can promise this: we will do our ultimate best to put a quality team on that field in that stadium so the fans can be extremely prideful about their team again. In my opinion, there’s a lost generation of Browns fans out there. They haven’t enjoyed the feel-good atmosphere of having a quality, winning product and that’s our objective. We need to get our fans to a point where they are experiencing the happiness that comes from consistently winning NFL football games."

It’s a happiness they’ve not really experienced since 1989.