The Morning Journal (Lorain, OH)
Red Right 88: Game frozen in time
Playoff game memories painful for alumni of 1980 team
An NFL team averages roughly 63 offensive plays a game. So by that measuring stick the Browns have run about 68,300 plays in the 1,084 games played in their 72-year-old history going back to their inception in 1946.
One play in Browns annals has been debated, dissected, secondguessed and been an excuse for consuming pitchers of beer while discussing it more than all the others — Red Right 88. It is such a famous — or infamous — part of NFL history that it has its own Wikipedia page.
Red Right 88 is the play that ended the Kardiac Kids’ glorious 1980 season in a divisional playoff with the Oakland Raiders at Cleveland Municipal Stadium on Jan. 4, 1981, while 77,655 frozen fans watched in disbelief.
With the Browns trailing, 1412, second down on the Oakland 13 with 49 seconds to play, a pass thrown by Brian Sipe intended for Ozzie Newsome running right to left in the back of the end zone in front of the bleachers was intercepted by Raiders safety Mike Davis. The primary receiver on the play was Dave Logan, who was open on a crossing route running left to right inside the 5. But Newsome was in the pattern, too, and Sipe went for the touchdown when he saw Newsome breaking open after making an inside move off the line to get a step on Davis.
Recalling the play is like root canal without Novocaine.
“I beat Mike off the line,” Newsome said in a recent phone interview from his office in Baltimore where he works as an executive vice president with the Ravens. “I was running my route. I looked back and the ball was coming. I think the wind held the ball up and Mike, doing everything he could to get back into coverage, looked up and was able to pick off the pass.”
Newsome tried unsuccessfully to claw the ball from Davis’ grasp. He sprawled flat on his stomach in the end zone and pounded the icy sod with his left hand when he realized the Browns’ season had suddenly ended.
“To say I was devastated would be an understatement, because it was in the true Kardiac fashion that we were going to win that game,” Newsome said. “And then to have it taken away from us in that instance, like I said, was devastating.”
Basically, it came down to Coach Sam Rutigliano having more faith in Sipe’s right arm than in kicker Don Cockroft’s right foot.
The Browns won the 1980 AFC Central Division championship with a record of 11-5. Twelve of the 16 games that season were decided by seven or fewer points. The Browns were 9-3 in those games.
Oakland also finished 115, but the Raiders finished second in the West behind 11- 5 San Diego because the Chargers won the tiebreaker with Oakland. The Raiders beat Houston, 27-7, in a wild-card playoff game in Oakland to advance to the divisional round against the Browns in Cleveland.
Game- time temperature for the 1 p.m. kickoff was two degrees, and the 21 mph winds off Lake Erie caused a wind chill of 20 degrees below zero. Talk about frozen tundra — that was the playing surface of Cleveland Stadium that day.
“Those were probably the most difficult conditions I ever played in,” Mike Pruitt, a Browns running back from 1976-84, recalled. “It was super cold. Everybody knew that. You couldn’t wear cleats because the ground was frozen solid. We had to wear shoes with a rubber spongy bottom. You couldn’t stop and cut because you couldn’t get any traction. You couldn’t stop and turn because you’d slip and fall.
“The field couldn’t have been worse. Trying to throw the ball, trying to catch the ball — as soon as you took your gloves off your hands would freeze. Your hands were just about numb. I remember coming off the field to get some water and the water was ice.”
The Raiders led, 7-6, at halftime. The Browns took a 12-7 lead in the third quarter on two field goals by Cockroft. Earlier, all in the second quarter, Cockroft missed field goal attempts from 47 and 30 yards plus a PAT attempt after the Browns scored their only touchdown of the game on a 42-yard interception return by Ron Bolton.
The Bolton touchdown broke a 0-0 tie.
It didn’t count as a failed kick for Cockroft because he never got the chance to attempt it, but holder Paul McDonald, wearing leather gloves to fend off the cold, in the third quarter mishandled a snap for what would have been a 41yard field goal try with the Browns leading, 9-7.
Lack of faith in McDonald as a holder also factored into Rutigliano’s decision at the end.
“That was one of the problems,” grumbled Doug Dieken, the Browns’ left tackle from 1971-84. “McDonald was wearing gloves. I don’t think he ever practiced with gloves on. For the amount of time he was on the field, you’d think he’d be able to just take them off and stuff them in his pants and try to catch the ball bare-handed where you’d have the natural feel, but he didn’t. That was one of the reasons we tried to throw it in.”
Oakland regained the lead, 14-12, early in the fourth quarter on a oneyard run by Mark van Eeghen. The Raiders had a chance to stretch the lead late in the fourth quarter, but van Eeghen was stopped for no gain on third-and-one and fourthand-1 on the Browns 15.
The Browns took over with 2:22 remaining, confident they would add one more miracle comeback to their season and advance to the AFC championship game.
Sipe piloted the Browns to the Oakland 13 with 49 seconds to play. The Browns called a timeout . Sipe went to the sideline and Rutigliano called the play: “Red slot right, halfback stay, 88.” Sam told Sipe to throw the ball away if the play wasn’t open.
“The success we had during the course of the season with comebacks, it was like, ‘OK. If that’s what we’re going to run, that’s what we’re going to be successful with,’” Dieken recalled. “Unfortunately, Mike Davis comes across and makes the interception.
“I remember how loud the stadium was when we were driving down there. I also remember how quiet it got in a short period of time. It was like somebody just turned the volume down on your TV when you were blasting it so loud the neighbors could hear it three doors down. It was like ‘What the hell just happened?’”
Greg Pruitt was a Browns running back from 197381. The Browns traded him to the Raiders in 1882 for an 11th-round draft pick. Mike Davis was still with the Raiders.
“Greg said Davis had the worst hands in the world, and here he is when it’s like 37 below and he makes the interception,” Dieken said.
Rutigliano, 87, still lives in the same home in Waite Hill where he resided when he coached the Browns from 1978 until he was fired midway through 1984. He was interviewed for this story and said if he were presented with the same decision he would put his faith in Sipe again.
“The one good thing about coaches is they forget about it,” he said. “If I had to do it over again, I would have done the same thing.
“I learned from a lot of great coaches you have to have a short memory. You put those things in someone else’s pocket, and that’s what I do.”
It is a philosophy that has made Sam Rutigliano a contented, happily married man for a very long time.