Browns vs. Titans: 5 best games of all-time
By Thomas Moore
Under former head coach Jerry Glanville the Houston Oilers turned the Astrodome into what they referred to as the House of Pain.
It was into the unwelcoming environment that the Browns ventured two days before Christmas in 1989 with the AFC Central Division title on the line.
The Browns shocked the crowd by opening up a 17-0 lead, thanks to touchdown passes from Bernie Kosar to Eric Metcalf for 68 yards and Webster Slaughter for 40 yards.
After those early strikes, the Browns offense fell silent and Houston came back to cut the lead to 17-13 in the fourth quarter, which is when the fun really began.
Houston quarterback Warren Moon drove the Oilers to the Cleveland 15-yard line and seemed ready to put Houston back into the lead. But an errant snap led to a fumble, which Cleveland linebacker Clay Matthews recovered, seemingly stalling the drive.
But for reasons that to this day remain unclear, Matthews tried to lateral the ball to defensive end Chris Pike, but Matthews toss missed its mark and the Oilers recovered on Cleveland’s 27-yard line.
“When Clay decided to lateral the football,” Browns head coach Bud Carson said in the 2008 book Classic Browns, “I began to think it was not meant to be.”
Moon did his best to try and prove Carson right, hitting wide receiver Drew Hill for a touchdown on the very next play, giving the Oilers the lead for the first time on the day.
The team’s exchanged punts before the Browns took at their own 41-yard line for a season-defining drive with 2:30 remaining on the clock.
Kosar moved the Browns down the field and Kevin Mack went up the middle from the Oilers’ four-yard line for the game-winning and division-clinching touchdown with 39 seconds remaining.
It was the only touchdown that Mack would score on the season after spending 30 days in jail for drug possession. But in the biggest game of the year to that point, Mack came through with 27 of his 62 rushing yards on the final drive.
The win gave the Browns their fourth division title in five years, and marked one of the last hurrahs for the talented teams from the mid-1980s.
Next: No. 3: The greatest road comeback ever