Browns vs. Raiders: 5 best games of all-time
By Thomas Moore
By 1992 things had taken a turn for the worse for the Cleveland Browns.
Gone from the roster were many of the talented players who electrified the city during the late 1980s as the team made three appearances in the AFC Championship Game.
In the place of those familiar names were players like Mike Tomczak (who would start eight games at quarterback), Tommy Vardell and Lawyer Tillman.
The one bright spot on an otherwise moribund offense was running back Eric Metcalf, who on a late September afternoon, had a game for the ages against the Los Angeles Raiders.
Metcalf scored four touchdowns that day, the first Browns’ player to do that since Leroy Kelly in 1968, while totaling 177 receiving yards on just five receptions. Metcalf scored on the ground – a six-yard run in the first quarter – and threw the air – a four-yard reception, a 69-yard reception and a 63-yard reception – as he accounted for 187 of the team’s 231 yards of total offense.
And to think he did it with the immortal Todd Philcox at quarterback.
Metcalf’s heroics helped save the day as the Raiders ran more than twice as many plays as the Browns while posting 464 yards of offense. But the Cleveland defense sacked Raiders’ quarterback Todd Marinovich five times, picked him off three times and forced two more turnovers to help preserve the win and keep the Browns from falling to 0-3 on the season.
The 177 receiving yards by Metcalf is still tied for the seventh-best receiving day in franchise history.
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