Five Near Misses for a Cleveland Browns Super Bowl
The Cleveland Browns have come close to the Super Bowl in the past, these were the near-misses that still haunt the Dawg Pound to this day
Cleveland Browns fans are a hardened lot, conditioned to years of losing as well as heartbreak when it looked like there might be a chance to actually put it all together and win it all. This article lists five times when the Browns got oh-so-close to a trip to the Super Bowl, and just missed.
The nature of football is that there can be only one ultimate winner each year, so 31 teams have to go home disappointed. Some teams just get beat, most end the season in heartbreak, especially if they make the playoffs.
Since there are 12 teams in the playoffs, the chances are 11 out of 12 that the season is going to end in a crushing defeat. That’s just the nature of football. It’s the hardest game in the world and it is played by the toughest athletes in the world.
light. More. Browns hire WR coach Drew Petzing
Still, the Browns have had some great teams but have never won the Super Bowl, and it hurts, probably much worse than the average team. It’s all the more painful because Cleveland won championships in 1945, 1946, 1947, 1948, 1949, 1950, 1954,1955 and 1964.
By the way, 1945 is not a typo — that was the World Champion Cleveland Rams (the Cleveland Bulldogs also won in 1924, making nine championships). They made it to the title game in 1951, 1952, 1953, 1957, 1965, 1968, and 1969. So between 1945 and 1969, a Cleveland team made it to the championship game 16 times out of 25 years with a 9-7 record in the title game.
The fact is, we fans — or at least your grandparents — were spoiled. There was no team like the Cleveland Browns.
Since then, however, we have been punished by our arrogance. There have been some horrific Browns teams including the recent stretch in which they went 1-31, setting all kinds of NFL records for pathetic play.
But there were good years too, and sometimes it appeared certain the Browns were going to the biggest game of them all.
Here’s a look back at some near misses, roughly in the order of how close they came to taking it all. One of the most beloved Browns teams was the Kardiac Kids team, and so when they finally lost it was very hard to take.