Remembering Marty

It was sad to hear of the death of former Browns’ coach Marty Schottenheimer. A man who won 200 regular season games in the NFL, but unfortunately never got to the Super Bowl despite all that success.

Schottenheimer’s first two attempts to get to the title game ended in heartbreaking fashion, the first known as “The Drive”, the second known as “The Fumble”.

We wanted to share our impressions of him from a fan’s point of view, our point of view. We didn’t know the man, although we met him once, sitting next to him at a Cavs’ game in the late 80’s. He had his son with him, and we remember Marty reminding a young Brian Schottenheimer that he lived in Cleveland and should root for the Cavaliers.

Our thought was wow, he really is as intense as he was portrayed.

Schottenheimer ranks fourth in Browns’ history in wins as head coach, behind Paul Brown, Blanton Collier, and the man he replaced in Sam Rutigliano, but overall, you would have to rank him as the third best coach in Cleveland history, behind Brown and Collier, both of whom won NFL titles.

By the way, Kevin Stefanski is tied for 10th in wins after one season at the helm.

Schottenheimer took over a 1-7 team in 1984 and guided them to a 4-4 record, one of the losses was in overtime, the rest of the season.

The next season was the beginning of the last halcyon period in the history of the franchise.

Paul McDonald was replaced at QB with veteran Gary Danielson, and they drafted Bernie Kosar in the supplemental draft in the first round. GM Ernie Accorsi took advantage of the USFL folding to bring in RB Kevin Mack, and CB Frank Minnifield and the Browns improved to 8-8 and won the AFC Central Division.

After building a 21-3 lead over Miami in the first half of the playoff game, the Browns played very conservatively behind the rookie, Kosar, in the second half, and Dan Marino led the Dolphins to a comeback 24-21 victory.

That was kind of the beginning of what came to be called “Martyball”.

What followed was three more playoff appearances in a row, two of them coming as a result of AFC Central Division titles.

In 1986, as the story goes, Kosar pleaded with the coach to be aggressive in a divisional showdown vs. Cincinnati in the second last game of the year. Kosar won the argument, hitting Reggie Langhorne with a long pass on the game’s first play, and the Browns wound up winning 34-3 to take the division title.

We won’t forget our feeling in the AFC Championship Game at old Municipal Stadium when Kosar connected with Brian Brennan for a 48 yard TD pass to give the Browns a 20-13 lead with just over two minutes to go. Surely, Cleveland was going to make their first Super Bowl appearance.

John Elway and the Broncos felt differently.

At the time, many fans and media wondered about switching to a prevent defense after bottling up Elway for 58 minutes. But Schottenheimer’s background was on defense. He played linebacker in the old AFL and was a defensive coach and then coordinator. He wanted to put the game in the hands of the unit he felt most comfortable with.

The following year had the Browns with a 10-5 record, and they once again advanced to the AFC title game, this time in Denver. The Broncos got off to a 21-3 halftime lead, and after the Browns scored first in the second half, the defense allowed an 80 touchdown pass to make it 28-10 Denver.

Kosar rallied the Browns back and had them on the doorstep of tying the game when Earnest Byner fumbled, another crushing defeat.

It was the last time the Browns were that close to playing in a Super Bowl.

Schottenheimer and Art Modell had some disagreements about the makeup of the coaching staff after the ’88 season (10-6 and a wild card berth despite injuries to Kosar and his backup, Mike Pagel) and resigned.

He went on to the Chiefs for 10 seasons, winning 101 games, before coaching Washington for one year, and the Chargers for five seasons, has last year there producing a 14-2 record.

Although the Browns got to the conference title game in 1990, Marty got there once more as well, with the Chiefs in 1993, losing to Buffalo, 30-13.

However, 200 NFL wins is an incredible career. It places him 8th all time, 6th among men who coached after the merger. The names ahead of him read like a who’s who of NFL history: Don Shula, George Halas, Bill Belichick, Tom Landry, Curly Lambeau, Andy Reid, Paul Brown.

RIP Marty. And thank you for leading the Browns the last time they were a yearly power in the NFL.