Tomorrow night, the Cleveland Browns have a chance to make a statement. Yes, they’ve made already made a few loud comments throughout the year, perhaps their best season since coming back as an expansion team in 1999.

Think about it. The Browns have had just two winning seasons since then.

In 2002, their fourth year back in the league, they hovered around the .500 mark all season long, the first time they climbed two games over break even was when they beat the Falcons the last game of the season, 24-16, in the famous “Run William Run” game, capped by the 64 yard run by William Green.

They actually trailed going into the 4th quarter of that contest.

However, the signature victory that season was the week prior, when Cleveland went in to Baltimore and knocked off the Ravens 14-13, scoring with 29 seconds left on a 1 yard pass from Tim Couch to Mark Campbell, capping off a 92 yard drive.

It was no doubt Couch’s most clutch moment of his career with the Browns.

The other winning season, 2007, started ignominiously with a 34-7 beatdown at the hands of the Pittsburgh Steelers. That contest was started by Charlie Frye who was benched at halftime in favor of Derek Anderson, and then traded a couple of days later.

The Browns won the following week in a shootout over the Bengals, 51-45. But they didn’t get two games over .500 until they won three in a row, beating Miami, St. Louis, and Seattle in overtime to raise their record to 5-3.

With a playoff appearance looking likely at 9-5 after shutting out Buffalo in a snowstorm in Cleveland, the Browns and Anderson laid an egg in Cincinnati, losing to the 5-9 Bengals with Anderson throwing four interceptions.

Needing an Indianapolis win over Tennessee to make the playoffs after beating San Francisco, the Colts made the correct decision to rest Peyton Manning, and the Titans won, knocking Romeo Crennel’s squad out of the playoffs.

Neither the 2002 nor 2007 teams ever got anywhere near 9-3 though. This is clearly the best position the Browns have been in to make the playoffs since the Bill Belichick coached 1994 squad, who were also 9-3 after the first 75% of the season, and finished 11-5.

That team lost to the Giants the following week, and the Marty Schottenheimer/Bud Carson teams that went to three AFC title games in a four year period, never got there either. The best of those groups, the 1986 Browns were 8-4 after the first dozen games in route to a 12-4 finish.

We may have forgotten, but the other two teams that played for the right to go to the Super Bowl finished 10-5 and 9-6-1.

A win over the Ravens Monday night would put the Browns at 10-3 for the first time since 1969!, when they were near the end of their halcyon days as a dominant NFL franchise.

That was Blanton Collier’s last great Cleveland team, and they were actually 10-2-1 after 13 games. The next season, the Browns went 7-7 and Collier retired.

That 1969 team also got to the precipice of the Super Bowl, routing Dallas in the divisional playoff only to lose to Minnesota in the then NFL Championship Game. The Vikings lost to Hank Stram’s Chiefs in Super Bowl IV.

So, avenging the opening game loss to the Ravens would put Kevin Stefanski’s team in rarified air, at least in terms of Browns’ history. It would also have two perhaps more important outcomes.

First, it would virtually clinch a playoff spot for the Browns. Yes, they would still have to win another game, but they would be up by three games in the division standings over Baltimore with three to play.

It would also seriously damage the Ravens’ playoff hopes.

That’s way we have no doubt John Harbaugh’s team will be more than ready to play. It’s another good test for this Browns’ roster.

MW