1. Browns 27, Bengals 24, Dec. 21, 1980 at Cincinnati
The regular season-ending victory clinched the AFC Central Division championship for the Browns. Had they lost, they would not have made the playoffs as even a wild card.
Don Cockroft’s 22-yard field goal with 1:25 left snapped a 24-24 tie. Mike Pruitt ran five times for 31 yards to key the drive leading to Cockroft’s boot. The game ended with Cincinnati at the Cleveland 11, with the Bengals out of timeouts and unable to stop the clock after Browns cornerback Ron Bolton made an inbounds tackle of Cincinnati receiver Steve Kreider on the final play.
Brian Sipe’s 42-yard touchdown pass to Reggie Rucker helped the Browns to a 10-10 halftime tie. The Bengals went ahead when defensive back Ray Griffin intercepted a Sipe pass and took it 52 yards for a touchdown. Before the third quarter ended, though, Sipe threw touchdown passes of 35 and 34 yards to Ricky Feacher for a 24-17 Cleveland lead.
Sipe, who would soon be named the NFL MVP, completed 24 of 44 passes for 308 yards. That gave Sipe 4,132 passing yards in 1980, as he joined Joe Namath and Dan Fouts as the only (at the time) quarterbacks to pass for 4,000 yards in a season. The yardage and Sipe’s touchdown passes (30) remain as Browns’ single-season records.
Cleveland closed the regular season 11-5 and Cincinnati came in at 6-10.
The Browns made their first playoff appearance in eight years but lost 14-12 to the eventual Super Bowl champion Oakland Raiders in bitter cold on an icy Cleveland Stadium field. The game is remembered as “Red Right 88,” the play called for the Browns when they had the football on the Oakland 13 with less than a minute remaining. Sipe’s pass into the end zone was intercepted by Raiders safety Mike Davis.
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