PRO FOOTBALL ’87 : COACHES, PLAYERS, TEAMS AND TRENDS TO WATCH THIS SEASON : HONEYMOONS AFTER MIAMI : Kosar Got Off on the Right Foot With Browns; Now He Must Walk on Water

Things are getting just a little weird in that chilly, old concrete jungle called Cleveland Stadium.

Sure, it’s strange, but if appearances truly are not deceiving, if the Cleveland Browns actually are a team that’s going to carry destiny into the Super Bowl, then that body of water over there can be nothing else but, yes, Lake Eerie.

This place is spooky, all right. The last time the Browns were champions of the NFL was in 1964, when their current quarterback, Bernie J. Kosar Jr., was one year old. Now, the Browns’ biological time clock is ringing like crazy.

The good citizens here are waking up to the fact that perhaps after Christmas, with visions of sugarplums and Milt Plums dancing in their heads, the fans’ beloved Browns may be taking no prisoners, Bernie-ing all the bridges behind them and heading for the Large One, the biggest game of them all.

The Browns in the Super Bowl? Hey, it could happen. After all, it almost did last season. With Kosar the starter from the first game, Cleveland finished the regular season 12-4 and was an eyelash away from the Super Bowl before John Elway blinked and finished them in the AFC championship game.

Elway took the Denver Broncos on a 98-yard drive for a touchdown that tied the Browns with only 37 seconds left in the fourth quarter, then moved the Broncos into position for a game-winning field goal as soon as he got the football in overtime.

All Kosar did was pass for 259 yards, which was more than Elway, plus a pair of touchdowns. The week before, in the Browns’ 23-20 victory in two overtimes over the New York Jets, Bernie was even better: 489 yards, 64 attempts, 33 completions.

But the Broncos were the ones who got to the Super Bowl.

To get so close and not succeed, well, Browns’ owner Art Modell said Kosar, as well as the rest of the team, can use the 23-20 loss to Denver as a learning experience.

“It was like feeling the fire,” Modell said. “To end the season like that, we’re a better squad for it now. We matured under adversity. We grew up after the Denver game.”

And Bernie? Did he get burned feeling the fire?

Bernie’s back, he’s 23, he’s in his third year and he’s carrying an entire city on his back.

Only last week, Higbee Co., founded in 1860 and Cleveland’s oldest department store, announced it was going out of business. On the same day, it was reported that Cuyahoga County, which includes Cleveland, experienced the third-largest population drop of any county in the U. S. since the 1980 census.

Even though the area’s unemployment figures aren’t so good either, the stores are closing down and the population is depressed, there could be a ray of hope shining through all the gloom.

Some people believe “Cuyahoga” is the Indian word for “pigskin.” In that case, it seems as though some good news might be welcome around here.

“This city hasn’t had a love affair for so long,” Modell said. “We’re a city of widows and bachelors. The Indians haven’t done anything since 1954 and we haven’t done anything since 1964. The people here want to get something. And we want to give it to them.”

Up steps Bernie Kosar into the pocket. A city’s hopes, a team’s dreams ride on his right arm. Is that too much of a load?

“I guess it’s a heck of a compliment,” Kosar said. “I wanted to come here. The Browns have always been the team I followed. I’m just looking to make a contribution to this team and this city. And to this point, I think I have.”

In the next several months, there may actually be some good news in this city’s newspapers. Kosar may not have written it, but he will almost certainly be responsible for a large part of it. There should be a lot to read. So be ready for the headlines to come, because these are . . .

THE KOSAR CHRONICLES

Bernie: Bright Boy

Uses Brains, Not Brawn

Much has been said about all the football knowledge Kosar has locked up in his gray cells. He is the thinking man’s quarterback who considers 100 yards of green grass his personal mind field.

Browns’ Coach Marty Schottenheimer, said that you cannot make too much of a quarterback’s ability to think clearly. However, Kosar can do much more than that, Schottenheimer said.

“Some people learn by rote,” he said. “Other people learn by concepts. Bernie has the ability to conceptualize. As a result, he sees things clearly and that’s what quarterbacking is all about.”

Although he is only in his third season, Kosar’s reputation as one of the NFL’s pre-eminent thinkers seems to be growing. Some quarterbacks throw the ball harder and most quarterbacks look a lot better doing it than Kosar, but there probably aren’t too many who actually get the job done as well as he does.

Cleveland’s offense, established last season by coordinator Lindy Infante, is big on spreading out the field, thereby stretching the defense, throwing to the backs and wide receivers depending on what the defense does.

Kosar must read the defense and adjust. He thinks doing that may be his greatest strength.

“I have to be strong with the mental part of the game,” he said. “There are other quarterbacks in the league that that’s their strength also. Like Don Strock and Jim Plunkett. Those are the kind of guys I enjoy following.

“I grew up under Earl Morrall, who was my first quarterback coach at (the University of) Miami (Fla.). Howard Schellenberger. So I had some good coaching at the mental end of it.

“I have to realize what I can do and what I can’t do. I’m not gifted with 4.5 speed. So I have to make up for that in the mental end--knowing where I want to go with the ball, being sharp in making my reads and reading the coverages properly.

“I don’t have the ability to outrun many people.”

Bernie certainly didn’t baffle too many pass rushers last season. Kosar was tackled behind the line 39 times for 274 yards in losses.

“He’s tall, gangly and doesn’t have quick feet,” said Modell, who added that he doesn’t care at all. “He can’t scramble, but he can elude the first rush. He’s improved though, although he’ll never be a (Joe) Montana.”

Did it really matter? Maybe not. Last season, Kosar led the Browns to the most victories in club history. He threw 17 touchdown passes and only 10 interceptions. His 1.9 interception percentage was the best in the NFL.

In fact, Kosar went five games and threw 171 passes between interceptions. Good execution or good thinking?

“Generally, what you get with interceptions, at least those that are the fault of the quarterback, is poor judgment,” Schottenheimer said. “Bernie has very good judgment. Our system is designed for our quarterback to throw the ball on what he sees the defense do and how the the receivers react downfield. Bernie is very, very good at that.

“His progress has been excellent because of his intellect,” Schottenheimer said. “No doubt about it, there is a difference between book smarts and football smarts, but Bernie has them both. He’s just got the knack.”

However, there is also a knock.

Is Bernie a Bumbler?

With Kosar, the Browns have learned not to ask ‘Is Bernie quick on his feet?” More important, “Is Bernie still on his feet?”

If he is, then there’s always a chance the pass will be completed. Actually, a pretty good chance. Kosar completed 58.4% of his passes for 3,854 yards and an average gain of 7.26 yards. His quarterback rating was 83.8 and this year it may go as high as his body temperature.

Intelligent. Heady. Leader.

These words are associated with Kosar. But so are these:

Clumsy. Awkward. Unorthodox.

“Let me just say that Bernie is not going to make people forget Baryshnikov,” Modell said.

Kosar is 6-feet 5-inches and 219 pounds and looks like a giraffe that has just been born and is trying to walk for the first time.

Bernie has only two feet so it really shouldn’t be hard to keep track of them. Sometimes, however, he seems to forget.

There are times when Kosar does not remember how to throw the ball with his correct foot (the right one) planted. But the problem is not limited to his feet. It seems to have spread to his right arm.

Watch Kosar throw and you’re going to see the ball coming at you from a lot of different directions.

“Side-armed, underhanded, submarine, spitball, slider, knuckle ball and that’s only in our first possession,” Modell said. “But you know what? He gets it there.”

Said Infante: “When they write the book of picture-perfect quarterbacks, Bernie won’t be on the cover.”

Kosar is well aware that there are critics who consider his gait in the pocket only slightly smoother than that of Long John Silver, but he asks a very good question: So what?

“The ultimate way of how a quarterback is judged is on the end results,” Kosar said. “How I look is of no consequence to me. Winning or losing is how a quarterback is judged.

“Sometimes I throw underhanded, side-armed, off the wrong foot, all the good stuff, but I’ve been doing that my whole life.”

Kosar’s success on the football field outweighs how silly he sometimes looks achieving it. This is something the Browns have come to embrace about Bernie.

“I would be foolish to take a guy who has a certain throwing style and alter it, especially if that guy is Bernie Kosar,” Infante said. “The thing is about throwing the ball with confidence, not throwing the ball pretty. We’re better off just giving him the ball and letting him throw it.”

Bashful Bernie, Browns

on Brink of Super Bowl

The last three Super Bowl winners--New York, Chicago and San Francisco--just missed out on the Super Bowl the year before by losing their conference finals.

Will Cleveland be the fourth?

“Maybe it’s our turn,” Modell said.

If it is, Kosar will be glad to go. It’s just that he’s a little reluctant to get caught up in all that stuff right now.

“If this team and myself individually can stay away from all the Super Bowl talk and stay away from the talk about a game in January, we’ll be OK,” he said.

Sometimes it seems that Kosar would rather be doing just about anything besides talk, especially about himself.

When Sports Illustrated wanted Kosar to pose for a picture for its cover during Bernie’s rookie season training camp, he flatly refused until Modell asked him to go along with the idea as a personal favor.

The magazine used a limousine to take Kosar from the practice field to Cleveland Stadium where he would pose for the picture, but Kosar insisted on being picked up behind a gas station so his teammates wouldn’t see him.

“Bernie has always demonstrated to me that he just wants to be one of the guys,” tight end Ozzie Newsome said.

After Bernie’s touchdown pass to Webster Slaughter that beat the Pittsburgh Steelers in overtime, Kosar stunned NBC’s Don Criqui and Bob Trumpy when he cut short a postgame interview after three sentences.

“Thanks, guys,” Kosar said, pulling off the headset. “Gotta go.”

That’s Kosar and the press--going, going, gone.

“The publicity and the spotlight that naturally goes to the quarterback I can do without,” he said. “I enjoy playing football. I have a really good time out there on the field, but that’s my source of excitement. The attention, the constant questions about football, I don’t want to be one-dimensional.”

Kosar explained that is why he took up golf. He has begun following politics and this summer met with President Reagan for 15 minutes in the Oval Office. Presumably, they discussed game plans and what they did under pressure.

Kosar also got interested in the stock market, but doesn’t invest in any one thing. Like any good quarterback, he mixes up his game plan between conservative blue-chip stocks and speculative issues.

“I had a really exciting off-season,” he said.

And what of this season? Will it be an on-season for the Browns? Will Kosar be just as exciting as he was last season?

“I know most people expect a lot more out of him,” said Infante. “There’s no doubt he can improve. But he’s not the type to get rattled. He’ll perform without or without that pressure of people’s expectations.”

Schottenheimer said it’s impossible in September to figure out who will be the champion in January, no matter who the quarterback is or how good he may be.

“The NFL championship is a reasonable objective for us,” he said. “But there is a lot of uncharted ground between here and there. The trick is never to get too discouraged if you lose one--unless it’s the last one.”

Of course, it’s that last one the Browns lost a season ago that is still on Modell’s mind. And so Kosar is also on Modell’s mind because maybe, just maybe, they’ll win the last game this season.

“Bernie Kosar is a born leader,” Modell said. “He’s potentially a great NFL quarterback, although he hasn’t reached that point yet. But he is right now one of the best.

“I’ve seen a lot of quarterbacks over the years and he’s only 23,” Modell said. “He’s a franchise quarterback and could play for 12, 13 or 14 years. Unitas was not a stylish quarterback, either, and physically, delivering the pass, Bernie kind of resembles him. Or an early Fouts. Slow feet, but a quick release. I’m not saying now that Bernie is Unitas or Fouts, just that he has some of their qualities.

“All I know is that there’s something about Bernie,” Modell said.

What’s that?

“When he’s out there, he makes things happen.”

Things haven’t happened for the Browns in 23 years. Now that Kosar is out there, there is a feeling here that he may make them happen again soon.