PRO FOOTBALL: THE PLAYOFFS : Cleveland’s Dawgs Pound the Colts, 38-21

Depending on the source, the Cleveland Browns woofed and barked their way to a 38-21 victory over the Indianapolis Colts in Saturday’s American Football Conference divisional playoff game because:

--Cleveland Pro Bowl running back Kevin Mack had a tummyache.

--Cleveland linebacker Eddie Johnson gave a stirring, emotional halftime speech . . . that no one heard.

--Cleveland players can ice skate better than Indianapolis players.

That’s about it in a nutshell. Simply put, the Browns tend to do all the little, strange things well. It’s their special gift.

For instance, what other team relies on an egghead quarterback who throws like your Auntie Phyllis? Or ignores the elements, such as 20-degree temperatures, a brisk wind and a Cleveland Stadium field frozen as solid as the chunks of ice atop nearby Lake Erie? Or even waits until midway through the third period to assert itself against Eric Dickerson and the gang?

Stumped? So were the Colts, who still aren’t sure what happened in that second half. One moment, before a crowd of 78,586, they’re driving up and down the field as if it’s I-77; the next, they can’t buy a yard at the concession stand.

Reasons abound--some legitimate, some shaky. The most likely one involves Johnson, who swears he delivered the greatest halftime oration since Knute Rockne prowled locker rooms. Trouble is, no one recalls hearing it.

“I don’t remember any great speech,” nose tackle Dave Puzzuoli said. “But to tell you the truth, I was in the training room looking for tape.”

“Speech?” linebacker Clay Matthews said. “I didn’t even hear him.”

Well, it happened, insisted Johnson. Right there, in front of the entire team.

“I went in and virtually cursed everyone out,” he said. “I told them that we’ve got to play the second half twice as hard as the first half. Normally when I speak, they shut the hell up. They’re smart people.”

Or deaf. Because when the third quarter began, the Colts promptly began moving toward the Brown end zone. Colt quarterback Jack Trudeau, playing again in place of injured Gary Hogeboom, was having himself a nice day. Already he had thrown two touchdown passes and completed 9 of 15 attempts. Now the Colts were threatening to end that 14-14 tie.

Twelve plays into the drive, with the ball at the Brown 20, Trudeau dropped back into the pocket. He was looking for tight end Pat Beach, who earlier had caught a two-yard touchdown pass, and was now racing to the corner of the end zone with only a linebacker in pursuit. It was exactly what the Colts had hoped for, said Trudeau.

But then came one of those strange twists that the Browns occasionally spring on you. For the first time this season, Brown defensive coordinator Dave Adolph told Johnson to try a special blitz. Sure enough, Johnson ran virtually untouched into the Colt backfield, arriving just in time to knock the bejabbers out of Trudeau as he released the ball.

“I was trying to get it out of bounds,” Trudeau said. “I was going to throw it away. But he hit me just as it was coming out. A quarterback’s nightmare. A fraction of a second more and it’s gone.”

Instead, the ball floated gently in the air until free safety Felix Wright grabbed it at the Brown 13. End of scoring threat. In essence, end of Colts.

“I sensed after (the interception) that they were virtually out of the football game,” Johnson said.

He sensed right. The Browns used 13 plays and nearly 6 minutes to take a 21-14 lead. The Colts would never recover. “The momentum swing was really bad,” Trudeau said.

Cleveland scored again, this time on a 22-yard Matt Bahr field goal, shortly after the start of the fourth quarter. Then the Browns added another touchdown--a two-yard pass from Bernie Kosar to Brian Brennan--to extend their lead to 31-14.

The rest was for entertainment purposes only, including a 1-yard touchdown run by Colt Albert Bentley with 1:07 remaining, two Colt onside kicks (one of them successful) and a 48-yard interception return for a score by Cleveland cornerback Frank Minnifield. Sean Salisbury, in for an injured Trudeau, threw the errant pass.

As for the remainder of the victory theories, who can figure?

An upset stomach? It happened, all right, just about five minutes into the game. Here was Mack, well on his way to a memorable game (38 yards in just 6 carries, 17 yards in 3 receptions) when a mysterious stomach virus hits. He can’t go on. So miserable is Mack, he has to retire to the locker room.

This leaves the Browns without a fullback. So Coach Marty Schottenheimer moves Earnest Byner to fullback and hopes for the best.

Here’s what he got: 23 carries and 122 yards, 4 receptions and 36 yards, 2 touchdowns.

“I sensed all week that Earnest Byner would have that kind of day,” Schottenheimer said. “I think he would have had that type of day if he had been out there by himself.”

Needless to say, there was a whole lot of sensing going on in Cleveland Saturday. Johnson . . . Schottenheimer. And Byner?

“I had been practicing really well all week,” he said. “It usually carries over.”

Byner also had a debt to repay. In a 9-7 loss to the Colts Dec. 6, Byner fumbled away a near-certain scoring chance. The defeat would later cost the Browns the home-field advantage throughout the playoffs. “It was really tough,” Byner said. “That was probably the lowest point in my career.”

Actually, Byner almost blew it again. This time, with the score 24-14, Byner broke through the Colt line and appeared on his way to a long gain, maybe even a touchdown. But then Colt defensive back Mike Prior knocked the ball loose from Byner’s hands, sending it toward the Indianapolis end zone. At the last moment, wide receiver Herman Fontenot pushed a Colt defender away and fell on the ball.

“I’m just lucky that Mr. Fontenot was there to save the day,” Byner said.

The Browns didn’t need much saving after the first half. They held Dickerson to just 50 rushing yards, though they didn’t do such a great job on pass coverage. In a bit of a shocker, Dickerson had 7 receptions for 65 yards and a touchdown. The scoring catch--a 19-yarder in the second period--was Dickerson’s first since 1983, his rookie season.

But Dickerson is paid the big bucks to run, and run he couldn’t. His longest rush was 14 yards; the rest came 2, 3 yards at a time.

“I hope we wore him down,” said Puzzuoli, who played well in place of injured Pro Bowl selection Bob Golic. “I think a few times he got up slowly. I came through once, just as he slipped, and hit him with a forearm to the face. He groaned a little bit. I like when they slip right before you hit them.”

Dickerson said the icy field hampered his running style. Footing was iffy, and cutbacks were almost unheard of. In fact, so poor was the field that groundskeepers applied a coat of green paint to the frozen dirt to make it look lush and soft.

Still, the Browns lovingly call it home. “I like it here,” Johnson said. “It’s an old stadium with a dirty, ugly football field, and I think that’s the way it should be.”

At game’s end, Cleveland fans showered the field with dog biscuits, a tribute to their team known affectionately as the Dawgs. They woofed happily into the cold afternoon air. Their team, as it was last year, is a victory away from a Super Bowl appearance.

The Browns heard them, of course, causing a promise or two from that well-known public speaker, Mr. Johnson.

“I’m tired of getting close and not getting there,” he said. “Get there and get the job done! I’d like to go back to San Diego and play that team that everybody thinks is going to win the Super Bowl--San Francisco. But before we can get there, we’ve got to take care of Houston or Denver, and I think we will.”

Forget about the 49ers; they’re gone. The Browns? They’re here, alive and barking.