Football Fates Picked on the Wrong Guy

Sometime in the misery-filled weeks ahead, when he goes back to his tranquil little Georgia hometown of Milledgeville, and he holds a pole by his favorite fishing hole near the Sinclair Dam, and his mind begins to wander and wonder, maybe then, Earnest Byner will realize what really happened to him that winter’s day in Colorado, and won’t it make this Brown’s eyes blue.

No one else will be around, so it will become somewhat easier for the young Cleveland running back to let loose his emotions. He can even weep, if he wants to, just as he found some of his teammates doing when he straggled into the locker room after Sunday’s 38-33 loss to the Denver Broncos in the American Football Conference championship game, a game that Byner had right in his hands, and gave away.

Byner, himself, kept his chin up and his eyes dry, and someone wondered how.

“What can I do about it now?” Byner asked back. “I played my ass off out there. What do you want me to do? Sit here and cry and be a baby about it?

“I’m a man. I can take it.”

The children of Mrs. Pagani’s class, Room 8, Brinkerhoff School, Mansfield, Ohio, might not take it as well. They were the ones who created the large, art-paper poster that was suspended above Byner’s locker, the one that bore the kids’ names on tiny cut-out footballs, underneath the message: “Let’s Go, Browns!”

All over the room, the work of well-wishers appeared. Slogans of encouragement were scribbled on the walls, in Magic Marker and Crayola. Linebacker Eddie Johnson sat beneath a banner on which was written, in a child’s hand: “PLAYOFF WORDS WE KNOW--Good Luck! Pass! Kosar! Touchdown! Champions! Super Bowl! Dawgs! Cleveland Browns!”

One playoff word did not appear, and that was: Fumble.

There were only 72 seconds to play and only eight yards to go when, for the Dawgs of Cleveland, the woof caved in. Byner tucked in Bernie Kosar’s handoff at the Denver eight. He found the middle of the road closed, so he swung outside to his left. Around the three, a couple of orange jerseys, occupied by Bronco cornerback Jeremiah Castille and linebacker Rick Dennison, ran into him. Byner kept going, right into the end zone.

The ball, though, remained at the two.

Of the sound made by the collision between ball carrier and tacklers, Dennison said: “It sounded like somebody got shot. I looked up, and Byner was in the end zone. I looked down, and the ball was at my feet. Then there was a pile on it, and Jeremiah was yelling: ‘It’s our ball! It’s our ball!’ But I wasn’t sure of anything, until I heard the referee say: ‘It’s Orange!’ ”

Not Brown.

Whatever weird force or law of nature exists that keeps the city of Cleveland down on its luck--swiped passes by Brian Sipe; 98-yard drives for last-minute scores; eternal damnation for the Indians and Cavaliers as well--was present once again, just when the Browns were about to get even with the Broncos for last year’s mess. For some reason, the spot 98 yards away from the Cleveland end zone has become an unlucky place for them to be.

Hanford Dixon, the cosmic cornerback, had proposed his “universal justice” theory before Sunday’s game, saying destiny was on Denver’s side the year before, just as justice would prevail in this case. After all, Dixon said, what goes around in the universe of football, comes around.

Didn’t work out that way.

As the Browns filed off the field immersed in disbelief, an amateur bugle boy in the Mile High Stadium stands played that cruelest of tunes: “Taps.” The players kept their heads down, ignoring the music that played, and the beer cups that flew.

By the time they reached the safety of their clubhouse, gaily decorated as it was with the scribblings of the school kids from back home, some of these grown men were sobbing. They felt bad for themselves, and they felt bad for Byner.

The first thing Coach Marty Schottenheimer did was tell them he was never more proud of a bunch of players in his life. “And here’s what I told Earnest Byner,” Schottenheimer said. “I told him this football team would not be in the position it was in today without Earnest Byner. His heroics in this football game were what gave us the chance to win.”

There was agreement all around on the importance of Earnest.

From quarterback Bernie Kosar, who stood on the sideline with his arm around Byner until the clock’s final tick: “Earnest is, without a doubt, one of the classiest and best all-around players in the NFL. It’s just unfortunate that something like this happened, but there isn’t any one play that wins or loses a football game.”

From wide receiver Webster Slaughter: “It wasn’t his fault we lost the game. You can’t blame it on one person.”

From tight end Ozzie Newsome: “He’s really feeling low right now, but he shouldn’t. He gave his best. Sometimes things happen, you just can’t account for.”

The big doggie daddy of the Browns’ defense, 35-year-old Carl Hairston, wanted to make sure Byner knew how everybody felt. “We’re going to gather around him, and let him know we still love him,” Hairston said. “Because we do. It’s hard to describe the disappointment we all feel, but the thing that’s good about football players is that we care for one another, and that we take care of one another.”

What remained unspoken was the obvious, that in the little shop of sports horrors, Byner’s fumble would have taken its place alongside the ground ball that went between Bill Buckner’s legs, the basketball pass that Detroit’s Isiah Thomas threw to Boston’s Larry Bird, the pass that Georgetown’s Freddie Brown threw to North Carolina’s James Worthy, the saddle of Gallant Man upon which Willie Shoemaker arose too soon, and other fatal mistakes.

Byner was asked if he was, uh, familiar with that particular role in history.

“No, I don’t know about that,” he said.

Somehow, he even managed to laugh.

“I’ll look for it now, though, I guess,” he said.

Playoff words we know: Sad.