Sundays in the Pound: The Heroics and Heartbreak of the 1985-89 Cleveland Browns

by Jonathan Knight

Before Art Modell moved the team to Baltimore, and before the frustrating expansion years and countless front office mistakes of the twenty-first century, there were the Browns of the late 1980s. The... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0873388666
• ISBN13: 9780873388665
• Release Date: January 1
• Publisher: Kent State University Press
• Length: 313 Pages
• Weight: 1.25 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.0" x 6.2" x 9.2"

Customer Reviews

"Sunday's in the Pound"

Very well written account of a great era in Cleveland Sports history. I had moved back to town in the time frame and was so excited to have the Browns back in my life that strongly. A great group of guys. Really is a shame they were not able to take it to the next level, but in the end, truly, the experience is way more about the journey than the end result. To Earnest Byner.....a quote I once heard from Julius Erving after he had lost to Kareem and the Lakers for the second time and lost in the champioinship for the third time...."In order to be great, you have to DARE to be great, and I will continue to dare to be great." I think of that qoute when I think of his experience in those years.

Great reading!

I loved this book, I vaguely remember these Browns teams as I was only about 10 years old, but I knew how much they meant to people around me. Reading this enable me to learn how this team connected with the city and how much heartbreak there was. I couldn't pt the book down wanting to relive everybit of the history.

Great Memories of an Exciting Era

I love this book (as well as "The Kardiac Kids", also by this author). As someone born and raised in Cleveland, I've followed the Browns since the early seventies. The Schottenheimer era, along with the first year of Bud Carson's reign, contained some of the most exciting (and heartbreaking) Browns games I can remember. I still have a lot of VHS tapes of those games, which I occasionally get out to re-live the days when the Browns were a real contender. Mr. Knight's book begins with the last part of Sam Rutigliano's reign as head coach, when the Kardiac Kids were becoming a memory and the team began to return to the losing ways of the mid seventies. We learn how Rutigliano was fired and replaced by Marty Schottenheimer and how the team acquired the players whose names would come to represent the newer, better Browns: Kosar, Slaughter, Dixon, Golic, Byner, and so many others. There were a lot of classic games in the late eighties, and Knight takes us through all the important moments - the 1985 divisional playoff in Miami, the thrashing of the Bengals at Cincinatti in 1986, the Steelers games, the Oilers games, the great playoffs against the Jets in '86, the Colts in '87, the Bills in '89, and, of course, those nightmarish Broncos. When the games are really big, Knight's coverage is quite in depth. For example, we read Nev Chandler's own words as he describes Kosar's touchdown pass to Brennan in the '86 AFC Championship for the radio audience: "... he's firing the home-run ball for Brennan... turns one way, turns another...HE'S GOT IT AT THE FIFTEEN! TEN! FIVE........" I still get excited at that! For a moment anyway, we were going to the Super Bowl!! Besides the game action, we also learn a lot of what was going on behind the scenes - the death of Don Rogers, the issues that caused Schottenheimer to leave for Kansas City after the 1988 season, Kevin Mack's drug addiction, and how the bottom finally fell out in Carson's second year. I can't praise this book highly enough for the true Browns fan. Pick it up and enjoy the great memories. It will help to hold you over till that sweet day when we finally, someday, get another contender in Cleveland. And when we do, I'll be cheering as loud as ever!

A Great Read That Took my Mind off of the 2006 Season

I purchased this book on a lark right when the 2006 football season began. As the Browns started their all-too-familiar path of on-field ineptitude and losing, I decided to pull this book out for a read. Thank goodness I did, as it made me remember how good things used to be for those few years in the 1980s. The author did a great job of describing the games and providing insight as to what was going on within the team, organization and community at the time. A wonderful read that took me mind away from another abysmal season and reminded me why I love this team.

A Fantastic Book About a Terrific and Exciting Era

I read this entire book in two days, and I was completely taken back to the mid 80's. Cleveland has lived through more heartbreak then any city in the histroy of sports. It has been 40 years since we won a championship, Almost 60 since we won a world series, and NEVER for the Cavs. So other then people over 50 or so, no one has experienced the excitement of a championship. This era, from 1985-1989, got us closer then ever (in football), and every season was full of almost unbearable excitement. It ALWAYS came down to the last game, the last minute, the last second. And usually we lost. Hard to believe that only 22 years ago, Bernie Kosar gave up a truck full of money, and the possibility to go early in the forst round(possibly #1), to play for his hometime Brownies. Reading this book brings back terrific memories, and Jonathon Knight has scored his second Browns classic.