Here is yet another example of how the Kardiac Kids dominated the airways in 1980. This two play sequence against the Bengals shows a classic one two punch of the 1980 Browns. On the first play, Sipe passes to Greg Pruitt out of the backfield. Pruitt burns a linebacker on the play and gains 25 yards. On the second play, Sipe finds Ricky Feacher for 55 yards and a touchdown. In this sequence you can clearly see how Sipe used his depth of receivers to set the defense up.
What is interesting to note on the first play are the two Bengals DB's number 44, former Ohio State great Ray Griffin and number 27 Bryan Hicks, have to come over to support the play because Bengals linebacker number 50 Glenn Cameron was 5 years behind Pruitt.
When a defense gets burned deep on a pass play, it almost always affects them on the next play as they try to adjust themselves to the quarterback's chess game and knowing this, the clever Brian Sipe orchestrates his next move beautifully. Sipe goes deep to Feacher and the same number 27, Free Safety Bryan Hicks, who had to come over to help with Greg Pruitt on the previous play, is late and well out of position. A Free Safety's first duty is to support the cornerback on a long pass. Was Bryan Hicks late getting over to help Bengals CB Ken Riley because he was still thinking about Greg Pruitt?? You can bet he was!!
With the Super Bowl almost upon us, The Brown Log peers into the off season knowing that we'll need to dig deeper for material . Thanks to the incredible website youtube, I believe we have found a few ways to do that. So Brown Log fans, we introduce another regular feature of the Brown Log, "Vintage Browns"
The first video presented is a Monday might game at Municipal Stadium against the Chicago Bears, in which Mike Pruitt breaks the game open late with a long touchdown run. The 80 Browns were one of the first teams to recognise that new rules that favored the passing game would forever change the face of the league. Credit has to go to Sam Rutigliano who clearly recognized that the NFL was evolving towards the pass, and he recognized that he already had some of the talent needed to take advantage of this. First of all, Rutigliano saw that Brian Sipe had what it took to lead a pass driven attack. Rutigliano also did something that was fairly unconventional in that era. He put Ozzie Newsome, a wide receiver in college, at Tight End, and he put running backs into pass patterns instead of keeping them in to block. This was an era before defenses adapted to five highly skilled receivers attacking the defensive secondary. As a result Sipe often found Greg Pruitt, Calvin Hill or Mike Pruitt matched against a slow, hapless and helpless linebacker. This in turn opened opportunities for Newsome, Rucker and Logan up top. And as you will see in this video, the fact that the 1980 Browns passed to set up the run, often created huge opportunities for Mike Pruitt.
This team can be studied in so many ways, I'm looking forward to that over the next few months.
