Crazy-man quarterback Jim McMahon came to Cleveland 10 years after quarterbacking a Bears team seen by some as the greatest team in NFL history. During a stop at the Hall of Fame, McMahon told one of the strangest stories in Browns history.
I've thought for years that Robert Kraft owes every Browns fan in America (it used to be an incredible crowd) a lobster dinner.
It's because the Browns drafted Spergon Wynn in the sixth round in 2000, leaving Tom Brady for Kraft's New England Patriots.
It's because Kraft was the best NFL friend former Browns owner Al Lerner had.
Mostly, it's because Cleveland taught Bill Belichick how not to do it, and suffered greatly for the favor.
Belichick's five years as head coach of the Browns afforded him priceless on-the-job training. It has much to do with Belichick's insane 239-83 record with New England.
In Cleveland, Belichick was 37-45 overall, including 1-1 in the postseason. Throw out his playoff year and he gave the Browns 25 wins. His Patriots have 26 postseason victories.
I was a Marty Schottenheimer guy. Sure, Marty used to get harassed because he couldn't get the Browns over the hump in the 1986 and '87 seasons' AFC title games. Still, he reached the playoffs in all four of his full seasons. He made it to the cusp. That sounds like a scarcely believeable winter wonderland now.
Art Modell in his wisdom got rid of Schottenheimer and replaced him with Bud Carson, and when that didn't last, Belichick arrived in 1991.
Even before it turned ghastly, I never warmed up to the Belichick era.
"I didn't, either," Jim McMahon said.
I'd been chatting with McMahon after a showing of a 1985 Chicago Bears documentary at the Pro Football Hall of Fame.
McMahon, quarterback of that magical '85 team, gripped a Coors Light and fell into talking about the '95 Browns. (This was before stories late in the week that Belichick and Brady aren't getting along.)
McMahon's beef with Belichick?
"He flat out lied to me," McMahon said.
It was a cold day in Canton. McMahon, 58, lives in Arizona now, and he hadn't been this close to Berea in more than 20 years. I was caught off guard by how he warmed up to the topic.
"I was a quarterback in the Browns' 1995 training camp," he said. "We had a bunch of guys get hurt in the preseason, so they had to make roster spots. Belichick called me in at the end of training camp and said, 'Look, we're going to have to release you.'
"I was good with that. I really didn't want to be here. But he said, 'No, no, no, we really want you here.'
"I said, 'What are you talking about?' He said, 'All we have at quarterback is (Vinny) Testaverde.' They had just drafted Eric Zeier, from Georgia.
"And Belichick said, 'If something happens to Vinny, we're going to need you.' I said, 'What are you thinking about?' He said, 'Well, I want you to move here. You might have to sit out a week or two until we get these guys healthy enough to release.' So I called my attorney and said, 'Can I trust these guys? Are they gonna pay me to sit out?' My attorney said, 'Well, they paid (ex-Bears center) Jay Hilgenberg when Jay came here from Chicago. You've just got to take him on his word.'
"I said, 'OK.' I looked Bill in the eye and said, 'Don't jack me around, because if I'm going to be here … I move my family here, I need to find a hockey team for my son. I've got to do a lot of stuff.' He said, 'No, no, no, no, no. We're going to take care of you. Mr. Modell knows the situation. We're going to pay you.' I said, 'OK.' So I moved my family."
Having released McMahon, any pay they would give him was as an unaffiliated free agent until they activated him. McMahon, then 36, regarded this as "under the table," which was OK by him.
McMahon was near the end of an injury-plagued career, but his résumé was as attractive as his reputation was oddball. As a starting QB, he had posted records of 46-15 with Chicago, 9-3 with Philadelphia and 8-4 with Minnesota. Belichick had the Browns in the playoffs the previous year and liked having a backup who might win a key game in a pinch.
The McMahons found a place in Brecksville, the suburb where the Belichicks lived in a ranch house.
The '95 season began. The Browns got off to a 3-1 start while Modell did the secret dirty work leading to the midseason announcement that he was moving the Browns to Baltimore. McMahon didn't know about that; he just wanted his secret money.
"I'm sitting there in Brecksville," he said. "Every week, I'm calling for my check. Mike Lombardi was the GM, giving me the runaround. They finally signed me back."
He was activated at almost exactly the time the move was announced. Amid the uproar, no one noticed.
"I dressed Week 8, 9 and 10," McMahon said. "I got those checks. But they still owed me seven checks. They still owed me a hundred grand. I could have used that. I could still use that.
"So I'd had enough … enough of the runaround."
The Browns faced the Green Bay Packers on Nov. 19, the third game (and the second in Cleveland) since the move became public knowledge.
"All the advertising had been taken down," McMahon said. "There were riot police behind our bench. The fans were beyond ticked. The stadium looked like 'Escape from New York.' Dull and gray and … nobody wanted to be there."
Andy Reid, who had been McMahon's teammate at Brigham Young, was in town as Green Bay's offensive line coach. There would be only two more games in the giant on the lake, against Pittsburgh and Cincinnati, before it got torn down.
"I played catch with Andy before the game," McMahon said. "He was in his Packers stuff. I was in my Browns stuff. He told me, 'Hey, Mac, you should have come here this year. We've got a good shot.'
"I said, 'I know. I really screwed up. I don't like it here at all, and I can't stand Belichick.'
"Andy said, 'Just check the waiver wire soon.' I said, 'Why, what's going on?' He said, 'Just check.' "
The Packers won, 31-20 behind Brett Favre, handing the Browns their sixth loss in seven games. What did it matter with the move coming?
Berea was a twilight zone the next day when McMahon reported to a quarterbacks meeting.
"I got up and was going to the restroom," McMahon said, "and here comes Mike Lombardi. I'd had it with this guy, because he was the one who kept giving me the runaround.
"I brought up the money I was owed. I said, 'Look, Mike, I really need it. My wife just got in a wreck, and I didn't want to get insurance involved. I need the cash.' Like a smart (aleck), Lombardi says, 'Well, maybe we'll pay you, maybe we won't.'
"I lost it. I grabbed him by his neck. I started hitting his head on the wall. I said, 'You're going to pay me my money, you little (expletive).' Then I realized what I was doing. I look around the hallway and I realize there's nobody there. And I whacked him again. He slides down the wall, onto the floor.
"I walked into the training room and called my attorney and said, 'You'd better get me cut right now. I'm gonna kill this guy.' So he calls me back in a minute or two and says, 'They'll release you if that's what you want.'
"I said, 'Perfect.' So I walk back into the quarterback meeting. I'd only been gone 10 minutes. I said, 'Boys, I'll see you all later.'
"Steve Crosby, the quarterbacks coach, said, 'Hey, have you talked to Bill?' I said, 'I got nothing to say to that lying (so and so). You can tell him to …'
"I don't have any respect for a guy who looks you in the eye and just flat out lies to your (butt)."
McMahon said he thought about taking his story to the media.
"Who's the press going to believe? Belichick or me?" he said. "I've got this reputation for being this and that. They're going to believe the goody-goody coach.
"Of course they're going to deny it, because they would have got in huge trouble, doing a deal under the table. But that happened all the time."
McMahon says he never got the money for playing the waiting game in Brecksville. He did get picked up by the Packers.
These years later, he is remembered as one of the most interesting players ever to blow through the league founded in Canton nearly 100 years ago.
McMahon was in town a few days after the end of a surrealistic Browns season. He laughed at the thought: It wasn't the first one.
Reach Steve at 330-58-8347 or steve.doerschuk@cantonrep.com
On Twitter: @sdoerschukREP