PITTSBURGH — In one fleeting moment, a franchise's history was changed.
With one throw that failed to connect on a day many remember, the fortunes of a team were forever altered. Well, at least for 18 years.
In Cleveland, they remember the game, the player, the moment, much the way Pirates fans remember what they were doing, where they were, when Barry Bonds failed to throw out Sid Bream at the plate.
The Pirates had to wait 21 years before they had another winning season. The Browns have had to endure 18 years of frustration.
All because Dennis Northcutt dropped the ball.
"That one completion could have been a difference in a franchise's history," former Steelers offensive coordinator Mike Mularkey said. "They should've won the game."
The Browns didn't. It was the playoffs following the 2002 season, a wild-card game at Heinz Field against the Steelers, who had beaten them twice during the regular season, each time by three points. The Browns had a 24-7 lead early in the third quarter, thanks to the heroics of quarterback Kelly Holcomb, who would shred the Steelers' defense for 429 yards and three touchdowns, two of them to Northcutt.
But behind quarterback Tommy Maddox, who threw for 367 yards and three touchdowns, the Steelers put on a furious rally to score twice in the final 3:06 and win the game, 36-33. The winning touchdown came on a 3-yard run by Chris Fuamatu-Ma'afala with 58 seconds remaining on a play called by running backs coach Dick Hoak, who was sitting next to Mularkey in the coaches box.
"I remember us spreading it out at the 3-yard line," former coach Bill Cowher said. "We called a draw with Fuamatu and it was like he could walk in. We had come all the way back and that place, it was unbelievable."
It should have never come to that for the Browns. Leading 33-28 with 3:06 remaining, they took possession at the Steelers 24. But after a 3-yard run by William Green, an incomplete pass and a delay of game penalty, the Browns faced third and 12 from their own 21. And that's when it happened.
Northcutt, who had already caught touchdown passes of 15 and 32 yards and also returned a punt 59 yards to set up his second touchdown, dropped Holcomb's pass as he ran open across the middle of the field. If he catches the ball, the Browns have a first down with 2:42 remaining and might be able to run out the clock on the Steelers, who had one timeout remaining.
Instead, Maddox drove the Steelers 61 yards in six plays, completing four of five passes for 58 yards to set up the winning touchdown.
"We were getting our butts whipped the whole game and the only specific thing I really remember is Dennis Northcutt dropping that third-down pass," said former inside linebacker James Farrior, the team's defensive captain. "I remember watching that pass in the air and I can't believe he dropped it."
The Browns never recovered.
When they play their first postseason game since that moment 18 years ago, it is unlikely any member of the 2020 Browns will know to find the spot on the Heinz Field turf where Northcutt dropped the ball. But it is etched in the collective minds of past Browns players and coaches, like a monument marking the spot of an infamous moment in history.
"I still think about that play," Holcomb said in a phone interview on Wednesday. "If he catches that ball, we're off to Oakland. That drop changed a lot of lives."
The Browns had the longest playoff drought in the NFL until they claimed a wild card spot on Sunday in FirstEnergy Stadium. And they had just one winning season in the 17 years that followed their excruciating loss to the Steelers.
"That game still sticks in my craw," said Holcomb, who lives in Murfreesboro, Tenn., about 50 miles north of Nashville, and serves as a volunteer coach at Riverdale High School. "The only thing I remember is we lost and we shouldn't have lost."
Holcomb's performance is part of Browns lore. He had stepped in as the starter after Tim Couch broke his leg in the second quarter of the season finale against the Atlanta Falcons. Holcomb had appeared in only four games that season, starting two, and completed 64 of 106 passes for 790 yards and eight touchdowns with four interceptions. But, against the Steelers, "he was lighting it up against us," Cowher said.
"I don't remember anybody saying too much on the sideline," Farrior said the other day. "Everybody was mad at halftime, yelling. When we got back on the field, it seemed like they were doing the same old stuff to us."
Bruce Arians, who was the Browns' offensive coordinator at the time, devoted a whole chapter of his book, "The Quarterback Whisperer," to Holcomb, citing that Jan. 5, 2003 game at Heinz Field as the day it all came together for his 29-year-old quarterback. "Like how an artist must feel when all the various individual brushstrokes on the canvas merge to form a beautiful painting," Arians wrote. "One of the favorite days of my career."
It all changed when Northcutt dropped the ball. But he wasn't solely to blame.
With the Browns leading, 33-21, with 10:17 remaining, coach Butch Davis ordered defensive coordinator Foge Fazio to play "Drop 3 Cloud," a scheme in which the defense would rush three players and drop eight into coverage. Fazio disagreed. He wanted to pressure Maddox and force him into a mistake.
After Maddox threw a 5-yard touchdown to Hines Ward to make it 33-28 with 3:06 remaining, Davis continued to tell Fazio to play "Drop 3 Cloud" against his coordinator's wishes, leading to a sideline argument.
Tim Lewis, who was the Steelers' defensive coordinator in 2002, remembers Ray Hamilton, the Browns' defensive line coach, telling him about the heated discussion.
"He was always telling me stories about Foge Fazio and how Butch Davis ended up telling him to run a certain defense that wasn't working," Lewis said. "Butch and Foge, who was my college coach, got into it on the sidelines, yelling and screaming at each other."
The Browns weren't the only losers because of Davis' decision. So was Fazio, who was blamed for the defeat and fired after the season. Keith Butler, the Browns' linebackers coach, left after that to join the Steelers.
"We pretty much changed the Browns franchise for a long time," said Mularkey, who is retired from coaching after being head coach with three different NFL franchises — Buffalo, Jacksonville and Tennessee. "They had us. They definitely had us. If Kelly had hit Dennis Northcutt, history might have changed. You never know. But when we beat' em like we beat 'em, it put them in a hole they never crawled out of until this year."
