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Friday, January 19
Accorsi, Modell finally get to big game
By Adrian Wojnarowski
Special to ESPN.com
There were five minutes on the clock in the AFC Championship Game in 1987, and the NFL representative politely leaned over to Cleveland Browns
owner Art Modell and general manager Ernie Accorsi, suggesting they start
downstairs to the sidelines for the trophy presentation. John Elway was in
the Denver Broncos huddle, laughing to his linemen over the sheer lunacy of
driving 98 yards into the gusting wind to reach overtime.
|  | | Owner Art Modell, left, congratulates linebacker Ray Lewis after the Ravens' AFC title win. |
In the suite over old Cleveland Stadium, Modell and Accorsi were too
frightened to move a muscle.
"We didn't budge," Accorsi said.
Forever, they'll call it "The Drive" -- "the one," Elway said, "that put
me on the map" -- and the one that forged forever the bond between owner
and GM. The Browns lost the second time on the sure-handed Earnest Byner's
fumble in 1988 at Mile High Stadium. As they sat in stunned silence, Accorsi
will never forget Modell cracking wise, trying to lighten the moment with his
gallow humor.
Three times, the Browns were within a game of the Super Bowl, and three
times in the 80's and early 90's the game ended with Elway's arms raised,
with Accorsi and Modell damning the fates.
"When you achieve great victories together, or great defeats, there's
going to be that bond," Accorsi said. "And maybe moreso of one when you
suffer together. We had three heartbreaking losses, the first two the most
painful you can imagine."
When there were five minutes on the scoreboard Sunday at Giants Stadium, New
York's general manager climbed out his seat for the elevator ride to the end
zone. They had the Vikings, 41-0, and the ghost of Elway was long gone. He
had tears in his eyes standing in the runway to the field in those final
minutes, listening to the magnificent Super Bowl sound sweeping over the
stadium.
About three hours later, the symmetry was complete for Accorsi and the owner of
the Baltimore Ravens, Modell. Accorsi watched on television as Modell, 3,000
miles away in Oakland, stood on stage holding the conference championship trophy in
the air, just as Accorsi had done in New York. Finally, he was going to the
Super Bowl, and all these years later, Accorsi will be waiting there for him.
"At our age, you'd better savor it," Accorsi said. "Because who knows if
you will ever get back."
They connected on the telephone this week, remembering yesterday and
reveling over the delicious irony of today.
"We had a lot of laughs (through the years)," Modell said. "I talked to
him last week and today. We were talking about the old days, talking about (the near misses) and how those days have been eradicated."
All gone, all with this magical football season for the Giants and
Ravens. After seven years as GM, 1985 to 1992, Accorsi understood his run was
over with Cleveland Browns and left the organization for his adopted home of
Baltimore. He had been the Colts GM for one year, drafted --- yes,
unbelievably -- Elway and resigned his job when owner Robert Irsay undermined
his authority and traded the disgruntled No. 1 pick to Denver. Most of all,
Accorsi understood that midnight caravan was warming for its run out of town
and he wanted no association with the breaking of Baltimore's heart.
After leaving the Browns, Accorsi went to work for the committee to
bring Baltimore an NFL expansion team. "I was hoping to the be the new GM
there," he said. There was no expansion team, just Modell, a man making
his bid to be the most hated man in sports, barging into Baltimore with the
Browns under his arm and dollars in his eyes.
Through the years, there had to be times Accorsi and Modell wondered
whether the best chance they ever had to get to the Super Bowl was together.
And it had it happened, had Elway just thrown incomplete on that 3rd and
forever play deep in Broncos territory on The Drive, maybe they would've gone
on for decades together. Maybe Accorsi's trusted coach, Marty Schottenheimer,
would've stayed on the job and Bill Belichick wouldn't have been hired under
Accorsi in the GM's final season. Maybe Modell would've won public support
for a new stadium, would've kept the team in Cleveland and saved the best
football fans in the world the heartache of ripping the old Browns out of
town.
"If we had made it to the Super Bowl, and all the euphoria that comes
with that, it could've changed things," Accorsi said.
Just maybe, it no longer matters. Ernie Accorsi is going to the Super
Bowl with the Giants and Art Modell meets him in Tampa with his Baltimore
Ravens. Once, it was always third and forever with Elway leaning over center
for these two old Browns, but no more. The Ghost of the Broncos No. 7 is
gone, clearing a path to Raymond James Stadium for two long suffering
football souls who found it fitting that after all these years, all the
heartache, fate had this marvelous idea to send them to the Super Bowl
together anyway.
Adrian Wojnarowski is a columnist for The Record (N.J) and a regular
contributor to ESPN.com. He can be reached at Wojnarowski@Northjersey.com
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