10 Cleveland Browns connections to Kansas City Chiefs-San Francisco 49ers Super Bowl
As with the previous 57 Super Bowls, the Browns aren't in this one, but there are plenty of items to connect them to the action.
Here are 10 Browns-related nuggets as the 49ers and Chiefs prepare to square off in Las Vegas.
1, Myles Garrett vs. Patrick Mahomes
The Browns liked Patrick Mahomes. They probably needed to like him more.
In the five years leading up to the 2017 draft, Cleveland used Brandon Weeden, Brian Hoyer, Josh McCown, Jason Campbell, Robert Griffin III, Cody Kessler, Johnny Manziel, Thad Lewis, Austin Davis and Connor Shaw as starting QBs.
Nobody ever had more of a reason to desire a true franchise quarterback. The consensus was there were no obvious ones in the '17 draft.
A Cleveland draft team led by Sashi Brown projected Myles Garrett as a sure thing of a pass rusher and picked him at No. 1. The Browns plotted to spend a second high pick, at No. 12, on Mahomes.
The league had cause to wonder about Mahomes. His monster games in Texas Tech's 2016 season were offset by the team's 5-7 record, including a 66-10 loss at Iowa State in his next-to-last outing.
The Chiefs formed their own consensus: Mahomes was superstar material. Concluding Cleveland would take Mahomes at No. 12, they traded up from No. 27 to No. 10 to snag him.
DeShaun Watson was available at No. 12, but the Browns traded out of the spot, acquiring a No. 25 overall pick in 2017 (Jabrill Peppers) and what turned into a No. 4 overall pick in 2018 (Denzel Ward).
Mahomes heads into Super Bowl 58 with an 88-25 record, including 14-3 in the postseason with two Super Bowl titles.
2, Fired by Chiefs and Browns, John Dorsey mystery lingers
John Dorsey's ouster in Kansas City after four years as general manager remains a mystery.
Dorsey and head coach Andy Reid joined the Chiefs the same year, 2013. A franchise that went 29-67 from 2007-12 put up a 53-27 record from 2013-17.
Dorsey worked through the 2017 draft, negotiating the trade for Mahomes. He was dismissed two months later.
What happened?
No explanation was given in 2017. In 2018, when Dorsey was the Browns' new GM, Reid told The Repository:
"I'm friends with John. I've been friends with John. I'll leave it at that. Things happen. They happen. I have the utmost respect for John."
Reid added, "You just watch how things get turned around there (Cleveland)."
There wasn't much time to watch. The Browns went 7-8-1 in Dorsey's first year. It was a big improvement over the 0-16 of the previous season, but after Dorsey's new head coach, Freddie Kitchens, produced a 6-10 year in 2019, both Kitchens an Dorsey got the ax.
The Chiefs nearly wound up facing Dorsey's current team, Detroit, in the Super Bowl. His title with the Lions is senior personnel executive.
Dorsey remains a mystery man. It was announced he would hold a press conference the day after the 2019 season ended. It never happened. He hasn't done a media interview since.
3, What if Kyle Shanahan had been Browns head coach?
Kyle Shanahan is a rock star, in the Super Bowl for the second time in seven years as head coach of the 49ers.
Browns history might be unrecognizably different had they hired Shanahan as head coach in 2014.
As it was, Cleveland brought him in as offensive coordinator. Mike Pettine was the new head coach.
Shanahan, then 35, struck ownership as too young in 2014. Was he?
Sean McVay was 30 when the Rams hired him as head coach in 2017. McVay was 33 when he went to the first of his two Super Bowls. Mike Tomlin was 36 when he won a Super Bowl as a second-year head coach in Pittsburgh.
Shanahan actually was McVay's boss in Washington in 2013; they were offensive coordinator and tight ends coach, respectively.
It was quite a staff, with Matt LaFleur coaching quarterbacks and Mike McDaniels coaching receivers. Shanahan's dad, Mike, was head coach.
4, Another mystery: Kyle Shanahan and Johnny Manziel
While the Browns didn't take a chance on Shanahan as head coach in 2014, they gambled on Johnny Manziel with the 22nd pick in the draft.
How much of that decision owes to Shanahan is unknown. It is known Shanahan asked out of his Browns contract for the 2015 season, going to Atlanta as a coordinator and helping the Falcons to a Super Bowl in 2016.
The top of the Browns' 2014 orgainzational chart included special adviser Jim Brown, who preferred Teddy Bridgewater to Manziel.
Owner Jimmy Haslam and General Manager Ray Farmer remain as the top suspects in the ill-fated Manziel decision.
Manziel posted a 2-6 record as a Browns starter while partying his way out of the NFL.
In Shanahan's lone year in Cleveland, the Browns got to 7-4 with Brian Hoyer at quarterback, prior to a collapse that included a change to Manziel, leading to a 7-9 finish.
Shanahan liked Hoyer, who was his first starting quarterback in 2019 after he took over the 49ers.
5, Edward DeBartolo wanted to buy the Browns, wound up with 49ers
Denise DeBartolo York is at the top of the NFC champion 49ers' organiational chart.
Her father was the late Edward DeBartolo.
Edward, a real estate tycoon from Youngstown, wanted to buy an NFL team, and he hoped it would be the Browns.
DeBartolo and Paul Brown were Ohioans born a year apart. Both were in their 30s when Paul Brown became founding head coach of the Browns in 1946.
DeBartolo was a Paul Brown fan from the start, admiring the Browns' run to 10 straight league championship games from 1946-55.
The Browns got tied up with Art Modell, who bought the franchise in 1961 and infamously moved it to Baltimore in 1996. They were not available when DeBartolo wanted to buy them.
6, Edward DeBartolo moved his heart to San Francisco
Edward DeBartolo's consolation prize was San Francisco; he bought the 49ers in 1977, entrusting operations to his son, Eddie.
Youngstown lawyer Carmen Policy was a confidant to Eddie during the 49ers' run to Super Bowls capping the 1981, 1984, 1988, 1989 and 1994 seasons.
After Al Lerner was awarded the new Cleveland franchise in 1998, Policy became Lerner's right-hand man. In a sense, the DeBartolo family finally had a stake in the Browns.
The Browns went 2-14 in their return season of 1999. After a 3-13 finish in 2000, Lerner wanted to retain head coach Chris Palmer, but Policy talked him out of it.
In a meeting at Butch Davis' home, Lerner and Policy persuaded Davis to change head coaching jobs from the Miami Hurricanes to the Browns.
7, Ohio's first two Super Bowls were against 49ers
Edward DeBartolo's past as a Paul Brown fan took an interesting twist.
Just as Brown was founding head coach of the Browns, he became founding head coach of the expansion Bengals, several years after Modell fired him in Cleveland.
Brown gave up coaching but was still going strong as the Bengals' czar when they reached Super Bowls capping the 1981 and 1988 seasons.
Their opponent in each Super Bowl was the 49ers. In the second meeting, the Bengals led 16-13 and had the 49ers in a second-and-20 near midfield with 1:17 left in the game. Joe Montana's 27-yard completion to Jerry Rice led to a deciding touchdown with 0:34 left.
Paul Brown and San Francisco's John McVay were their teams' general managers for both Super Bowls. Both played high school football in Massillon and college football at Miami (Ohio).
8, 49ers' Brock Purdy the next Tom Brady?
Tom Brady was the 199th pick of the 2000 draft and led New England to a Super Bowl win capping the 2001 season.
Purdy was the 262nd pick of the 2022 draft and in his second season is in a Super Bowl.
The Browns picked quarterback Tim Couch first overall in 1999 and sought a developmental QB in the 2000 draft. They took Spergon Wynn at No. 183.
In a 2021 interview with The Repository, Policy imagined what might have been had the Browns chosen Brady.
"Brady would have been behind Tim," Policy said. "Would he have developed? He went to the Patriots and was behind a Pro Bowl quarterback (Drew Bledsoe). He learned from the veteran. He had a coach (Bill Belichick was in his first Patriots season) who is destined to be remembered as the best coach in modern NFL history.
"Maybe Mr. Brady would have been buried in the process and not even had a chance for a breath of air. I can't begin to conjecture."
9, 49ers icon Dwight Clark helped re-start Browns
Dwight Clark was a popular receiver on San Francisco's first two Super Bowl teams who spent most of the 1990s in the 49ers' front office.
A favorite of Eddie DeBartolo and Policy, Clark moved to Cleveland in 1999 as an "executive vice president." It never was clear who had final say in personnel moves. It might have been Clark in 1999 and 2000.
Who had the final call on the Browns spending the first pick of the 1999 draft on Tim Couch, leaving Donovan McNabb for Andy Reid's Eagles at No. 2?
The answer always was clouded. Even when then-head coach Chris Palmer was asked about it years later, he declined an interview on the topic.
Replacing Palmer with Butch Davis in 2001 entailed granting Davis sweeping powers. Clark's input was not valued by Davis, and he left the organizaton exasperated.
Clark was diagnosed with "Lou Gehrig's Disease" in 2017 and was 61 when he died in 2018.
10, Browns considered a 1999 run at Andy Reid
Carmen Policy got to know Mike Holmgren when they were together in San Francisco during the 49ers' glory years. Policy ascertained early Holmgren wasn't interested in becoming head coach of Cleveland's start-up expansion team.
There seemed a better chance Andy Reid, who had worked under Holmgren in Green Bay, might consider the Browns. Reid was 40 years old and eager for a chance to run a team, but the Eagles liked him, too, and hired him on Jan. 11, 1999.
Reid won 140 games with Philadelphia, including 10 in the postseason.
After the 2012 season, Reid's last with the Eagles, the Browns had a head coach opening. It wasn't as if Reid was going to make his new home in Cleveland. The Browns had just fired Pat Shurmur, a Reid loyalist who spent 10 seasons in Philadelphia.
Reid relocated to Kansas City; the Browns hired Rob Chudzinski.
Holmgren became president of the Browns in 2010 but was phased out after Jimmy Haslam bought the team in 2012. Intent on blazing his own trail, Haslam dismissed Holmgren's entreaties as to how it could work if he stayed on.
Instead, Haslam created a high-ranking role for Joe Banner, who had been president of the Eagles alongside Reid for 11 years.
Banner got a big kick out of hanging out with Kevin Costner and Jennifer Garner while "Draft Day" was filmed in Berea, but Haslam gave him the boot after less then two years.
Five years later, John Dorsey, who had been Reid's general manager in Kansas City, became GM of the Browns.
Reach Steve at steve.doerschuk@cantonrep.com
This article originally appeared on The Repository: 10 Browns connections to 49ers and Chiefs in Super Bowl 58
