The 2002 season was the

Cleveland Browns The Cleveland Browns are a professional American football team based in Cleveland. Named after original coach and co-founder Paul Brown, they compete in the National Football League (NFL) as a member club of the American Football Conference (A ...

' 54th as a professional sports franchise, their 50th as a member of the

National Football League The National Football League (NFL) is a professional American football league that consists of 32 teams, divided equally between the American Football Conference (AFC) and the National Football Conference (NFC). The NFL is one of the ...

, and the second season under head coach

Butch Davis Paul Hilton "Butch" Davis Jr. (born November 17, 1951) is an American football coach. He was most recently the head football coach at Florida International University. After graduating from the University of Arkansas, he became an assistant co ...

. In their opener against the

Kansas City Chiefs The Kansas City Chiefs are a professional American football team based in Kansas City, Missouri. The Chiefs compete in the National Football League (NFL) as a member club of the league's American Football Conference (AFC) West division. The ...

, linebacker

Dwayne Rudd Dwayne Rudd (born February 3, 1976) is a retired American football linebacker who played in the National Football League. He was drafted in the first round of the 1997 NFL Draft. During his career he played for the Minnesota Vikings, the Clevela ...

cost the Browns a victory when he threw his helmet in celebration unaware the play was still going on, incurring an unsportsmanlike conduct penalty. Because the clock expired during the play the Browns' unsportsmanlike conduct occurred on, per NFL rules, the Chiefs were given one untimed down. Chiefs' kicker

Morten Andersen Morten Andersen (born 19 August 1960), nicknamed the "Great Dane", is a Danish former American football placekicker who played in the National Football League (NFL) for 25 seasons, most notably with the New Orleans Saints and Atlanta Falcons. ...

made the 30-yard field goal to win the game. The Browns made their first playoff appearance since their re-activation. It was only the Browns' fourth year since returning to the league effectively as an expansion team, and their first winning season. The Browns then lost to the Pittsburgh Steelers in the wild card round. The Browns would not make the NFL playoffs again until

2020 2020 was heavily defined by the COVID-19 pandemic, which led to global social and economic disruption, mass cancellations and postponements of events, worldwide lockdowns and the largest economic recession since the Great Depression in t ...

. The Browns owner

Al Lerner Alfred Lerner (May 8, 1933 – October 23, 2002) was an American businessman. He was best known as the chair of the board of credit-card giant MBNA and the owner of the Cleveland Browns of the National Football League. He was also a past presid ...

stepped down on October 2 and died on October 23, 2002 from Brain Cancer. His son,

Randy Lerner Randolph David Lerner (born February 21, 1962) is an American billionaire investor and former sports-team owner. He became the majority owner of the American football team, the Cleveland Browns, of the National Football League, upon the death of h ...

took over the team until 2012. The Browns wore a patch with the initials "AL" for the remainder of the season and became a fixture on their uniforms to commemorate Lerner.

Offseason

2002 NFL Draft

Undrafted free agents

Roster

Cleveland Browns 2002 Roster
accessed November 28, 2018.

Regular season

Schedule

Apart from their AFC North division games, the Browns played against the

AFC South The American Football Conference – Southern Division or AFC South is one of the four divisions of the American Football Conference (AFC) in the National Football League (NFL). It was created before the 2002 season when the league realigned d ...

and NFC South according to the NFL's new conference rotation, and played the Chiefs and Jets based on 2001 standings with respect to the newly aligned divisions.

Game summaries

Week 1: vs. Kansas City Chiefs

Week 8: at New York Jets

Standings

Postseason

Game summaries

References

External links

2002 Cleveland Browns
at Pro Football Reference (Profootballreference.com)
2002 Cleveland Browns Statistics
at jt-sw.com
2002 Cleveland Browns Schedule
at jt-sw.com

at DatabaseFootball.com

Cleveland Cleveland ( ), officially the City of Cleveland, is a city in the U.S. state of Ohio and the county seat of Cuyahoga County. Located in the northeastern part of the state, it is situated along the southern shore of Lake Erie, across the U.S. ...

Cleveland Browns seasons

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