Red Right 88 was a passing play called by 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 ( ...
during the January 4, 1981
American Football Conference
The American Football Conference (AFC) is one of the two conferences of the National Football League (NFL), the highest professional level of American football in the United States. The AFC and its counterpart, the National Football Conference ...
divisional playoff game against the
Oakland Raiders
The Oakland Raiders were a professional American football team that played in Oakland from its founding in 1960 to 1981 and again from 1995 to 2019 before relocating to the Las Vegas metropolitan area where they now play as the Las Vegas Raide ...
; in the years since, the term has been used to refer to the game itself and its ending.
Game summary
With the game-time temperature at , the coldest National Football League game since the
Ice Bowl of December 31, 1967, the first quarter contained nothing but punts and interceptions, with Cleveland's
Ron Bolton
Ronald Clifton Bolton (born April 16, 1950, in Petersburg, Virginia) is a former National Football League defensive back and current college football coach. He is an alumnus of Norfolk State University
Norfolk State University (NSU) is a publi ...
and Oakland's
Lester Hayes
Lester Craig Hayes (born January 22, 1955) is an American former professional football player who was a cornerback for the Oakland / Los Angeles Raiders of the National Football League (NFL).
Hayes was commonly referred to as "the Judge" an ...
each recording one of the latter. Near the end of the quarter, Browns quarterback
Brian Sipe
Brian (sometimes spelled Bryan in English) is a male given name of Irish and Breton origin, as well as a surname of Occitan origin. It is common in the English-speaking world.
It is possible that the name is derived from an Old Celtic word meani ...
's 20-yard completion to
Reggie Rucker
Reginald Joseph Rucker (born September 21, 1947) is an American former professional football player who was a wide receiver in the National Football League (NFL) for the Dallas Cowboys, New York Giants, New England Patriots and Cleveland Browns ...
sparked a drive that reached inside the Raiders' 30-yard line, but it ended with no points early in the second quarter when
Don Cockroft
Donald Lee Cockroft (born February 6, 1945) is a former American football punter and placekicker who played 13 seasons in the National Football League with the Cleveland Browns. He has the third most career points for a Brown behind fellow kicker ...
missed a field goal attempt from 47 yards. On Oakland's ensuing drive, quarterback
Jim Plunkett
James William Plunkett (born December 5, 1947) is a former American football quarterback who played in the National Football League (NFL) for sixteen seasons. He achieved his greatest professional success during his final eight seasons with the ...
lost a fumble while being sacked, but their defense kept the Browns in check and Cockroft missed another field goal attempt, this one from 30 yards out.
With 6:02 left in the second quarter, Bolton scored the first points of the day by recording his second interception of Plunkett and returning it 42 yards to the end zone. However, Cockroft's ensuing extra point was blocked by
Ted Hendricks
Theodore Paul Hendricks (born November 1, 1947), nicknamed "the Mad Stork", is a former professional football player who played as an outside linebacker for 15 seasons with the Baltimore Colts, Green Bay Packers, and the Oakland/Los Angeles ...
. After an exchange of punts, Oakland managed to get on the scoreboard, with Plunkett completing passes to
Bob Chandler
Robert Donald Chandler (April 24, 1949 – January 27, 1995) was an American professional football player who was a wide receiver in the National Football League (NFL) for twelve seasons.
Early years
Born in Long Beach, California, Chandler w ...
and
Raymond Chester
Raymond Tucker Chester (born June 28, 1948) is a former American Football tight end. After graduating from Douglass High School in Baltimore, Maryland, Chester played college football at the historically Black University, Morgan State. He was a ...
for gains of 15 and 26 yards highlighting a 64-yard scoring drive.
Mark van Eeghen finished the drive with a 1-yard touchdown run with 18 seconds left in the half, making the score 7–6.
On Cleveland's opening drive of the second half, a 28-yard kickoff return to the 40-yard line by
Charles White started a 48-yard drive that ended with Cockroft's 30-yard field goal, giving the lead back to the Browns, 9–7. After forcing a punt, Cleveland drove to the Raiders' 24-yard line, but on a field goal attempt, holder
Paul McDonald was unable to handle a bad snap and was tackled for an 11-yard loss. On their next drive on the Raiders' 44 yard line after a punt, Cleveland drove to the 9 yard line, featuring a 21-yard reception by
Dave Logan. The drive ended with another 30-yard field goal by Cockroft, making the score 12–7 going into the fourth quarter.
Early in the final quarter, the Raiders took a 14–12 lead with an 80-yard drive highlighted by Chester's 27-yard catch. On the last play, van Eeghen scored his second 1-yard touchdown run of the day. The Raiders had a chance to put the game away when they recovered a fumble from Sipe on the Browns' 24-yard line with 4:19 left in the game. But on 3rd down with 1 yard to go at the Browns' 15-yard line, van Eeghen was stuffed for no gain on two consecutive plays, and Cleveland regained the ball on downs. On the second play of the ensuing drive, Sipe completed a 29-yard pass to tight end
Ozzie Newsome
Ozzie Newsome Jr. (born March 16, 1956) is an American former professional football player and executive who is the executive vice president of player personnel of the Baltimore Ravens of the National Football League (NFL). Newsome was a tight e ...
, and four plays later connected on a 23-yard pass to
Greg Pruitt
Gregory Donald Pruitt (born August 18, 1951) is a former American football running back in the National Football League (NFL) from 1973 through 1984. He was selected to five Pro Bowls, four as a member of the Cleveland Browns and one as a member o ...
. Then
Mike Pruitt
Michael L. Pruitt (born April 3, 1954) is an American former professional football player who was a fullback for 11 seasons in the National Football League (NFL) from 1976 to 1986. He was drafted by the Cleveland Browns in the first round (se ...
ran the ball 14 yards to the Raiders' 14-yard line. Pruitt gained another yard on the next play, and the team called a timeout with 49 seconds left.
The play
Trailing 14–12 with less than a minute remaining in the game, the Browns had the ball on the Raiders' 13-yard line and were in position for a potential game-winning
field goal
A field goal (FG) is a means of scoring in gridiron football. To score a field goal, the team in possession of the ball must place kick, or drop kick, the ball through the goal, i.e., between the uprights and over the crossbar. The entire ba ...
. Sipe conferred with
head coach
A head coach, senior coach or manager is a professional at training and developing athletes. They typically hold a more public profile and are paid more than other coaches. In some sports, the head coach is instead called the "manager", as in assoc ...
Sam Rutigliano
Sam William Rutigliano (born July 1, 1931) is a former American football coach and current television football analyst for WEWS, the ABC affiliate in Cleveland. He served as the head coach for the Cleveland Browns of the National Football Leagu ...
, who called a pass play, "Red Slot Right, Halfback Stay, 88," and instructed Sipe to "throw it into
Lake Erie
Lake Erie ( "eerie") is the fourth largest lake by surface area of the five Great Lakes in North America and the eleventh-largest globally. It is the southernmost, shallowest, and smallest by volume of the Great Lakes and therefore also has t ...
" (throwing the ball out of play as it was only 2nd down), if the play was anything less than wide open. On the next play, Sipe forced a pass to
tight end
The tight end (TE) is a position in American football, arena football, and Canadian football, on the offense. The tight end is often a hybrid position with the characteristics and roles of both an offensive lineman and a wide receiver. Like ...
Ozzie Newsome. However, it was intercepted in the end zone by Raiders safety
Mike Davis, who had cut in front of Newsome's square-out pass route, putting an end to the Browns' season. Oakland subsequently advanced to the
AFC conference championship, where they defeated the
San Diego Chargers
The San Diego Chargers were a professional American football team that played in San Diego from 1961 until the end of the 2016 season, before relocating to Los Angeles, where the franchise had played its inaugural 1960 season. The team is now ...
and went on to win
Super Bowl XV
Super Bowl XV was an American football game between the American Football Conference (AFC) champion Oakland Raiders and the National Football Conference (NFC) champion Philadelphia Eagles to decide the National Football League (NFL) champion for ...
against the
Philadelphia Eagles
The Philadelphia Eagles are a professional American football team based in Philadelphia. The Eagles compete in the National Football League (NFL) as a member club of the league's National Football Conference (NFC) East division. The team plays ...
.
The logic behind trying for the touchdown was that Cockroft, the Browns' placekicker, had previously missed two field goal attempts, had one
extra point
The conversion, try (American football, also known as a point(s) after touchdown, PAT, or (depending on the number of points) extra point/2-point conversion), or convert (Canadian football) occurs immediately after a touchdown during which the sc ...
attempt blocked, and had another aborted following a bad snap. In addition, the weather was brutally cold and windy. "What many people don't know about that situation is that I was a long way from being 100 percent physically in 1980," Cockroft said in a 2006 interview. "I had two herniated discs and needed four epidurals to just get through the season. I probably should have gone on
IR he injured reserve list"
[King, Steve]
Where are they Now?: Cockroft
Cleveland Browns. 2006-12-12 Cockroft was released by the Browns at the end of their 1981 training camp and retired soon after. In an NFL Films retrospective on the game, one of Mike Davis' teammates laughed over the play because Davis (an outstanding tackler and team leader) had notoriously poor hands and had often dropped potential interceptions during his career, only for Davis to make the biggest stop of his career by making a difficult catch during freezing, windy weather when it mattered the most.
Had the play been executed properly, it may have resulted in a touchdown. The primary receiver,
Dave Logan, was crossing left-to-right, had a step on his defender, and was open at the 6-yard line. Sipe misread the defensive back's movements and thought Logan was covered so he threw to the secondary receiver and it was intercepted. Furthermore, this drive had occurred right after the Raiders also eschewed a short field goal attempt, choosing to run the ball on 3rd and 4th down at the Browns' 15-yard line only to get stuffed for no gain each time.
The play call itself has since become an infamous part of
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. ...
sports lore, ranking with
The Drive
The Drive was an offensive series in the fourth quarter of the 1986 AFC Championship Game played on January 11, 1987, at Cleveland Municipal Stadium between the Denver Broncos and Cleveland Browns. Broncos quarterback John Elway, in a span of 5 ...
,
The Fumble
''The'' () is a grammatical Article (grammar), article in English language, English, denoting persons or things already mentioned, under discussion, implied or otherwise presumed familiar to listeners, readers, or speakers. It is the definite ...
,
The Catch The Catch may refer to:
Film and television
* ''The Catch'' (U.S. TV series), 2016-2017 American mystery television series
* ''The Catch'' (UK TV series), 2023 British family drama television series
* ''The Catch'' (1961 film), 1961 film by Nagisa ...
,
Game 7 of the 1997 World Series,
The Shot
The Shot was a basketball play that occurred during a 1989 playoff game between the Chicago Bulls and Cleveland Cavaliers of the National Basketball Association (NBA). It took place on May 7, 1989 at Richfield Coliseum in Richfield Township, ...
,
The Decision, and
The Move
The Move were a British rock band of the late 1960s and the early 1970s. They scored nine top 20 UK singles in five years, but were among the most popular British bands not to find any real success in the United States. For most of their caree ...
as a bad memory that symbolizes the 52-year professional championship drought that plagued the city until the
Cleveland Cavaliers
The Cleveland Cavaliers (often referred to as the Cavs) are an American professional basketball team based in Cleveland. The Cavaliers compete in the National Basketball Association (NBA) as a member of the league's Eastern Conference (NBA), Ea ...
won the
2016 NBA Finals
The 2016 NBA Finals was the championship series of the National Basketball Association's (NBA) 2015–16 season and conclusion of the 2016 playoffs. The Eastern Conference champion Cleveland Cavaliers defeated the defending NBA champion and W ...
.
See also
*
Cleveland sports curse
The Cleveland sports curse was a sports superstition involving the city of Cleveland, Ohio, and its major league professional sports teams, centered on the failure to win a championship in any major league sport for 52 years, from 1964 to 2016. T ...
*
1980–81 NFL playoffs
The National Football League playoffs for the 1980 NFL season, 1980 season began on December 28, 1980. The postseason tournament concluded with the Oakland Raiders defeating the Philadelphia Eagles in Super Bowl XV, 27–10, on January 25, 1981, a ...
*
The Fumble
''The'' () is a grammatical Article (grammar), article in English language, English, denoting persons or things already mentioned, under discussion, implied or otherwise presumed familiar to listeners, readers, or speakers. It is the definite ...
*
The Drive
The Drive was an offensive series in the fourth quarter of the 1986 AFC Championship Game played on January 11, 1987, at Cleveland Municipal Stadium between the Denver Broncos and Cleveland Browns. Broncos quarterback John Elway, in a span of 5 ...
*
Cleveland Browns relocation to Baltimore
The Cleveland Browns relocation controversy - colloquially called "The Move" by fans - was caused during the 1995 NFL season by the announcement from then-Browns owner Art Modell that he intended to move the Cleveland Browns of the National Footb ...
References
{{NFL on NBC
1980 National Football League season
National Football League playoff games
Cleveland Browns postseason
Oakland Raiders postseason
American football incidents
January 1981 sports events in the United States
1981 in sports in Ohio