Dawgs By Nature
What is it about the Cleveland Browns and their kicker situation? What was the curse, and when did it happen? More importantly, what is the remedy?
The Chicago Cubs had their goat spell, while the Boston Red Sox had the “Curse of the Bambino.” But at least both teams knew what the origins were regarding their whammies.
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The Browns definitely have a kicker curse, but the timeline of its origin is a bit fuzzy. Cleveland has had some of the best kickers in the history of the league, such as Lou “The Toe” Groza, Phil Dawson, Don Cockroft, Matt Stover, Matt Bahr, Steve Cox, and Chase McLaughlin.
Except for McLaughlin, all of these guys were forever ago.
In 2017, the Browns took Zane Gonzalez in the seventh round. He was the Groza Award winner and held the record for most career points in college. The year before GM Andrew Berry took over the NFL draft, Austin Seibert was selected in the fifth round. Seibert had been named the Big 12 Special Teams Player of the Year his senior year. Later with the Washington Commanders, Seibert kicked seven field goals in a single game.
Berry has attempted to bring in some young talent with the selection of Cade York in Round 4 in 2022. York was First Team All-SEC.
And yet each one fizzled out and was ultimately released.
It seems this kicker curse began with the 2013 season. Dawson had been the Browns’ kicker beginning in 1999, the year the new Browns became an NFL team once again. He kicked until the 2012 season. That year was his finest season as he was named Second Team All-Pro and made the Pro Bowl. 2012 just happened to be his contract year, but during the off-season, new Browns GM Michael Lombardi never offered Dawson a new deal. In fact, he never called Dawson’s agent to discuss anything.
Dawson played 14 years in Cleveland and had broken most of Groza’s team kicking records. He made 84% of field goals and 97.8% of PATs for the Browns. In his 20-year NFL career, Dawson has scored 1,847 points with 1,271 while wearing orange and brown. And yet, not a single word from the Browns to return. So, he moved on to the San Francisco 49ers and later the Arizona Cardinals.
2013 is where this curse began. Maybe Dawson put a hex on the team. Could it be the football gods? Perhaps 14 consecutive years of service to one team wasn’t sufficient.
Or maybe, just maybe, the spirit of Lou “The Toe” is haunting Cleveland because Dawson had broken the Browns team record for the most career field goals. Is that more plausible?
Because from that point on, after the 2012 season, the Browns have had a multitude of kickers:
2013: Billy Cundiff
2014: Garrett Hartley
2015: Travis Coons
2016: Cody Parkey
2017: Zane Gonzalez
2018: Greg Joseph
2019: Austin Seibert
2020: Cody Parkey (Matt McCrane PS)
2021: Chase McLaughlin (Chris Blewitt...
