Sunday Dawg Chow (1/26): Draft season has arrived, Browns AFC title game memories, and more!

The latest Cleveland Browns news and notes from around the NFL in the Sunday Dawg Chow.

Today is the penultimate Sunday of NFL games as the AFC Championship and NFC Championship games will take place.

Somewhere between today’s games and the Super Bowl in two weeks, one or more of the networks will show a graphic highlighting how the Cleveland Browns are one of just four teams who have yet to appear in a Super Bowl. (We’ll ignore the pesky detail of Cleveland’s eight league titles, which still count even if they were not called the Super Bowl.)

It has been a while, of course, but the Browns have come close five times to making the ultimate game in the Super Bowl era. That may be hard for the younger generation of fans to believe, but it is true!

It happened twice in the 1960s, with the Browns coming up short in the NFL Championship Game in 1968 against the Baltimore Colts and again in 1969 against the Minnesota Vikings.

Reverse those outcomes and it could have been the Browns on the wrong end of Joe Namath and the New York Jets or the Kansas City Chiefs “matriculating down the field.”

The late 1980s brought a trio of losses to the Denver Broncos, which are still too painful to have a rational conversation about for Browns fans who lived through those defeats. The only bright spot was that the Broncos went on to lose in all three of the Super Bowls they subsequently played in those seasons.

If you are so inclined, you can read more about those games here at DBN.

Let’s get off championship Sunday with today’s edition of the Sunday Dawg Chow.

Dawgs By Nature:

• The Shedeur Sanders Shrine Bowl video that Browns fans are analyzing (Jared Mueller) - The Shrine Bowl just kicked off its process with the Senior Bowl shortly behind. Shedeur Sanders was a big name for the Shrine Bowl but he will not practice or play in the game, only meet with teams this week. An interesting video popped up that has Cleveland Browns fans analyzing body language which could be influenced by the caption of the social media post.
• Kevin Stefanski reveals plans for the Browns new offense under Tommy Rees (Damon Wolfe) - The Cleveland Browns are putting the final touches on their coaching staff for 2025 as new coaches are entering coupled with a few departures. Fresh off of introducing Tommy Rees as the team’s new offensive coordinator, head coach Kevin Stefanski sat down with Andrew Siciliano for an interview on the latest episode of the team’s Bark Tank podcast.
• NFL Draft Profile: WR Tetairoa McMillan, Arizona (Thomas Moore) - Cleveland needs help at wide receiver, but would they be interested in filling the need in the first round of the draft?
• Browns NFL free agency, trade options: Realistic or unrealistic potential QB options (Curtiss Brown) - With the Cleveland Browns back in the quarterback market,...