There won’t be a single Cleveland Brown who won’t be dreaming about having a Greg Camarillo moment Saturday at home against the Chargers.
As the 0-14 Browns try desperately to avoid the ignominy of becoming just the second team in NFL history to finish 0-16, following the 2008 Lions, they should have spent the week looking at Camarillo as a source of inspiration and living proof that you can hope against hope and defeat hopelessness.
Camarillo was a scrappy reserve wide receiver on an 0-13 Dolphins team in 2007 that was threatening to become the first team since the 0-14 expansion Buccaneers in 1976 to go winless.
“It was the 35th anniversary of the undefeated Dolphins team,” Camarillo told The Post, “so there was talk about this great Dolphins team and how they didn’t lose a single game, and then every week the question would come up, ‘Is this how we’re going to celebrate, by having a Dolphins team that loses every single game?’ It was present pretty much the entire season. So here we are celebrating these guys for excellence and perfection, and meanwhile we are doing the complete opposite.”
Camarillo chuckled when asked if it got to the point where he didn’t feel like going out in public at times.
“You just got to hide it a little bit,” he said. “Instead of wearing your Dolphins gear out, you got to just wear your regular gear out.”
As fate would have it, Don Shula and six of his Hall of Fame players from that 17-0 Dolphins team were honorary captains for the coin toss on Dec. 16, 2007, at Dolphin Stadium against a 4-9 Ravens team that had lost seven consecutive games.
The Dolphins started slowly, to no one’s surprise, but stormed back and took a late lead, to everyone’s surprise, when Ravens quarterback Troy Smith, in relief of an injured Kyle Boller, engineered a drive from his 40 to the one-foot line with eight seconds remaining in regulation. Ravens coach Brian Billick decided to summon Matt Stover to kick the tying 18-yard field goal.
“It’s very tough to go for all or nothing, but in our circumstances, why not,” Billick was quoted as saying. “But we just ran the length of the field and there were more positives for us to go into overtime.
“Like any other decision in the NFL, when it works, it’s right. It doesn’t work, you were wrong.”
“To us,” Camarillo recalled, “that was like a glimmer of hope.”
Nevertheless, there was no “Win One for the Gipper” speech on Miami coach Cam Cameron’s sideline. Not even … Win One!
“You run out of things to say,” Camariillo said. “At 0-13, there’s nothing someone could say to motivate you at that point. At that point, you’re just digging deep inside yourself to find motivation.”
Stover missed a 44-yard FG wide left in overtime that would have made the Dolphins 0-14.
“I was the fourth receiver, and I only had one career catch for 2 yards going into that game,” Camarillo said.
Cleo Lemon was the Miami quarterback because Trent Green and John Beck were injured. Camarillo had caught his second and third passes of his career earlier that day.
“It was pretty much the only play in that week that was coming my way,” Camarillo said.
The name of the play?
“It’s called Ernie,” Camarillo said. “It’s named after [former NFL offensive coordinator] Ernie Zampese, ‘cause I think he designed it. People write it in as Scat Left Ernie. The wide receiver comes in motion and it’s like a quick post route — something I had run a million times, one of my favorite routes, if not my favorite route, something I was super-comfortable with, and we ran it three times for a lot of success.”
The third time was the historic charm.
Lemon, third-and-8 at his 36, hit Camarillo in stride around midfield.
“Ed Reed, who was the safety, knew what was coming, completely abandoned his coverage and was within inches of intercepting the ball,” Camarillo said.
Reed didn’t intercept it. And straight in Camarillo’s line of sight was the end zone. And 1-13.
“I just looked up and there’s literally nobody there,” Camarillo said, “and I’m not known for my speed, but the guy chasing me has been playing for five quarters. I probably played 10 plays, I’m guessing, that game.”
Camarillo’s mind smiled at the Baltimore 30.
“As I’m running, I’m thinking like ‘I’ve made it far enough that we kick the field goal and win,’” he said. “Next thing I know I’m in the end zone, and there was a celebration.”
Camarillo kept running to the back wall where jubilant fans greeted him.
“And then the dogpile ensued from there,” he said.
Because here came his 1-13 teammates.
“Somebody grabbed the ball so I could hold onto that,” Camarillo said. “John Beck is a Mormon guy and had never consumed alcohol. And he said that was the first moment he ever drank because a fan threw a beer in the air being so excited, and one drop got into his mouth.”
Dolphins 22, Ravens 16.
“It was amazing. Absolutely amazing,” Camarillo said. “Everybody dreams of catching the game-winning touchdown. … You’d want it to be in the Super Bowl, or you’d want it to be in a playoff game. But the relief, the excitement, your enjoyment of working so hard to finally get one win … it was temporarily as though we had achieved something great when really we had just avoided infamy.”
The party carried into the locker room.
“Everyone was so happy that they let my dad in the locker room, which never happens,” Camarillo said. “It was awesome. It was fun to be doing interviews. It was fun to be celebrating. It was an unexpected and encouraging moment in my career.”
The next season, Rod Marinelli’s Lions went 0-16.
“I thought it was a little bit ironic, no one had ever done it and here they are, two years in a row, knocking on the door of it,” Camarillo said. “They were terrible, too. I was cheering for them to get one win, and it just didn’t happen.”
Of course, Camarillo feels for the 2016 Browns.
“The ’72 Dolphins watch for undefeated teams each year, and they kind of cheer when they lose,” Camarillo said, “and every year I watch for a defeated team, and I just shake my head, I’m like, ‘Man, these poor guys, I know exactly what they’re going through,’” Camarillo said. “And each week I want them to get a win so they don’t have to go through it.”
Except that Camarillo does an NBC “Football Night in San Diego” show, and the Browns happen to be playing the 5-9 Chargers. He is also involved in student-athlete development at the University of San Diego. He will be rooting for the Chargers.
“I have to,” Camarillo said, and chuckled. “In the final week I don’t know who Cleveland plays, but I’ll be pulling for them.”
Ahem. They will be playing the Steelers in Pittsburgh on New Year’s Day. Camarillo was asked if he has any advice for the poor Browns.
“Man … the only advice I have is to play your best for yourself,” he said. “In the NFL, your career is dependent on the way you play. And it is hard to motivate a team of 53 guys when a season’s been that bad, but if you go out there and think to yourself, ‘I just got to play the best for me,’ and hopefully everyone else does that same exact thing, and you can put together enough of a performance to get a victory.”
Is there a Greg Camarillo in the house?