 Cleveland met the Houston Oilers in the wild-card playoff round at home, but lost the game 24–23.Four days after the Oilers loss, Schottenheimer and Modell announced that the coach would leave the team by mutual consent.Modell felt hiring an offensive coordinator was necessary to keep pace with the Oilers and the Bengals, a pair of divisional opponents then on the rise, but Schottenheimer said it "became evident that some of the differences we had, we weren't going to be able to resolve."