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Cleveland is a blue-collar city with hardworking people that want to support their hardworking teams. No matter the previous season’s record, the loyal fan base is confident that this will be their season. Times have been tough for Cleveland sports teams, but it wasn’t always that way. In fact, in the late forties, all of the fifties and the early sixties, Cleveland was the marquee sports city on the planet.
The Story of the Orange and Brown dates back to 1946 when owner Mickey McBride formed the team and hired the legendary coach Paul Brown to win several championships and begin a dynasty that is still respected 70 plus years later. Under the reign of Paul Brown, the Cleveland franchise won the AAFC championship four times in 1946, 1947, 1948 and 1949. Their dominance upon entering the NFL was just as good as they won the NFL Championship in 1950, 1954 and 1955. In the earliest days of professional football, the Cleveland Browns were the most coveted and respected franchise in existence.
They rebounded from a brief spell away from the playoffs in the 1970’s, to give fans one of the most thrilling seasons in franchise history with the Kardiac Kids in 1980. Years later, the excitement would return as a hometown boy in Bernie Kosar would skip the NFL Draft just for the chance to play for the franchise he loved. With Bernie, the Browns appeared in three AFC Championship games in five years as the Cleveland truly became, “Browns Town!”.
Bill Belichick would arrive in Cleveland and that would spell the end of Bernie Kosar under center. What few people realize is just how good of a team Belichick had built, including a playoff win before the team bolted for Baltimore.
Upon their return to the league, the Browns have had several winning seasons, and numerous runs towards the playoffs, including 02, 07 and 2020. This book covers all of the fun, and sometimes dysfunction of one of the most beloved franchises in NFL History.
This is a tale for every Browns fan who wears their Orange and Brown proudly every Sunday, no matter the team’s record!
In 1935, the city of Cleveland got its first pro football team named the Cleveland Rams. The Rams were named after the Fordham University Rams, best known for their Seven Blocks of Granite, their offense line anchored by Vince Lombardi. Lombardi went on to coach the NFL’s Green Bay Packers to several championships and even the first two Super Bowl victories.
Man fans from that generation fondly remember walking up Lexington Avenue to the Old League Park. The Green Wall seemed as if it went on forever. The fan following for pro football wasn’t as strong as the backing for college games, but it was slowly starting to gather steam
After several horrible seasons, the Rams actually disbanded for the entire 1944 season. With college football drawing 80,000 fans, and Rams games only drawing 3,000, the hiatus didn’t come to a surprise to many. However, in 1945 Rams owner, Dan Reeves, brought the Rams back for one more season. This time things would be different as the Rams were headed for a massive turnaround. The talent was about to put it all together for a run at the championship.
On December 16, 1945, a cold winter’s day in Cleveland, the championship game took place between the Cleveland Rams and the Washington Redskins, led by Sammy Baugh. Many fans that saw him play considered Baugh one of the greatest football players of all time. It was a tight game that had four points scored by a player not even wearing a uniform. In the first quarter, Washington quarterback, Sammy Baugh, dropped back to pass in the end zone, but the ball hit the goal post. The rule stated that when this occurred, a two point safety would be charged against the offensive team. Back then, the goal post was at the goal line and not at the back of the end zone. This gave the Rams a two- point lead. Those points proved crucial later in the game.
After Cleveland answered a Washington touchdown with one of their own, the time came for an unorthodox extra point. Quarterback, Bob Waterfield, who was also the Rams place kicker, booted the ball and it bounced off the goal post before going in. It was the same goal post that created the safety from earlier in the game. The final score saw Cleveland celebrating a 15-14 win and their first pro football championship.
The famed owner of the Washington Redskins, George Preston Marshall, was so irate that two major consequences emerged from this game. The first occurred later that night when at dinner with his coach, Dudley Degroot, the vaunted owner fired Degrott, who had the nerve to complain that his wife’s purse was stolen at the game. Marshall was so irate that the coach dared complain about anything other than the loss that he fired him on the spot. The second major event to occur was that of the safety rule being reversed. From that point forward, any ball hitting off the goal post thrown by the offense was considered a dead ball. It was referred to by most as the “Baugh Marshall rule”.
In the spring of 2012, I visited the Pro Football Hall of Fame with my father-in-law, and to our amazement a piece of that exact goalpost was part of a special exhibit.
The unbridled enthusiasm of winning the championship would quickly wore off when owner, Dan Reeves, announced he was moving the Cleveland Rams to Los Angeles in 1946. It wasn’t total heartbreak, because the city would still have pro-football; it would just be a new team under owner Mickey McBride.
As mentioned in the introduction, in 1946, professional football returned to Cleveland when Mickey McBride, who owned the Yellow Cab Taxi Company, and was also an active real estate agent, created the Cleveland Browns. Cleveland had a prior professional football team in town called the Cleveland Rams, however after winning the championship in 1945; owner Dan Reeves moved them out of town.
Mickey McBride’s first order of business was to move the Cleveland Browns from League Park to the new Cleveland Municipal Stadium downtown. If not for him, there might have not been a football in Cleveland for many years. McBride hired the legendary, Paul Brown, for whom the team was later named.
Many people have the false impression that the team was named after the “Brown Bomber” Joe Louis; however, it is a fact that they were named after Coach Paul Brown. This came after a failed attempt in the Cleveland local newspaper to let the fans decide on a name for the team. The Fans had voted for Panthers as the name for the team, but Paul Brown shot that down. He stated that the Panthers were associated with failure from a past team in town.
Brown was brought in to coach the Cleveland Browns after years of serving in the U.S. Navy as well as a very successful coaching stint at Massilon High School as well as The Ohio State University. He signed a contract worth a reported $17,500 yearly, which at the time was the highest paid coaching contract in football.
McBride even reportedly offered Brown a stipend for the rest of his time in the military.
Brown wasted no time bringing in as many players as he felt could help the team immediately win. Some of the biggest and best players included Northwestern quarterback, Otto Graham. Running behind Graham would be eventual Hall of Fame running back, Marion Motley. With star wide out, Dante Lavelli, and placekicker, Lou “The Toe” Groza, the new team in town proved to be a force to reckon with. The Browns began practicing at the campus of Bowling Green State University a couple hours west of from Cleveland. The team colors came from the Bowling Green Falcons, who were brown and orange.
Joe DeLuca, who grew up in Cleveland, has many stories about the winning years of the past. Things were much different then and winning wasn’t a gift, but a birth right. Joe was born in 1933 and he had the incredible opportunity to see the first ever Cleveland Browns football game in person. Throughout the first fifteen years of his life, he saw multiple championship seasons.
“The Browns were being lead by a great disciplinarian”, recalls eighty 87 years old Browns fan Joe Deluca, telling a story regarding Brown, “He was such a strict coach that even enforced a dress code, but that is why his players respected him. He even fired team captain, Jim Daniel, after he had gotten drunk a week before the 1946 Championship game. Daniel had gotten so drunk that he even took a swing at a cop. In order to set an example for the rest of his team, Paul Brown didn’t hesitate to cut his captain”.
The Browns joined the All American Football Conference in 1946. So prepared was Brown that he even convinced McBride to keep a list of reserves, who didn’t make the team, employed on his taxi cab payroll just in case of an injury. The part-time taxi drivers were fondly known as the Taxi Squad. Brown searched the entire country to bring in the best talent he could find.
The Browns took the field at Municipal Stadium for the first game against the Miami Seahawks in front of 63,000 fans on September 6, 1946. Joe DeLuca can still close his eyes and recall the moment fondly. “The lights were shut off in the whole stadium, the only light coming from the exits signs when a spotlight from the right field stands turned on.
The light shone into the dugout where the Miami Seahawks players were about to run out and take the field. As the announcer spoke and the first player from the Seahawks ran across the field, he kicked up a little dust as he ran across the dirt infield. I remember getting chills seeing this thinking something great was happening. I still get goose bumps as I think about it all these later”,
DeLuca can still name every single player from the 1946 roster, the position they played, and their number without even having to look at a team picture. Years later, he met Lou Groza at a laundry mat and told him that it was the greatest team in Cleveland Browns history. When Groza asked him why he felt that team was the best ever, DeLuca replied “If that team was lousy, no one would have come and they would have left town”. It was vital that the 1946 Cleveland Browns be great.
Paul Brown winning teams brought packed houses for each game. The Cleveland fans quickly forgot about the Rams when the Browns crushed the Seahawks and kept the ball rolling all season. Mickey McBride was a smart business man who took full advantage of the team’s success. Tickets sold at the premium price of 25 cents each. Included in each paid program was a raffle number to allow a fan to win a brand new car. McBride even promised a big celebrity to appear at every home game as well.
In 1946 the Cleveland Browns led by Paul Brown won their first league championship by beating the New York Yankees 14-9. This completed a magical first season that spilled over into a 1947 season. In their second year, the Browns defeated the Baltimore Colts 42-0 for a second consecutive championship. Heading into 1948, nothing would change as the Browns won their third championship with a 49-7 rout over the Buffalo Bills.
The Cleveland Browns did not lose a single game the entire 1948 season making them a dominant force in the league
The 1948 year in sports had been so amazing for Cleveland that the city was now known simply as “The City of Champions”! As Joe Deluca recalls, “We were so spoiled with all the winning; it was as if it would never end”. In 1949, the Browns won the championship yet again under the direction of legendary Paul Brown with a 21-7 win over the San Francisco 49ers. In 1950, the Cleveland Browns moved to the NFL but they remained dominant, winning the championship on Christmas Eve over the Los Angeles Rams 30-28. Paul Brown was proving he could win in any league at any level. Joe DeLuca attended that game with many other rabid fans freezing but winning! The irony was sweet, as they had beaten the former Cleveland Rams.
The Browns reached the championship each of the next three years, but lost all of those games. A pair of them to the upstart Detroit Lions, who were shaking off years of losing and starting to taste winning for the first time.
Changes for Paul Brown started before the 1953 season when McBride sold the team to a group of local businessmen led by David Jones for $600,000. Paul Brown was upset that McBride did not consult him about the deal, the new owners assured him they would stay out of the picture and let Brown run the team. This was a vital issue for Brown as he needed full control over personnel decisions for his system to work successfully.
Paul Brown remained unfazed with the ownership change and led the Browns to back to back NFL championships with wins over the Detroit Lions and Los Angeles Rams in 1954 and 1955. The 1955 championship would be the last one Brown had Otto Graham for at his disposal as he announced his retirement after the game was over.
In 1956, the Browns had their first losing season under Paul Brown as they struggled to go 5 – 7. It was their first season without Graham at quarterback in a long time and they had problems adjusting. In the following year’s draft, the team selected Jim Brown out of Syracuse University. Jim Brown was loaded with talent and was one of the greatest runners to ever play the game. The problem was that Jim Brown was not one for accepting discipline and slowly started to align his teammates against Paul Brown.
It didn’t help matters that Paul Brown was critical of some aspects of Jim Brown’s game, including his extreme lack of blocking. Where Jim Brown excelled at was running, not blocking or being an all around good teammate. In Jim Brown’s first season, the team reached the championship game, again against the Lions, but lost 59-14.
As Jim Brown’s star rose, players began to question Paul Brown’s leadership and play-calling in the late 1950s because Jim was turning his teammates and the media against the proven coach. It was Jim Browns play on the field that was allowing more people to side with him over the seasoned coach. People where in awe of Browns running ability and willing to look past his off the field antics. Jim Brown started a weekly radio show, which Paul Brown did not like as it undercut his control over the team.
The team finished second in its division in 1959 and 1960 but the second place finishes didn’t bother Jim Brown as he continued to lead the league in rushing every season.
A dark cloud rose over Cleveland in 1961 when Art Modell, a New York advertising executive, bought the team in 1961 for almost $4 million. At first it looked as though Modell would not be all that bad as he gave Paul Brown a new eight year contract and stated he and Brown would have a “working partnership”.
It didn’t take long for Modell to get in the way of things and start to play a heavy hand in football affairs. This upset Paul Brown who was used to having total control in football matters. Modell was close in age to many of his players, only 35, he took it upon himself to try and buddy up to many of them. Modell became very close with Jim Brown, which was the kiss of death of the disciplinarian coach. Modell could be heard during games second guessing Paul Browns play calling.
Things finally came to a head between the owner and coach when Paul brown traded Bobby Mitchell for the rights to Ernie Davis, who was a Heisman trophy winning running back out of Syracuse. Davis was no stranger to the end zone as he broke all of Jim Browns rushing records while playing at Syracuse. This was a face that did not sit well with Jim Brown, furthermore he was not happy to have Davis as a teammate. Sharing the spotlight, was not something Jim Brown preferred. Sadly, Ernie Davis never played a single game as a Cleveland Brown because he was diagnosed with leukemia before the 1962 season.
Paul Brown was a methodical and disciplined coach who tolerated no deviation from his system. He ran a well oiled machine and that was simply not the way Jim Brown was choosing to be coached. In the end it was Modell who sided with Jim Brown and fired the legendary coach on January 7, 1963. This was right in the middle of a newspaper strike which allowed Modell to try and make the move under the radar. Blanton Collier, Brown’s longtime assistant, was named the team’s new head coach.
Paul Brown was a great leader of men, and some of the men who worked directly underneath him went on to have amazing careers. Men such as Don Shula, Blanton Collier, Weeb Ewbank, Bill Walsh, and Chuck Knoll to name a few. He finished with seven league championships during his tenure with Cleveland. He led them to 11 straight title games in that stretch. It was the most dominant run of any head coach in the history of football. It is safe to say that Paul Brown is the greatest head coach in the history of pro football, and Art Modell fired him.
It was the first of many shocking moves by Modell that would occur over the following 40 years plus years.
Paul Brown would only stay away from the game for less than five years as he was quick to throw his hat in the team ownership of the AFL franchise that was starting in Cincinnati. Brown was the third-largest investor in the team and was given the title of coach and general manager. Two roles he succeeded at. The Bengals joined the NFL in 1970 as a result of the AFL-NFL merger, and were placed in the newly formed American Football Conference. In his years as the Bengals’ head coach, Brown took the team to the playoffs three times but was never able to win a championship for the Queen City.
Paul Brown will be forever remembered as the man who helped change the course of professional football. His coaching ways and attention to detail and discipline reshaped the landscape and model of professional football. The combination of Art Modell and Jim Brown ran him out of Cleveland; it was the first in a long line of shocking moments and disappointing decisions that Cleveland sports fans would have to endure.
The Cleveland Browns last won the NFL Championship in 1964 with a group of players drafted and trained by Paul Brown, despite him not being there, his impact still loomed over the team and was a big reason they took home the title in 1964. They were coached by Blanton Collier and it seemed as though their dynasty built under Paul Brown would continue on with several more championships, however it was the last world championship Cleveland has obtained in any major sport.
They returned to the NFL championship game three more times in the next four years. They lost all three times to the Green Bay Packers, Baltimore Colts and Minnesota Vikings. By that point and time, the NFL winner was playing the AFL winner in a game called the Super Bowl. They fell short of the championship game in 1971 and 1972 with losses to the Baltimore Colts and Miami Dolphins. They went the rest of the 1970’s without making it back to the playoffs. Things began to change in the 1980’s.
