Cleveland's Browns: The Standard of Football Excellence

Post date: Mar 21, 2014 5:03:04 AM

CLEVELAND’S BROWNS

The Standard of Football Excellence

While the followers of the Seattle Seahawks celebrate their first Super Bowl and the faithful in Denver, New England, and San Francisco applaud the successful efforts of their heroes, pro football fans along the banks of Lake Erie helplessly look on as their Browns undergo another complete upheaval. Never mind the “good young nucleus,” and pay no attention to the fact that they are “sitting pretty well” for the NFL draft. The Browns once again have their followers seeing red while they sing the blues and reluctantly look at the team’s black future. Since it might be too painful for the Brown's loyalists to peer at ahead, let’s provide them some needed comfort by looking to the past – about sixty to seventy years past, when most of them weren’t even born yet. They are guaranteed to like what they see.

If there were Super Bowls between 1946 and 1955 instead of just professional football champions, Cleveland’s beloved Browns would have been in the Super Bowl for ten straight seasons. Of these ten "Super Bowl" appearances, they won an incredible seven of them; winning the first five, losing the next three, and then winning the next two. The Boston Celtics are the only other professional team in any sport that has appeared in ten straight title games, an accomplishment no team in the future will probably ever duplicate. By the way, this domination was not just in the postseason. Cleveland’s regular season record from ’46 to ’55 was 107-17, an unearthly .861 winning percentage. In the modern era, it’s the equivalent of 14-2 for ten years.

The Browns’ total gridiron domination was masterminded by their legendary coach, Paul Brown. Brown had incredible success at every level that he coached. He was 38 years old during the Browns’ first season in 1946, and had previously coached at the high school, collegiate, and military levels. He lost ten games in eleven seasons while coaching in his home town at Massillon Washington High School. At the collegiate level in 1942 he led Ohio State to their first national championship. In 1945, with very little time to prepare, he coached the Great Lakes Naval Training Station Bluejackets to a 9-2-1 record and a ranking in the Top 20 of the Associated Press football poll, his only losses at the hands of Ohio State and Notre Dame. The following year, with a roster decimated by discharges or transfers, Brown’s Bluejackets were 6-4-1, with one of the victories a 39-7 rout of Notre Dame.

As a pro football coach Brown was the master innovator and cared little if others saw him as a control freak. He was the first to consistently scout opponents, study game film, and hire a full time staff of assistant coaches. Also, thumbing his nose NFL teams, Brown invited running back Marion Motley to Cleveland. After Motley's brilliant career in Cleveland was over he was enshrined in the Hall of Fame.

Brown’s approach to coaching was equally innovative. Browns players were routinely tested on their playbook. They wore a sport coat and tie when travelling on the road. During the season no member of the Browns was allowed to smoke or drink alcohol, and players were also warned not to engage in sex after Tuesday nights until that week’s game was over. When you look at how players Otto Graham, Dante Lavelli, Mac Speedie, “Special Delivery” Jones, Lou Groza, Frank Gatsby, and Don Paul thrived under Coach Brown’s guidance – it all worked.

Perhaps the best measure of Brown’s greatness and influence, however, can be measured by looking at the success of his coaching disciples. Even a partial list is quite impressive: Blanton Collier, Weeb Ewbank, Don Shula, Bill Walsh, Chuck Noll, Bill Parcells, Buddy Ryan, Mike Holmgren, Bill Belichick, and Jeff Fischer. Fourteen members of Brown’s “coaching tree” have taken teams to the Super Bowl.

So the good citizens of Cleveland can be excused if the presence of new coach Mike Pettine doesn’t conjure up images of the team’s namesake, and they can be excused if new faces like Dante Whitner and Karlos Dansby don’t remind them of Jim Brown and Gene Hickerson. If all the new faces for 2014 fare no better than their 2013 predecessors, they can always drive to nearby Canton and relive the Browns’ years of glory.

Charles Billington

March 12, 2014