Leroy Kelly wasn’t the only Pro Football Hall of Fame enshrinee from the Browns who was making his debut, per se, when Cleveland visited the Washington Redskins 48 years ago, on Sept. 11, 1966, in the regular-season opener.

Indeed, an interesting and long-forgotten fact is that while Kelly was beginning to prove his worth as the Browns’ starting running back, Otto Graham was trying to do the same as a head coach.

Graham, whose quarterback play led the Browns to 10 straight league championship games, with seven titles, in their first 10 years from existence from 1946-55, was making his NFL head-coaching debut with the Redskins.

A decade removed from his retirement as a player, Graham had been hired in the offseason to replace Bill McPeak, who had been just 21-46-3 from 1961-65. The Redskins had not had a winning season since 1955, Graham’s last season as a player when the Browns won the NFL crown for the second straight time.

The Redskins were hoping that Graham could inject some of that winning attitude and his vast knowledge of the game to help revive a sad-sack franchise. That his debut was against his old team was one of the key opening-day storylines in the NFL in 1966. How odd it was for longtime Browns fans to see their one-time hero trying to defeat the Browns.

The idea of Graham as a championship-caliber head coach didn’t work. He lasted just three seasons before getting dismissed, with his teams going, in order, 7-7, 5-6-3 and 5-9 for an overall record of 17-22-3.

The Browns contributed to Graham’s ultimate firing, beating his Redskins all four times they faced them, although two of the defeats were by just three and five points. The score in the 1966 opener was a one-sided 38-14, with Cleveland scoring the last 38 points.

Two of the Browns vs. Graham games – the rematch late in the 1966 season and the lone meeting in ’67 – were at Cleveland, which made for an even stranger sight of seeing Graham on the opposite sideline at Cleveland Stadium. You can bet Graham found it strange as well.

In going against the Browns in all four games, Graham was matching wits with head coach Blanton Collier, who had been Cleveland’s top assistant coach for the quarterback’s first eight seasons. How odd that must have been for both men.

 Graham never got to go against his former head coach, Paul Brown. In 1968, Brown was in his first season as head coach of the expansion Cincinnati Bengals in the AFL, but it would not be for two more years after that before NFL and AFL teams began meeting each other in the regular season.

However, Collier and Brown opposed each other twice in the regular season in 1970. By that time, Graham was completely retired from the game.

By Steve King