It is the iconic and historically significant — even franchise-changing — Browns game that has never, ever gotten its just due.

And it was played exactly 73 years ago on the same footprint of Sunday’s game between the Browns and Chicago Bears at Cleveland Browns Stadium.

It was Dec. 17, 1950 that the Browns, in their first season in the NFL after coming from the All-America Football Conference, finally beat the New York Giants 8-3 at Cleveland Stadium in a special playoff contest to punch their ticket to the NFL Championship Game against the Los Angeles Rams the following Sunday right back there.

If the Browns had not won, then there would have been no NFL title with a 30-28 comeback victory over the Rams, and thus they would have failed in their attempt to prove they were as good as their dominance of the AAFC — four titles in as many seasons and a 52-4-3 overall record — had seemed to suggest. And if all that in 1950 had not happened the way it did, would the greatness of 1951-55 — five straight NFL title game appearances, with two championships, giving the Browns 10 trips to the league title game, with seven championships, in their first 10 years of existence, the best decade by any team in pro football history — have taken place? Who knows? But it’s certainly a legitimate question, and an intriguing and important one.

Those became moot points, though, because the Browns stood strong against the Giants on a raw, windy day on a frozen field that forced the players on both teams to wear tennis shoes to try to get better traction. The temperature at kickoff was in the high teens with a wind-chill of about 10. By the last part of the game late that afternoon, as the heat of the day came and went and dusk approached, with the Winter Equinox — the shortest day of the year — just four days away, the players were begging for those temperatures.

The game was necessitated after the Browns and Giants finished tied for first place in the American Conference (later the Eastern Conference) with 10-2 records. Both of the Browns’ losses came to the Giants, 6-0 (their first home defeat since 1947) and 17-13 at the Polo Grounds, marking the first time that Cleveland, which blew a 13-3 third-quarter lead, had lost twice to a team in the same season. The Giants’ “umbrella defense,” which they devised that year specifically to slow down the prolific Browns’ West Coast-type offense by using a 4-3-4 scheme for the first time in pro football history, worked like a charm.

The Browns also didn’t do much in the playoff game — partly because of the weather that made it tough to pass, which was, as mentioned, such a big part of their offense — but they still won on the strength of their defense, which was really good in those early days but never got the praise it deserved because of being overshadowed by the incredible offense.

The Browns held Giants quarterback Charlie Conerly to just 3-of-12 passing for 48 yards, along for sacking him for 31 yards in losses.

But the biggest play of the game by the defense — and one of the two greatest defensive plays in Browns postseason history, along with linebacker Galen Fiss’s touchdown-saving tackle of Baltimore Colts running back Lenny Moore on a screen pass in the 1964 NFL Championship Game victory — occurred on a running play late in the game.

An 11-yard field goal by the Browns’ Lou Groza way back in the opening quarter held up until the beginning of the fourth quarter, when the Giants tied the score 3-3 on Randy Clay’s 20-yarder.

New York was driving again midway through the quarter, getting to the Cleveland 39. Conerly turned and handed the ball off to running back Gene Price. It was a wise choice. Nicknamed “Choo-Choo” for his incredible speed, he might have been the fastest back in the league. He had a big day against the Browns in the earlier game at Cleveland, rushing for a game-high 77 yards, including a 26-yarder, in just 12 carries. He repeated the performance in the playoff game, finishing with 76 yards in, again, 12 tries. He was so dominant, in fact, in the playoff game that he was almost the hero.

Almost, but not quite. Instead, that honor went to a defensive player — on the Browns — who proved to be the diesel locomotive to outpace the Giants’ “Choo-Choo.”

Roberts broke through the Browns defense, took off and appeared headed for a touchdown that would have given New York not only the lead, but, in a low-scoring slugfest like this, might have broken the game wide open and even sealed the deal, sending them to the title game instead of head coach Paul Brown’s team.

Browns middle guard and former Ohio State star Bill Willis, who had been chop-blocked to the ground at the line of scrimmage, turned from his prone position to see “Choo-Choo” chugging on down the sideline.

He sprung to his feet and took off after him. It seemed like a moot point, for while Willis was certainly fast, there was no lineman in the NFL who was fast enough to derail Roberts in this situation.

Sometimes, though, the football gods allow sheer will to trump the laws of physics, enabling something to happen that simply didn’t make sense. And this was one of those occasions, for Willis somehow, some way was able to chase Roberts down from behind at the 7. It was his longest run of the day, a 32-yarder, but it was not a touchdown and that was all that mattered.

After the game, reporters sought out Willis, the hero not only of the day, but rather one of the biggest in Browns postseason history, and asked him how in the world he was able up to catch up to Roberts in what appeared to be an optical illusion.

“I didn’t see him carrying a football,” said the now Pro Football Hall of Famer, who, along with his HOF teammate Marion Motley, permanently broke the color barrier not just in pro football but in all of pro sports when they played together in the Browns’ first-ever game on Sept. 6, 1946 against the Miami Seahawks. “I just saw a guy running away with money that belonged to me.”

Whatever it takes, right?

Willis was referring to the fact that pro football players back then were not played well at all. Evrn the biggest stars had to work offseason jobs to make ends meet. The money the players earned in the playoffs really helped, and by beating the Giants, Willis and his teammates would earn another postseason check by making it to the league title game.

Indeed, talk about motivation.

Years later, in a 2006 interview I conducted of Willis a little over a year before his death, I asked him about his tackle of Roberts. He eyes lit up like a Christmas tree and he laughed heartily over the fact that someone would remember something that, at that time, had happened well over a half-century before.

Willis was a smart and perceptive man, but he had no idea of his place in Browns history — perhaps because no one had taken the time to do so. Or maybe it was just because this gentleman of gentlemen — someone who personified class — was way too humble.

Anyway, the play loomed even larger when the Giants blew the great scoring opportunity and didn’t even attempt a field goal that would have at least put them ahead by three points.

Instead, it was Groza and the Browns who eventually went ahead with a 28-yard field goal that made it 6-3, then late in the game, they put the finishing touches on the victory when Willis, appropriately so, added to his big day when he sacked Conerly in the end zone for a safety.

And with that huge win, then, the stage was set for a Christmas Eve title game matchup with the Rams, continuing the Browns legacy in that all-important first year in the NFL in which their one and only goal was to win it all and prove their doubters wrong. Anything less than a title would have proven the doubters right.

So, now, do you realize the full importance of this iconic win nearly three-quarters of a century ago?

As an aside to all this, I’ve never gotten over the fact who made sure to attend — and who chose not to attend — Bill Willis’s funeral in Downtown Columbus exactly a week after he passed away on Nov. 27, 2007.

Ohio State Athletics Director Gene Smith attended and solely represented the school, located a couple miles away — and a short drive — from the church. Then head football coach Jim Tressel did not attend. Apparently, Tressel was a little too busy preparing for the BCS National Championship Game against LSU — a month away, mind you — to take a couple hours to pay tribute to one of the Buckeyes’ greatest players and a member of the school’s first national championship team in 1942.

Hmmm. OK.

Neither did then Browns owner Randy Lerner, nor any of his front-office people, attend. Instead, the club was represented by one staffer from the team’s website and one from the alumni relations department, plus one of Willis’s Browns teammates, Hall of Famer Dante Lavelli, and his wife.

Hmmm. OK.

Cincinnati Bengals owner Mike Brown, the son of Willis’s coach in Cleveland, Paul Brown, attended. He was determined not to miss it. He drove over that morning — all by himself — from
Pittsburgh, where his team had played a Monday Night Football game against the Steelers about 12 hours before. He was a ball boy for his dad’s team when Willis played and regaled the crowd with stories about the man, calling him “one of my heroes.”

Hmmm. OK!!

Bill Willis, a real hero on the field, and an even better one off.

Steve King