The Browns’ first arch rivals?

 

It was the San Francisco 49ers from back in the days of the All-America Football Conference coming out of World War II.

 

And the fans fully understood that, as evidenced by the way they showed up in droves at the games in Cleveland.  

 

It was 66 years ago today, on Oct. 30, 1949, that the Browns edged the 49ers 30-28 before 72,189 at Cleveland Stadium.

 

The teams were tied 14-14 at halftime, Cleveland’s touchdowns coming on Otto Graham’s nine-yard pass to wide receiver Dante Lavelli and Dub Jones’ six-yard run.

 

The Browns got three out of the next four scores to secure the win, Graham scrambling 20 yards for a TD, Lou Groza kicking a 38-yard field goal and Graham throwing a 12-yard TD pass to wideout Mac Speedie to make it 30-21.

 

Graham hit on 14 of 25 passes for 271 yards and the two TDs with no interceptions as Cleveland notched its second straight win to improve to 6-1-1. Speedie caught six passes for 99 yards, while Graham had three receptions for 73 yards and fullback Marion Motley added three grabs for 55 yards.  

 

This marked the fourth straight year that the Browns-49ers game in Cleveland drew a crowd of 70,000 or above.

 

Let’s take a quick look at the first three meetings:

 

*The 49ers handed the Browns their first loss ever, 34-20, in that inaugural season of 1946 in front of 70,385.

 

*In 1947, the Browns rolled past the 49ers 37-14 as 76,504 watched.

 

*On the way to their perfect 15-0 season in 1948, the Browns turned back San Francisco 14-7 before 82,769, which stood as their largest home crowd for 12 years. The game against the New York Giants midway through the 1960 season drew 82,872, beating the record by just 103 fans.

 

San Francisco was the only team that was able to give the Browns a battle consistently over the four-year history of the AAFC, which is why they joined Cleveland and the New York Yankees as the AAFC teams moving to the NFL in 1950 after the league went out of business.

 

The Browns and 49ers split their two meetings in 1946. After losing to them at home, the Browns came back two weeks later to beat the 49ers 14-7 at San Francisco.

 

Before rolling past them at Cleveland later in the 1947 season, the Browns edged past the 49ers 14-7 at San Francisco.

 

After that seven-point victory at Cleveland in 1948, the Browns had an even tougher time in the rematch at San Francisco, winning by just three, 31-28.

 

Three weeks before winning by two in Cleveland in 1949, the Browns were crushed 56-28 at San Francisco. That 28-point setback stood as the Browns’ most lopsided regular-season defeat for 10 years, until they lost to the Giants by 41, 48-7, in 1959. They also lost by 28 points, 55-27, to the Pittsburgh Steelers in 1954.

 

As it turned out, the Browns and 49ers played a third time in 1949, in the final AAFC Championship Game, with host Cleveland winning 21-7.

 

The Browns were 7-2 against the 49ers in the AAFC – that’s half of the losses they suffered overall in four years in the league in going 52-4-3 – so while they had an overwhelming advantage over San Francisco record-wise, it sure wasn’t easy.

 

The fierce rivalry went away immediately when the teams went into the NFL, with the Browns being placed into the American Conference, which soon became the Eastern Conference, and the 49ers getting slotted into the National Conference (Western Conference).

 

The teams met at Cleveland late in that first season in the NFL in 1950, with the Browns winning 34-14.

 

Their game at FirstEnergy Stadium on Dec. 13 will be just the 19th NFL meeting between the teams, tied for the Browns’ second-fewest games against any opponent that was in the league when the Browns joined in 1950.

 

And hardly anyone watching that day will have any awareness that games between the Browns and 49ers used to be a very big deal.