Best Browns drafts in history

Browns predictions vary greatlyCHICAGO - APRIL 30: Cleveland Browns NFL football helmet is on display in Pioneer Court to commemorate the NFL Draft 2015 in Chicago on April 30, 2015 in Chicago, Illinois. (Photo By Raymond Boyd/Getty Images)

Posted By: County Sports Network April 21, 2020

BEST BROWNS DRAFTS IN HISTORY? 1957, ’64, ’78

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By STEVE KING

There’s a gold standard that every NFL team is shooting for when it comes to the NFL Draft.

That is, each team’s draft performance will be measured against the best drafts in club history.

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When were the best Browns drafts in history? There are three drafts against which they will be measured when they go on the clock Thursday and Friday nights and Saturday afternoon.

Those historically great drafts are not hard at all to select. Not to demean what happened in other years, but the drafts of 1957, 1964 and 1978 stand out – a whole lot – from the crowd.

The 1957 draft is the best of the best. It might well be the best draft in NFL history overall, and so it seems fitting that it’s the best Browns draft in history as well.

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The Browns in that draft got three Pro Football Hall of Famers, two of whom stayed in Cleveland in running back Jim Brown, the best player in league history at any position, and guard Gene Hickerson, whose blocking, especially in pulling out and leading the team’s vaunted power sweeps, helped Brown gain a lot of his 12,312 yards, which were far and away an NFL record when he retired just before training camp began in 1966.

Brown, from Syracuse, was taken in the first round, at No. 6 overall, after the Pittsburgh Steelers, at No. 5, snatched from Paul Brown’s grasp the player the Browns head coach/general manager really wanted in quarterback Len Dawson, from Alliance High School and Purdue.

A product of Mississippi, where he played offensive tackle, Hickerson was chosen with the first of the team’s two seventh-round picks, at No. 78. He was a good friend of Elvis Presley from their days growing up together in Tennessee and used to send him Browns game films so he could keep up with his new-found favorite team.

The other Hall of Famer taken by the Browns was Virginia offensive tackle Henry Jordan in the fifth round. He was switched to defensive tackle. Like another Hall of Famer from that time, defensive end Willie Davis, Jordan played just two years with Cleveland before going to the Green Bay Packers and seeing his career blossom.

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In 1964, the Browns used their first-round pick, at No. 11 overall, to take Warren Harding High School and Ohio State product Paul Warfield. He had been a two-way back with the Buckeyes, but early on, Browns head coach Blanton Collier, one of the smartest football men the game has ever seen, moved Warfield to wide receiver and he helped Cleveland win its last NFL title that year. He did two tours of duty with the Browns, sandwiched around a stint with the Miami Dolphins.

It took a little longer for Leroy Kelly, a running back from tiny Morgan State who was taken in the eighth round, at No. 110 overall, to make his mark. With Jim Brown and Ernie Green cemented as the starters, there was no room right away for Kelly in the backfield. So he returned punts and kickoffs for two seasons.

When Brown surprisingly retired, the Browns went into full-blown panic mode, wondering how in the world they were going to replace him. But Brown told Collier and owner Art Modell not to worry because Kelly would be a good replacement. He was right. Kelly became an immediate star and continued the Browns’ string of HOF backs going all the way back to Marion Motley in that first season of 1946.

1978 is also one of the best Browns drafts in history, the first for head coach Sam Rutigliano, may be bettered remembered by modern-day Browns fans. The Browns had two first-round choices, getting Clay Matthews from USC with the initial one, at No. 12 overall, and Alabama’s Ozzie Newsome at No. 23.

Matthews had played middle linebacker in college but was moved to outside linebacker by the Browns. He fractured his ankle in his first training camp but still ended up paying big dividends in his first seasons. He’s gotten close to being inducted into the HOF, but it still hasn’t happened and might never occur. Nonetheless, his is the only non-HOF name on the Browns Ring of Honor at FirstEnergy Stadium.

Newsome was a wide receiver in Alabama’s wishbone offense, so he didn’t get a lot of work. But Rutigliano remembered him well from watching him play on TV all the time when he was coaching in the middle of SEC country as an assistant with the New Orleans Saints.

Just prior to the draft, Rutigliano sent one of his Browns assistants, future Philadelphia Eagles head coach Rich Kotite, to Alabama with a tape measure and an order.

“Measure how wide Newsome’s butt is,” Rutigliano said.

What?

“You heard me, measure how wide his butt is,” Rutigliano said.

As Rutigliano later explained it, Newsome was not that heavy, but if his backside was wide enough, then the coach knew he could pack some pounds onto his frame and make him heavy enough to be a blocker. Rutigliano liked the number he got from Kotite and went ahead and took Newsome, immediately moving him to tight end in place of an equally-skinny, and struggling, young tight end by the name of Dave Logan, who was switched to wide receiver.

It was a win-win, with both players blossoming right away at their new positions. In fact, Newsome going to tight end changed the NFL, for he was the first player at that position in league history who was too big and strong to be covered by safeties and too fast to be covered by outside linebackers, thus causing all kinds of match-up problems in the passing game of which quarterbacks Brian Sipe and Bernie Kosar were able to take advantage.

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