Browns cut Giants, Cowboys and Colts down to size

EDITOR’S NOTE: This is the 10th in a series of stories about the Mount Rushmore-worthy people, places and things in Browns history. Today we look at regular-season games from 1960-69.

By STEVE KING

The Browns are slated to take on the Giants, Cowboys and Colts in 2020. We don’t know what will happen in those games, but we will take a look back at the matchups in the 60s and keep an eye on the betting odds makers for this coming season.

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The 1960s were a decade of great change – and great success – for the Browns.

The Browns’ founding head coach, and the man for whom the team is named, Paul Brown, was unceremoniously, and shockingly, fired several weeks after the end of the 1962 season, and replaced by his top assistant coach, Blanton Collier.

The team won 10 or more games, in a 14-game season, five times in a seven-year span under Collier, and played in the NFL Championship Game on four occasions, capturing the title in 1964 by stunning the heavily-favored Baltimore Colts 27-0.

With all that, then, there were a lot of significant games during the decade, and here are the ones, in chronological order, that stood out the most and thus make up the Mount Rushmore of Browns regular-season games from 1960-69:

OCT. 13, 1963 – BROWNS 35, NEW YORK GIANTS 24 – AT NEW YORK – The Browns won their first four games under new head coach Blanton Collier, and did it in impressive fashion, averaging 33.3 points per outing, a marked improvement from 1962 when the offense mostly struggled. But trying to beat the two-time defending Eastern Conference champion Giants – before a full house at Yankee Stadium, no less – would be the acid test to determine if the Browns were legitimate candidates to unseat New York. And the Browns didn’t disappoint. After falling behind 17-7 in the second quarter, they came roaring back to outscore the hosts 28-7 the rest of the way to win with ease. As he was so many times in his nine-year career with Cleveland, Jim Brown was the star, rushing for 123 yards and two touchdowns and also being the top receiver in the game with four catches for 86 yards and a score. Frank Ryan, who was installed as the starting quarterback by Collier after sharing the job with Jim Ninowski in 1962 in his first year with the Browns, was near-perfect, completing 12-of-16 passes for 169 yards and three touchdowns. The Browns would run their season-opening mark to 6-0 before falling off and finishing 10-4, a game behind the Giants in the East, but they had made their statement about being for real.

DEC. 12, 1964 – BROWNS 52, NEW YORK GIANTS 20 – AT NEW YORK – The 9-3-1 Browns went into this regular-season finale on a Saturday afternoon with the chance to clinch the conference title by winning. This time, it was not the Giants with whom they were battling, but rather the St. Louis Cardinals, who beat the Browns 28-19 the week before to move to 8-3-2 and just a half-game behind them. St. Louis was a solid favorite over the Philadelphia Eagles in its finale the next day. The Browns had clobbered the Giants 42-20 halfway through the year, but that was at Cleveland. This one was at Yankee Stadium, and although the Giants were floundering with a 2-9-2 record, they would like nothing better than to wind up the season by defeating the arch-rival Browns and possibly denying them the conference championship. The pressure was all on the Browns, then, but they responded like … well, champions. They fell behind 7-3 and then scored 42 unanswered points to go ahead 45-7 after three quarters and cruise to the important win, giving them the East crown for the first time since 1957. Just like he had been in the aforementioned win at New York in 1963, Frank Ryan was brilliant, throwing for a team-record five touchdowns on 12-of-13 passing (for 202 yards, giving him a perfect 158.3 quarterback rating). He also ran for a score. Running back Ernie Green caught two of the TD passes, and rookie wide receiver and first-round draft choice Paul Warfield, from Warren Harding High School and Ohio State, grabbed five passes for 103 yards and a score. Jim Brown rushed for 99 yards. The Cleveland defense forced the Giants into four turnovers.

OCT. 20, 1968 – BROWNS 30, BALTIMORE COLTS 20 – AT BALTIMORE – The mighty Colts lost just one game all year before being upset by the New York Jets in Super Bowl 3, and this was it. The Browns went into the game just 2-3, but their offense had gotten much better as they split their two previous games after inserting Bill Nelsen at quarterback in place of a banged-up Frank Ryan. The Colts had routed four of their first five opponents, but they met their match in the Browns, who held them to what ended up as their second-fewest points all year. The Browns intercepted four passes, including three off legendary quarterback John Unitas, who had his worst game as a pro in completing just 1-of-11 passes for 12 yards. He also struggled mightily against Cleveland in the teams’ previous meeting, throwing for just 95 yards in the Browns’ 27-0 win in the 1964 NFL Championship Game. Meanwhile, Nelsen threw three touchdown passes and Leroy Kelly rushes for 130 yards and two scores. It was the first of eight straight wins for the Browns, who finished 10-4 to win the Century Division title and then defeated the Dallas Cowboys 31-20 in the conference championship game to set up a rematch with the Colts for the NFL crown. This time, Baltimore returned to Cleveland won in a rout, 34-0.

NOV. 2, 1969 – BROWNS 42, DALLAS COWBOYS 10 – AT CLEVELAND – When the Browns beat the Cowboys in 1968 to win the Eastern Conference, it ended a four-game losing streak to Dallas over three seasons. The teams were on track to meet again for the 1969 East title, so this game would be a look at how the how they matched up at the halfway point of the year. The Browns proved that the win 10 months before was not a fluke, rolling past a Dallas team that went into the game at 6-0 and had blown out most of their foes, including the last two by a combined score of 74-17. Cleveland, which improved to 5-1-1, built a 35-3 lead by early in the fourth quarter on the arm of Bill Nelsen, who threw a team-record-tying five touchdown passes, including two each to wide receivers Paul Warfield and Gary Collins. The Browns defense forced six turnovers, three of which came on interceptions of Craig Morton. It was more of the same when the teams met again two months later at the Cotton Bowl with the conference title on the line, as the Browns cruised to a 38-7 fourth-quarter lead before winning 38-14.

NEXT: Regular-season games from 1970-79.

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