BROWNS-GIANTS, ONCE THE NFL’S BEST RIVALRY
By STEVE KING
Before there was a rivalry — a real one — with the Pittsburgh Steelers, and nearly two decades before the rival Cincinnati Bengals were even born, the Browns had a tremendous rivalry with the team they will visit on Sunday Night Football, the New York Football Giants.
In fact, Browns-Giants was the best rivalry in the NFL at the time, and one of the best — still — in the league’s history. Why? Because the teams were always at the top of the conference in which they both played and so their games against one another really meant something.
For the 16-season span from 1950, when the Browns were absorbed into the NFL from the defunct All-America Football Conference and placed into the American Conference (which became the Eastern Conference) with the Giants, through 1965, either Cleveland or New York won the conference championship 15 times. The lone exception was 1960, when the Philadelphia Eagles leap-frogged both the Browns and Giants and snared the conference title, and ultimately the NFL crown.
Thursday is the 70th anniversary of the greatest Browns-Giants game during that era. It was on Dec. 17, 1950 that the Browns edged the New York Giants by a baseball-like 8-3 score in a special conference championship game on a frozen field amidst swirling winds and frigid temperatures at Cleveland Stadium. The game was necessitated after the teams finished the regular season tied for first place with 10-2 records, the Browns’ two losses, 6-0 and 17-13, coming to the Giants.
The Browns did not score a touchdown in the playoff game, instead getting their points on two Lou Groza field goals and a safety. The play of the game, though, for the Browns was made in the fourth quarter by Pro Football Hall of Fame middle guard Bill Willis. Despite getting upended by a block at the line of scrimmage a split-second after the play started, he somehow managed to chase down from behind Giants running back Gene “Choo-Choo” Roberts, arguably the fastest player in the league, following a 32-yard run to the Cleveland 7. It saved a touchdown, and the stout Cleveland defense prevented the Giants from getting any points at all off the possession.
After the game, Willis was asked how he ever caught up to Roberts. It seemed like an optical illusion that a lineman, even an athletic one like Willis, could track down the speedy Roberts, especially when the back had such a big head start.
“I saw him carrying a bag of money that belonged to me,” Willis said with a laugh in reference to the extra money the Browns would get by beating the Giants and advancing to the NFL Championship Game. Players at that time didn’t make much money off football, having to work regular jobs in the offseason to make ends meet, and that extra cash looked so appealing that Willis ran faster than even he thought he could.
The Browns went on to win the league title exactly a week later, on Dec. 24, on that same field by edging the Los Angeles Rams 30-28 on Groza’s 16-yard field goal in the final seconds.
But why are the Giants called the Football Giants? Because before the franchise moved to San Francisco in 1958, New York was also home to a baseball team named the Giants — the Baseball Giants, as it were — and the sport taglines helped differentiate between the two.
