This was the moment the Browns had waited for – and the NFL hard-liners as well.
The Browns had cut through the All-America Football Conference like a hot knife through butter over the previous four seasons, going 52-4-3, finishing a perfect 15-0 in 1948 and winning all four league titles, in effect putting the AAFC out of business. It’s not good for any league as a whole when one team wins all the time.
In the last couple of years as talk of a merger between the AAFC and the NFL grew louder and louder, the Browns secretly began to plan for the day when they could prove their worth against the more established league. All the while, they quietly seethed at all the nasty comments being thrown their way by the NFL doubters, saying the Browns were a Mickey Mouse team from a Mickey Mouse league. They added that the Browns, at best, would be only a middle-of-the-pack team in the NFL.
The merger came to pass after the 1949 season, with the Browns, San Francisco 49ers and Baltimore Colts being absorbed into the NFL while the rest of the AAFC clubs dissolved.
The NFL wasted no time in putting the Browns to the ultimate test, pitting them against the two-time defending league champion Eagles at Philadelphia’s Municipal Stadium in the 1950 regular-season opener. The game was scheduled for Saturday night, Sept. 16, or 65 years ago today. It was a day before the rest of the league teams opened their seasons and as such it gave everybody in the football world a chance to sit back and watch the blood-letting that the NFL executives were sure would occur.
This was the moment of truth for the Browns. They were supremely confident, but at the same time, they knew they were facing a must-win situation, for if they lost, their doubters would have been proven right. Their professional reputations were riding on this one game. They had waltzed through the preseason with a perfect 5-0 record, but that didn’t matter a bit. They had to not just beat the Eagles, but crush them.
As it turned out, those top guys from the NFL were right. There was indeed a beatdown that night before a capacity crowd of 71,237. But instead of the Browns on the short end of the stick, it was the Eagles. It was no contest, really, as the Browns, after spotting the Eagles a 3-0 first-quarter lead, ran off 28 unanswered points. Cleveland was ahead 14-3 at halftime and widened the margin to 28-3 in the fourth quarter before settling for a convincing 35-10 win over the heavily-favored Eagles.
It stunned everybody except the Browns. They knew they were the better team – by a wide margin – and they proved it.
In fact, the score would have been even more one-sided if Don Phelps’ punt return for a touchdown after the Eagles went three-and-and-out on the game’s first possession, hadn’t been called back by what seemed to be, by all accounts, a bogus clipping penalty. To make matters worse for the Browns, they lost their kicker/left tackle Lou Groza for the game when he was injured on the play.
The Browns’ first three touchdowns came on passes from Otto Graham, a 59-yarder to wingback Dub Jones, a 26-yarder to wide receiver Dante Lavelli and a 13-yarder to the other wideout, Mac Speedie. Graham then ran a yard for a score.
Cleveland’s last TD came on Rex Bumgardner’s two-yard run.
Graham was brilliant, completing 21 of 38 passes for 348 yards and three touchdowns while being intercepted twice. Speedie caught seven passes for 109 yards, while Jones had five receptions for 98 yards and Lavelli added four grabs for 76 yards.
Jones also gained 72 yards rushing on just six attempts. Fullback Marion Motley ran 48 yards on 11 carries.
The Cleveland defense also did its part, limiting two Eagles quarterbacks to a combined total of just 11 completions in 32 pass attempts for 118 yards with three interceptions.
All in all, the Browns couldn’t have scripted their debut any better. It was a huge success, so much so, in fact, that they were the only ones laughing that afternoon in Philadelphia.
