Kicking.
That’s been prinary on the minds of the Browns and their fans through the week heading into Sunday’s game with the host Baltimore Ravens, whose head coach, John Harbaugh, established a new NFL low for clock and other end-of-the-game dysfunction and mismanagement — choke-er-ation, if you will — in last Sunday night’s 41-40 meltdown of a loss to the Buffalo Bills.
But back to kicking. The Browns, though you wouldn’t know it by their egregious struggles for the last 12 years, have had one of the best kicking lineages in the overall history league, and in fact one that’s better than most. Moreover, you might say that the franchise was built on kicking excellence.
It starts with Pro Football Hall of Famer Lou Groza, considered “The Father of Modern Kicking” and the man for whom college football’s annual award for its top kicker is named. Groza’s two field goals were critical in an 8-3 victory over the New York Giants in a special playoff game to decide the American Conference title in 1950, and then he hit the game-winning field goal a week later as the Browns edged the Los Angeles Rams 30-28 in the NFL Championship Game, a truimph they absolutely had to have to prove their worth in their first year in the league.
Then there was Don Cockroft, whose second-chance field goal beat the Pittsburgh Steelers 26-24 in 1972 and served as the catalyst to the Browns earning the AFC’s lone wild-card playoff berth. He also booted the deciding field goal in a 27-24 win over the Cincinnati Bengals in the 1980 regular-season finale to give the Kardiac Kids their first Central Division crown in nine years.
He was followed by Matt Bahr, who booted big kick after big kick through the 1980s.
Matt Stover was lights out in the first half of the 1990s.
The re-born Browns got a gift in their first season of 1999 with the arrival of Phil Dawson, who, it has been argued, is the top kicker in club history, even better than the iconic Groza. What can’t be debated, though, is that his two field goals in an 8-0 win over the Bills in a blizzard in 2007 are the most incredible kicks the Browns have ever had.
Now that lineage rests with Andre Szmyt. Will he someday be part of this great lineage? Who knows, but right now, after the debacle of last Sunday, he has a long, long way to go.
Steve King
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Sources & Further Reading
- Fantasy Football ’25: Sleepers! – Big Blue View
- NFL Preseason 2025: Teams Changing Expectations – SB Nation
- Fantasy Football Deep QB Sleepers 2025 – SB Nation
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