Chasing down the arrivals of great Browns kickers
By STEVE KING
Does anybody know much of anything about new Browns “starting” kicker Chase McLaughlin?
No.
But that doesn’t matter, for in the long line of great Browns kickers, no one knew much of anything about them before they came to the team. Consider this:
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*Lou Groza — He had played only a little for Ohio State before joining the U.S. military team for World War II — that is, he became a soldier. He was more known for being a great player on a state champion Martins Ferry High School basketball team. How did that turn out? Oh, yeah, he’s enshrined in the Pro Football Hall of Fame.
*Don Cockroft — He was drafted from that legendary football powerhouse Adams State and hung around the team for a season while he got pointers from Groza before taking over in 1968 upon “The Toe’s” second — and final — retirement? It’s not often that a legend follows a legend.
*Matt Bahr — He was the kicker for the Pittsburgh Steelers on their 1979 Super Bowl championship team and they thought so much of him that they got rid of him. The Browns signed him when Dave Jacobs, for whom Cockroft was cut, messed up royally. Bahr never messed up royally for the Browns. In fact, he did just the opposite.
*Matt Stover — This guy was a B-lister. He came to the Browns as a Plan B free agent from new head coach Bill Belichick’s former team, the New York Giants. Plan B is what you go to when Plan A doesn’t work. But it worked out very well for the last five seasons of the original Browns franchise.
*Phil Dawson — I’ll never forget talking to Chris Palmer just days after he got the job as the first head coach of the expansion-era Browns. He hadn’t even hired an executive assistant yet. “We signed a kicker. His name is Phil Dawson,” he said. “Let me go through this paperwork so I can tell you a little about him.” Not exactly a ringing endorsement.
If McLaughlin is half as good as any of those kickers, then he will do just fine.
Related: Mount Rushmore of Browns kickers
