Now that you’ve a day to mull over Chuck Todd’s Mount Rushmore of NFL head coaches segment in this week’s Monday Morning Quarterback column on sportsillustrated.com, what do you think of it.
Probably not very much, right?
I would concur with that.
We said in a series of recent posts that the early Browns – both the players and coaches – have never gotten their just due, and Todd’s list of Vince Lombardi. Bill Belichick, Jimmy Johnson and Don Shula is just another example of it.
For Todd to leave Paul Brown off his Mount Rushmore is inexcusable, egregious, silly and ridiculous.
And just plain wrong – as wrong as you can be, really.
Brown led the Browns to the league championship game in each of their first 10 years of existence (1946-55), with seven league titles. It’s one of the greatest stretches in not just pro football history, but also in the history of any sport at any level.
And did we mention that Brown is called “The Father of Modern Football” for all of the innovations he brought to the game?
So Brown was off the charts in more ways than one.
If he were doing that now in the age of the internet, then the coverage of him would be limitless.
But he isn’t. Brown last coached the Browns 55 years ago, and he died 26 years ago.
He existed too early for people like Chuck Todd to really grasp just how iconic he really was, and still is, in fact.
But if Brown is added to Todd’s Mount Rushmore, who gets removed?
That easy. It’s Jimmy Johnson because he didn’t coach long enough or do enough, or Vince Lombardi, for the same reason.
That’s right, Vince Lombardi. He’s over-rated. Yes, I said it, over-rated
If you’re going to add Lombardi, then you have to add Pittsburgh’s Chuck Noll. In fact, I would vote for Noll over Lombardi any day of the week.
But that’s another post for another time.
This post is about Paul Brown and the way he keeps getting disrespected.
It’s a real shame.
