EDITOR’S NOTE: The following is the first in a five-part series entitled, “250 for 250, Browns Style.” It includes items No. 1 through 50.
By STEVE KING
1) — Happy birthday to the maestro of the Kardiac Kids, former head coach Sam Rutigliano, who turns 95 on Wednesday of this week. He was born July 1, 1931 in Brooklyn.
2) — I called Sam recently to see how he was doing. When he answered, I identified myself and told him, “I want to talk to the head coach.” Without hesitation, he said, “Hold on a minute, I’ll see if I can find her.” Barbara, his wife of over 72 years, is four months older, having turned 95 in March. Sam still has that quick wit most of the time. She is very spry all of the time. What a blessing they both have been to not just the Browns, but also to the Northeast Ohio community as a whole.
3) — Sam has told me any number of times that even if those 1980 Browns had beaten the Oakland Raiders in the AFC Divisional Playoffs, then they would have lost to the San Diego Chargers in the AFC Championship Game. “They were a bad matchup for us,” he said. He was right. The Chargers routed the Browns 44-14 on Monday Night Football in Cleveland in the 1981 opener.
4) — But even if the Browns had beaten the Raiders and lost to the Chargers, would have the 1981-84 seasons been different, and would Sam have made it to 1985 and gotten a chance to coach quarterback Bernie Kosar?
5) — Sam gets a lot of credit for the development of quarterback Brian Sipe, but the man who deserves even more credit but, sadly, has never come close to getting his due, is quarterbacks coach Jim Shofner. Sam served as his own offensive coordinator. When Shofner left after the 1980 season, Sipe — and the offense — began to struggle.
6) — Speaking of coaches in Browns history who have never gotten their due, there’s Dub Jones. In addition to being one of the best running backs, and pass receivers out of the backfield, in team history, he was also the offensive coordinator under Blanton Collier for the head coach’s first five seasons of 1963-67, including in that NFL championship year of 1964 when the Browns tore apart the league’s best defense, that of the Baltimore Colts. He stepped down following the 1967 season because Collier wanted him to come to the Browns full-time. Jones refused because he had business interests in the offseason back home in Louisiana. Jones was still bothered by the whole situation decades later.
7) — The man who took over when Rutigliano was fired midway through the 1984 season, Marty Schottenheimer, should be in the Pro Football Hall of Fame. That he is not is a total joke. Come on, people. Do your darn homework.
8) — And while we’re talking about HOF snubs, this time involving Browns players, there’s Gary Collins, Dick Schafrath and Clay Matthews. Add that to your homework, voters.
9) — I will realize — and I think a lot of longtine Browns followers like me will realize — just how old we are when that indoor stadium opens in 2029. I can’t even begin to wrap my head around that.
10) — This stage of the current Browns rebuild reminds me a lot of the one in 1984. Then as now, finding the quarterback was the key. Bernie Kosar II, where are you?l
11) — I have never seen one, so I am guessing that none exists, but I would love to have a photo of head coach Paul Brown giving a play to messenger guard Chuck Noll while quarterback Otto Graham waits for it to be brought in. Three Pro Football Hall of Famers.
12) — One of the funniest things I ever saw occurred after a Akron Manchester High School victory in the state playoffs about a decade ago. Longtime iconic Panthers head coach Jim France, now retired, was asked by a group of young reporters why, with all the other coaches signaling their plays into the game via big placards of animals, numbers and emojis, he used a guard to do it. France replied simply, “Because I saw Paul Brown do it.” I can still see the glazed-eyed look of the young scribes. I had to stare at the ground and hide my face with a notebook so no one could see me laughing to the point of crying.
13) — There are still people like France who were following the team when Art Modell fired Brown after the 1962 season and got so upset that they quit being Browns fans and never rooted for them again. A lot of them live in Massillon, where Brown coached the high school Tigers and played for them.
14) — Rutigliano jokes that he shares with the great Brown the fact they were both fired by Modell.
15) — I just heard a staffer on the Rich Eisen show on ESPN Radio predict that the Browns will play in the AFC Championship Game within four years. I agree. The reason for that is this core group of young, talented players and the presence of head coach Todd Monken. Go ahead and laugh, some of you.
16) — Ohio State just got a verbal commitment from a highly-rated defensive lineman by the name of Marcus Fakatou. My dream is for the Browns is for them to handle their business as well as the Buckeyes.
17) — I like the fact that Ryan Grigson is back with the Browns in the role of senior football advisor. Please, General Manager Andrew Berry, listen to this guy. He really
knows his stuff.
18) — I saw something online where the Browns uniforms, and the team’s color scheme of orange and brown, were being criticized to the point of ridicule. That’s crazy. The Browns have the best-looking uniforms in the NFL. There, I said it.
19) — I absolutely love the shadow-number look from the 1946 season that is sometimes used on the jerseys.If the Browns went to that more, or even — gulp! — full-time, I could live with it, I think. There, I said that, too. Yes, tradition lives in Cleveland.
20) — Did you know that the simple, plain look of the Browns uniforms, and the fact they always wore white jerseys at home for a number of years, was due to head coach Paul Brown’s desire to make the Browns pro football’s version of the New York Yankees in trying to be champions on the field and off it. That is so cool.
21) — Brown may be the greatest head coach of all-time. That first decade in which his Browns played in 10 straight league championship games, winning seven of them, is off the charts. It will never be matched. There, I said that as well.
22) — And I think Otto Graham, whose entire career consisted of those 10 seasons, is the greatest quarterback of all-time. Really, what other quarterback comes even close to that? There, I said that, too.
23) — If the Browns — and Brown and Graham and the rest of those stars — had done all that today in this media-heavy world of ours, the coverage would be incredible.
24) — I understand the intent of the color-rush uniforms and their appeal to younger fans, but i could do without them, including that of the Browns. All of them are exceedingly gaudy.
25) — Did you ever think the Browns would have an indoor stadium? I sure didn’t, but I wanted one because I knew how important it would be to the future of the community in being able to bring in all kinds of events.
26) — We criticize Browns owner Jimmy Haslam for everything, and a lot of it is deserved. But he also deserves tons of praise for bringing this indoor stadium to town. It is something that has been needed for years and years and years.
27) — What would all those players and coaches on those early Browns teams say if they saw the artist renderings for that indoor stadium?
28) — The first time the Browns play in pristine conditions in that indoor stadium while it is cold and snowing outside will prove to people why the facility was built.
29) — Gee, I wonder what the great Jim Donovan and Nev Chandler would have said if they saw that indoor stadium? Gosh, I miss those guys.
30 — I remember the look on Haslam’s face when he stood there, alongside Randy Lerner, in the middle of all those practice fields at Browns headquarters in Berea on the first day of training camp in 2012 when it was announced that he was buying the team from Lerner. It looked like someone had stuck a lemon into his mouth. He scowled the whole time, and myself and several other media people talked about it. It was clear that he didn’t like what he was seeing, and so the fact that he has changed a lot of what the Browns will be going forward, at least in terms of where they play their home games, should not be surprising to anyone.
31) — If the Browns had staged that 1980 playoff game against the Raiders in the indoor stadium to be built, would they have won? They had such a great offense, but it was just too cold for that group to operate.
32) — No. 32? That’s Jim Brown.
33) — I will say this just one time, because it needs to be said only one time. And that is that Jim Brown is the greatest football player of all-time. He is not just the best running back, but the best player overall. That anyone would choose to doubt that is beyond any scope of thinking that I can understand. A player’s greatness is judged by their performance against their peers. Look at the film from back in the day, and when you do, then you can’t help but to see that Brown was so far ahead of everyone else that it is not even debatable. Case closed. We’re moving on.
34) — That was the number of another running back who stood out for other reasons, Ben Gay. He came and went in the veritable blink of an eye, but the story was so good of him coming out of nowhere that we will always remember him.
35) — This is the jersey number of linebacker Galen Fiss, who broke through and upended running Lenny Moore on a screen pass in the 1964 NFL Championship Game against the Baltimore Colts and saved a 77-yard touchdown in the second quarter when the game was scoreless. It is one of the greatest defensive plays in team history. The Browns won, of course, 27–0, but it never would’ve happened without that play.
36) — Browns head coach Butch Davis, who had recruited Gay in college, really knew his football, but he didn’t succeed in Cleveland because he got power hungry. He didn’t trust anyone else other than himself, and a few close associates.
37) — I like the way the players in the World Cup stand at attention and are so respectful when their country’s national anthem is played before the game. I wish the NFL players, including those from the Browns, would show that kind of respect when their national anthem is played before games. No, this country of ours isn’t perfect, but when you talk to people from the other countries who are visiting here for the World Cup, they will tell you how much they like it.
38) — In the World Cup, the two teams enter the field at the same time coming out of the same tunnel. That’s remarkable. Could you see the Browns and Pittsburgh Steelers coming out of the same tunnel at the same time? It would be a riot.
39) — Here’s another thing I like about the World Cup: the managers of the teams mostly wear a suit and tie. Classy. Very, very classy. They are treating the game and their role in it with such respect. The same is true for the head coaches in the National Hockey League. When I see it, I can’t help but to think of Paul Brown and Blanton Collier, two very well-dressed head coaches for the Browns.
40) — This is the number of Erich Barnes, a very good cornerback
the Browns got from the New York Giants. He played in the last half of the 1960s. I introduced him one time at a Browns Backers event, and I joked and said that he never made a tackle below the neck. He laughed, but it was true. That’s the way the game was played back then, and he was one of the best at it. Now if a guy played that way, he would be in prison.
42) — You are already seeing snippets of it, but former Browns defensive and Myles Garrett has been in some commercials since he was traded to the Los Angeles Rams. Being out on the West Coast, and in Los Angeles, the doorstep to Hollywood, Garrett is being marketed in a way that never could’ve happened in Cleveland or really anywhere else other than New York. Good for him.
43) — They are playing these World Cup games exclusively on grass, even in indoor stadiums. I wonder if by the time the Browns open their new indoor stadium, there will be a way for them to play on natural grass. I would love to know if that is even being considered. It should be.
44) — This was Jim Brown’s number at Syracuse. It became the famous number for all the best running backs there. Brown would’ve liked to have had it in Cleveland because he felt the number just looked better on him than 32. But at that time, fullbacks, and he was a fullback, had to wear numbers in the 30s.
45) — Brown wore this number in his first game ever with the Browns, in the preseason opener against the Detroit Lions in 1957. He got 32 when the pkayer who had it, a fullvack by the name of John Bayuk, was cut. Bayuk was drafted in 1957, just like Brown, but he had reported a couple weeks earlier when training camp began, whereas Brown did report until he had played in the College All-Star Game.
46) — I ran across the name of a Browns defensive end in the 1970s by the name of Nick Roman. Roman, from Canton McKinley High School, is one of a number of Browns who played locally on the high school level.
47) — Two other McKinley players on the Browns were safety Ray Ellis and Pro Football Hall of Fame fullback Marion Motley.
48) — When i think of the new indoor stadium being built, I want to compare it to Cleveland Municipal Stadium. They can put in all the amenities that they want, but they will never get all the flavor and history of that old place.
49) — In the old place, the radio booths were on the roof on the south side. Myron Cope, the longtime former color analyst on the Pittsburgh Steelers Radio Network, used to complain — in a funny way — about having to use those facilities. I’m sure the Browns team of Gib Shanley and Jim Graner weren’t crazy about it, either.
50) Shanley and Browns owner Art Modell were friends, so the play-by-play announcer knew he could take some privileges when offering critical commentary. One time, when the Browns were leaving the field after a half in which they had struggled mightily on offense,?Shanley said, “That’s the first time the Browns have crossed the 50 all day.” Modell about lost his mind.
NEXT: Part 2, Nos. 51-100.
Steve King
