If only Christmas Eve can work out for the Browns in their road game against the Houston Texans on Sunday like it did exactly 73 years ago.

That is, with the Browns and their fans heading into Christmas with a pep in their step after the club gained an important victory.

It was Dec. 24, 1950 when the Browns rallied in the fourth quarter to edge the Los Angeles Rams 30-28 at Cleveland Stadium in the NFL Championship Game.

The game-winner was Lou Groza’s 16-yard field goal with 28 seconds left after the Browns trailed by eight points entering the fourth quarter. This was long before the advent of the two-point conversion rule following touchdowns, so that was a two-score deficit.

The Browns won the title in their first year in the NFL, silencing their many critics who doubted their prowess. When they came into the NFL after the All-America Football Conference dissolved, they had won all four championships in the league’s short existence, going an eye-popping 52-4-3. But because the numerous NFL hard-liners viewed the AAFC as vastly inferior to their league, they thought the Browns would get chewed up and spit out.

That the Browns made it to the title game wasn’t enough. They had to win it all, and then — and only then — would their critics admit they were wrong.

The Browns knew it, which is why quarterback Otto Graham, after throwing a 14-yard touchdown pass to Rex Bumgardner early in the fourth quarter — his fourth scoring pass of the day — to cut his team’s deficit to 28-27, was so dejected as he walked to the sideline after fumbling the ball away with just minutes remaining.

“We’ll get ball back for you,” head coach Paul Brown said.

He was right. The Browns did get the ball back for Graham, who led the offense down the field to position Groza for the decisive kick.

The Rams were born in Cleveland in 1937 and stayed there through 1945, when they won the NFL championship over Washington and then departed for the West Coast instead of staying in Cleveland and vying for the city’s attention with the Browns in their debut season in 1946. Now, just five years later, the Rams were back on that same field trying to win another title, this time as the visiting team.

Just like the Browns, the Rams had a great offense and showed it just minutes into the game when Bob Waterfield threw an 82-yard touchdown pass to Glenn Davis. Graham threw two touchdown passes, 27 yards to Dub Jones and 37 yards to Dante Lavelli, but the Browns missed this extra point after the second score and trailed 14–13 at halftime.

The Browns opened the third quarter with Graham throwing a 39-yard touchdown pass to Lavelli to go ahead 20–14, but the Rams answered that with two scores of the round to lead 28–20 by the end of the quarter.

That set the stage for the dramatic fourth quarter, and when it was all over, the Browns and their fans went happily off into the night as they headed home for the holidays.

Perhaps it’ll happen something like that on Sunday.

Steve King