NOBODY SAW THE GREATNESS OF JIM BROWN, HICKERSON OR THE 1957 DRAFT

EDITOR’S NOTE: The following is the first in a series of stories about NFL Drafts for the Browns that played out completely differently from how they were first perceived. This one focuses on 1957.


By STEVE KING

The greatest NFL Draft class in Browns history was in 1957.

It got that moniker in large part because it produced the man nicknamed “The Greatest,” running back Jim Brown, the best player in the game’s history, and also fellow Pro Football Hall of Famer Gene Hickerson, arguably the greatest pulling guard ever.

But immediately afterward, the draft was not held in such high esteem. In fact, it might have been labeled a complete bust.

Browns head coach Paul Brown wanted a quarterback to fill the spot left vacant when Otto Graham retired for good following the 1955 season after having won seven league championships in 10 seasons, including in the previous two years. In the Browns’ first year without Graham, in 1956, they went 5-7 for what turned out to be Paul Brown’s only losing record in 17 years at Cleveland. He wanted desperately to change that.

Paul Brown had zeroed in on Len Dawson of Alliance High School and Purdue as the answer to his problems, but his attempt was foiled when the team picking in front of the Browns at No. 5 overall, the Pittsburgh Steelers, snatched Dawson away. The plan B choice was Jim Brown, from Syracuse.

Paul Brown was lukewarm — and then some — about the pick. He could not hide his disappointment in losing out on Dawson.

Getting a running back was OK, but it wasn’t a quarterback. Paul Brown was so far ahead of the curve even way back then — no one else understood it — that he knew quarterback was the most important position in team sports. He realized he had to have a great quarterback to have a chance to get back into legitimate league championship competition, but with the situation as it was, and no one else in the draft who interested him, he was just going to have to make do with what he had, which wasn’t much.

Hickerson was a seventh-round pick as a tackle out of Mississippi. An offensive lineman, especially one taken deeply in the draft, didn’t create any kind of buzz for fans at that point in history. In fact, it still doesn’t, really.

So, then, with a player Paul Brown really didn’t want in Jim Brown and an offensive linemen nobody knew anything about in Gene Hickerson, the draft 67 years ago appeared to be a disaster. No one could envision it ever turning into a delight.

NEXT: No happy returns.

Steve King