Paul Brown, the head coach of the Browns for their first 17 seasons, was a smart football man.
Actually, he was much more than that. He was brilliant, a genius. He was so far ahead of his time that they call him “The Father of Modern Football” for all of the innovations he brought to the game.
It’s why the Browns played in league championship games in each of their first 10 seasons, winning seven titles.
And that, in turn, is why he’s enshrined in the Pro Football Hall of Fame.
But Brown wasn’t perfect. Nobody is – in football or any other endeavor. He made mistakes – not a lot of them, really, but still mistakes nonetheless.
And defensive end Doug Atkins was one of those mistakes.
Saturday marks an interesting day in Browns history. It was on this date 64 years ago, on March 18, 1953, that the club signed Atkins, its first-round pick, at No. 11 overall, in the 1953 NFL Draft.
While Brown was smart enough to pick the Tennessee product, he wasn’t smart enough to keep hm. Atkins played just the 1953 and ’54 seasons in Cleveland, starting only the first one, before he was traded to the Chicago Bears. It was with them that his fashioned his HOF career.
Part of the reason for the trade, quite frankly, was that the Browns of that era had so much good – and even great – veteran talent that it was hard for Brown to find a place on the roster for a young, unproven player, even one with great promise such as Atkins.
But any coach, no matter what the composition of his team, needs to carve out room for a future Hall of Famer.
Brown let other significant draft picks get away during that time, including defensive end Willie Davis and defensive tackle Henry Jordan, both of whom went to the Green Bay Packers and became Hall of Famers, and Frank Clarke, who went on to be a standout wide receiver for the Dallas Cowboys. The Packers defeated the Browns in the 1965 NFL Championship Game, and the Cowboys edged out Cleveland in both 1966 and ’67 to win the Eastern Conference title.
Yes, everybody – even the great coaches – make mistakes in judging talent.
