One of the big questions for BrownS historians over the years has been trying to determine if Bernie Kosar or Brian Sipe is the second-best quarterback the club has ever had behind the undisputed No. 1 man, Pro Football Hall of Famer Otto Graham.
Both Kosar and Sipe are icons, but what if it were neither one of them? Instead, what if No. 2 were someone else?
What if it were Frank Ryan?
I can make a strong case that it is him.
In addition, there are several candidates for the moniker of best pro football quarrtback through the middle of the 1960s, Hall of Famers such as John Unitas, Bart Starr and Len Dawson.
But what if it were none of them?
Rather, what if it were instead Ryan?
I can make a strong case that it is him.
Ryan, who helped lead the Browns to the last of their eight pro football championships, and the last of their four NFL titles, by throwing three touchdown passes to wide receiver Gary Collins in the 27-0 dismantling of the heavily-favored Baltimore Colts in 1964, passed away on New Year’s Day in Waterford, Conn. due to complications from Alzheimer’s disease. He was 87.
Ryan was traded to the Browns in 1962 after spending his first four pro seasons with the former Cleveland Rams, the Los Angeles Rams, who selected him in the fifth round of the 1958 NFL Draft out of Rice. He shared the Cleveland starting job with Jim Ninowski in 1962, Paul Brown’s last year as head coach.
When Brown was fired three weeks after that season ended and replaced by his former assistant, Blanton Collier, one of the first moves made by the new coach was to install Ryan as the full-time starter. It was an ingenius move, and exactly the right one, for Ryan blossomed instantly. He threw for 25 touchdown passes with just 13 interceptions in 1963 as the Browns finished 10–4 and in second place in the Eastern Conference, just a game behind the New York Giants.
In 1964, Ryan passed for 25 touchdowns again against 19 interceptions as the Browns went 10–3–1 and won the East and then the NFL title. He followed that up with 19 touchdowns and 10 interceptions in 1965 as the Browns made it back to the league title game before falling to the Green Bay Packers.
By the time his first five seasons (1963-67) with the Browns were completed, Ryan had thrown for 117 touchdowns with 75 interceptions as the team made the playoffs three times and never finished worse than 9-5.
But numerous injuries through the years finally took their toll and Ryan lost his starting job after three games in 1968 with he, the offense and the Browns overall struggling. He was replaced by Bill Nelsen, who took the club back to the NFL title game.
He played the last of his 12 NFL seasons with Washington in 1969. The head coach there, in his first season, was Vince Lombardi, who had been head coach of the Packers in 1965 when they defeated the Browns for the title.
Frank Ryan was a certifiable genius, with a 165 IQ. Perhaps if pro football historians took that kind of cerebral approach in looking a second time at his career, they would see him in a completely different light.
Steve King
