THE FUN BUT FRUGAL DAYS OF PRO FOOTBALL

By STEVE KING

There’s obviously big, big money now in the NFL, but it certainly wasn’t always the case.

And some events with the Browns down through the years are not just stark, but rather startling, proof of that.

It was about this time of year 6½ decades ago, on June 24, 1954, that running back Harry “Chick” Jagade, who had played with the Browns the previous three seasons, including being their leading rusher in 1953, announced that he was quitting pro football to concentrate on his offseason job with the Precision Casting Corp. in Chicago.

Back then, when salaries in pro football were pretty low, players had to go out in the offseason and work full-time jobs, some of which paid more, to make ends meet. And it was not uncommon for a player to leave football for one of those less-glamourous and not-nearly-as-cool, but more financially-rewarding, jobs.

About a year earlier, on June 30, 1953, wide receiver Mac Speedie bolted the Browns to sign a big contract with the Regina (now Saskatchewan) Roughriders of he Canadian Football League. Speedie had teamed with Dante Lavelli dating all the way back to the team’s inception in 1946 to give the Browns the best wide-receiver tandem in all of football. In fact, Speedie’s statistics were better at that point than those of Lavelli, a Hudson High School and Ohio State product who, of course, is enshrined in the Pro Football Hall of Fame.

As such, the move to Canada eventually cost Speedie a spot in the Hall, which didn’t exist then. If he had stayed with the Browns just a little longer, then he would certainly be in there with Lavelli and a number of other Browns from that era.

And here’s the one that will stun you the most: It was 65 years ago almost to the day, on July 6, 1953, that HOF quarterback Otto Graham ended his holdout and signed for the 1953 season at a slight cut from his 1952 salary of $20,000.

Can you imagine that? After leading the Browns to the league championship game in each of their first seven years of existence, with five titles, Graham had to take a paycut from head coach/General Manager Paul Brown. Perhaps it was because the Browns had lost the previous two league championship games. How dare Graham fail to win those titles!

But that was pro football back then.

Can you picture Tom Brady, whose New England Patriots lost the Super Bowl five months ago, taking a paycut this year?

No, I can’t, either.