Mount Rushmore of Browns offensive assistant coaches – Lindy, Jim, Blanton and Fritz
EDITOR’S NOTE: This is the fourth in a series of stories about the Mount Rushmore-worthy people, places and things in Browns history. Today we look at offensive assistant coaches.
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By STEVE KING
The Browns have had a number – a sizable number, really – of great offensive assistant coaches through the years.
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So, in compiling a Mount Rushmore of them – a four-member list of the best of them – the problem is not being unable to find enough more-than-worthy candidates. Instead, the problem is figuring out who to leave on the outside looking in.
Topping the list, including in – and especially with – the fact their names resonate with modern-era Browns fans are Lindy Infante, who was with the club in 1986 and ’87, and Jim Shofner (1978-80, 1990). The two others, Blanton Collier (1946-53, 1962) and Fritz Heisler (1946-70), are from back in the day.
Here they are:
LINDY INFANTE
At first, it was not a match made in heaven when he arrived in Cleveland as offensive coordinator in 1986. Infante was charged with taking a tremendous rushing offense – both Kevin Mack and Earnest Byner had rushed for 1,000 yards in 1985, becoming just the third set of backs from the same team to do so in a season in NFL history – and flipping it into a pass-first attack to take advantage of the skills of the presumptive franchise quarterback, Bernie Kosar. That was hard enough. But there was also the problem that – again, at first – Infante was not sold on Kosar. But the more Infante was around Kosar, the more he liked him. What ensued was a great offense that led the Browns to the AFC Championship Game in both 1986 and ’87, and within a whisker of two Super Bowl appearances.
JIM SHOFNER
Sam Rutigliano was the head coach of the Kardiac Kids and gets a lot of credit for the exciting, ultra-productive offenses they had from 1978-83, but he would be the first one to tell you that it was not him, but rather Shofner, the quarterbacks coach, who had, by far, the most influence on the triggerman of those offenses quarterback Brian Sipe, the NFL MVP in 1980. When Shofner, a cornerback who was taken in the first round, at No. 13 overall, in the 1958 NFL Draft out of TCU and played for the Browns for six years, left Cleveland after the 1980 season to return to his native Texas and become offensive coordinator of the AFC Central rival Houston Oilers, the Browns offense – and Sipe – were never really the same again.
BLANTON COLLIER
He was a great head coach. But he may have been an even greater offensive assistant coach. And here’s something else: Paul Brown was, obviously, a great offensive mind, but Collier had just as good of an offensive mind and may – may! – have had an even better one. Really. That’s how good Collier was. He was an offensive genius. Every time you see photos – or films – of Brown speaking on the radio to his assistants upstairs in the coaches’ booth, he’s likely talking to Collier, his right-hand man overall, and especially on offense, for the first seven years of the franchise’s existence.
FRITZ HEISLER
The man working behind the scenes on those great Browns offenses was Heisler, the offensive line coach for the franchise’s first 25 years. Any great offense must have a great line, and the Browns certainly had that. He tutored four Pro Football Hall of Fame linemen in Lou Groza, Frank “Gunner” Gatski, Mike McCormack and Gene Hickerson. There were also a lot of other very good ones in Abe Gibron, Dick Schafrath, John Wooten, Jim Ray Smith, John Morrow, Monte Clark, Lou Rymkus, John Sandusky, Lin Houston and on and on and on. An Ohio native, Heisler played at Massillon High School for Paul Brown and later coached under him at Massillon and Ohio State before doing so at Cleveland.
NEXT: OTHER ASSISTANT COACHES.
Cleveland Browns:
- “‘It’s an open competition’ says LB coach” (cleveland.com)
- Missing Cleveland Stadium (Browns Daily Dose)
- “Ranking the Browns’ five best salary cap bargains: Cleveland’s offensive core is flooded with value” (CBS)
- Browns Steering Wheel Cover (Browns Daily Dose)
- “Baker Mayfield Is Becoming The Leader The Browns Need Him To Be” (BrownsNation)
- Sam, Sipe and the Kardiac Kids (Browns Daily Dose)
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