EDITOR’S NOTE: The following is the third in a series of stories about NFL Drafts for the Browns that played out quite differently from how they were first perceived. Part 3 focuses on 1978.
Browns receivers coach Richie Kotite probably he was going to be the butt of some kind of prank or joke when head coach Sam Rutigliano gave him an assignment a little over a month before the 1978 NFL Draft.
“I want you to take a tape measure with you and go down to Tuscaloosa (Ala.) and visit Ozzie Newsone,” Rutigliano said.
“Why?,” Kotite asked.
“I want you to measure the width of his rear end.”
“Huh? You want me to do what?”
“You heard me. I want you to measure the width of his rear end.”
“Sam, why in the world do you need me to do that?”
“Because I want to see if his frame is big enough for him to put on some weight so he can be effective as a blocker in the running game and, when we’ll need him, in the passing game.”
“Oh, OK.”
So, off Kotite went to carry out the task, and when he returned, the numbers he provided were such that they proved to Rutigliano that Newsome, who had been a tall, skinny, under-utilized wide receiver in Alabama’s wishbone offense, could play tight end in the pros.
Up until that time in the NFL, tight ends were a bit smaller but also a tad more athletic version of offensive tackles who mostly blocked. When they were used as receivers, they would run simple, plodding seven-yard hook routes, catch the ball and then just sit down. There was no applicable run-after-the-catch involved, at least to any great degree.
But when Rutigliano, who doesn’t get nearly the credit throughout the NFL he deserves for these historically transformational thoughts in the passing game, looked at Newsome as the forerunner of a new breed of tight ends, athletic guys who could be a wide receiver in a tight end’s body, being able to run far downfield and make big catches. They would be matchup nightmares for defenses in that they were too fast to be covered by linebackers and too big and strong to be marked by safeties.
The Browns had two first-round draft picks in 1978 as Rutigliano took over as head coach. With the latter of the two choices, at No. 23, they selected Newsome. And with the first one, at No. 12, they tabbed Clay Matthews, a linebacker from USC. They were born one day apart in mid-March of 1956.
While Newsome blossomed right away and, as mentioned, forever changed the tight end position and the pro passing game en route to setting a team record with 662 career receptions, twice as many as the No. 2 man, wide receiver Gary Collins, so, too, did Matthews flourish quickly. The son of an offensive lineman by the same name who played for the San Francisco 49ers in the early 1950s, Matthews was a middle linebacker in college but was moved to the outside in the pros. He suffered an ankle injury in training camp as a rookie, and missed almost all of the strike-shortened 1982 season due to an injury, but otherwise, he was an ironman, hardly a missing a defensive play, let alone a game, in his 16-year Cleveland career. Mathews could play all three downs — he never had to leave the field — in that he was exceptional rushing the passer, defending the run and playing in pass coverage. He was a complete player, an oddity in the specialization that is so much a part of the game today,
Newsome, who is in the Pro Football Hall and Fame, and Matthews, who deserves to be in there as well, are the reasons why the Browns had what is now universally regsrded as the third-best draft ever in 1978. But it was hardly viewed that way as the dust was still settling from it. After all, it was hard to get the fans — and media members as well — excited about using the rare occasion — and golden opportunity — of two first-round draft picks on a prospective player at the unglamorous position of tight end who didn’t catch many passes in college, and a linebacker from three time zones away.
NEXT: It made total sense before it didn’t.
Steve King
