Dave Logan, The Kiss of…Life

When Sam Rutigliano was hired as head coach of the Browns following the 1977 season, one of the first things he did was to call each of the players on the team and discuss their abilities and what he envisioned their role with the team would be.

One of the key calls he made was to Dave Logan. He was a third-round pick in the 1976 NFL Draft out of Colorado, and had been miscast by then head coach Forrest Gregg as a tight end for his first two seasons. And it showed, for he had just 24 catches overall for but one touchdown.

Logan was 6-foot-5, but he was not that heavy. He has the build of a forward on a basketball team, and that’s the position he had played in college hoops.. But he was tremendously athletic, as evidenced by the fact that he was drafted by both the NBA and Major League Baseball before taken by the Browns. He was a tight end in a wide receiver‘s body.

None of that was lost on Rutigliano.

“When I told Dave that I was going to move him to wide receiver , he was so happy that I thought he was going to reach through the phone line and give me a big kiss,” Rutigliano said with a laugh.

It turned out to be a stroke of genius, for Logan immediately blossomed in his new role. And it’s why he is the focus of Part 8 of the Roy Hobbs series of Browns players who came out of nowhere to do big things.

He caught 37 passes for four touchdowns in that first season of 1978 as Rutigluano began putting together the Kardiac Kids. In 1979, it was 59 catches for seven scores. Then in 1980, as the Browns won the AFC Central, he had 51 catches for four touchdowns. That was followed up in 1981 with 31 catches for four touchdowns.

In those first four years, he had 170 receptions for 19 touchdowns, and he finished his Browns career with 262 catches, one of the top totals in team history, for 24 touchdowns, the same number of receptions he had his first two seasons.

Dave Logan got what he wanted, Sam Rutigliano got got what he wanted and the Browns and their fans got what they wanted, a great player on some extraordinarily exciting teams.

NEXT: Check out that Dude.

Steve King