Paul Brown’s bad idea

Paul BrownCLEVELAND, OH - OCTOBER, 1962: Head coach Paul Brown of the Cleveland Browns watches the action from the sidelines during a game in October, 1962 at Municipal Stadium in Cleveland, Ohio. (Photo by Tony Tomsic/Getty Images)

Posted By: County Sports Network April 22, 2020

Paul Brown’s bad idea

EDITOR’S NOTE: Two of the very best interviews in my career were with the dynamic, intelligent, well-spoken, gentlemanly and historic Bobby Mitchell, the Pro Football Hall of Fame running back (Browns) and wide receiver (Washington Redskins) who passed away recently at the age of 84. Below is part of what Mitchell, also a tremendous storyteller, told me in those exclusive interviews. In this final installment of a series on him, he discusses his trade to Washington and his first game against the Browns in that next season of 1962.

New 2020 Cleveland Browns Jerseys

By STEVE KING

In theory, Browns head coach Paul Brown thought it would be a great trade, one that could well push his team back to the very top of the Eastern Conference, and possibly to an NFL championship as well.

In reality, though, it turned out to be a complete disaster in every way, shape and form, including for himself, as it was the first in a series of events that led to his unceremonious firing just after the 1962 season.

Advertisement: For a free insurance review visit Allstate Agent Clint Stott

Brown and Packers head coach Vince Lombardi were good friends from their days in the 1950s competing against each other when Lombardi was an assistant coach with the Browns’ arch rivals then, the New York Giants.

Lombardi’s Packers, who would go on to capture the NFL title, came into Cleveland in Week 5 of the 1961 season and won in a rout, 49-17, ending the Browns’ three-game winning streak – and then some. Brown was so taken aback by the way Green Bay’s two big backs, Pro Football Hall of Famers Jim Taylor and Paul Hornung, ran wild, that it got him to thinking some “what if” questions.

That is, “What if the Browns had a backfield like that?”

Nick Chubb jersey’s available here – New 2020 Cleveland Browns Jerseys

Nick Chubb jersey’s available here – New 2020 Cleveland Browns Jerseys

When Brown looked at his own backfield, he saw a big power runner in Jim Brown and a darting, scatback-type in Bobby Mitchell. In an attempt to change that dynamic and have with his club what Lombardi had with Hornung and Taylor, Brown made a trade with Washington just after the 1962 NFL Draft, sending Mitchell to the Redskins for the rights to a big back in Ernie Davis, whom they had selected with the No. 1 overall pick. The Redskins got a great player in Mitchell and were able to finally integrate their team in the process, a full 16 years after the Browns had broken the pro sports color barrier for good with Hall of Famers Bill Willis and Marion Motley.

Anyway, Davis was the same size as Jim Brown and had broken all of his records at Syracuse en route to becoming the first African American to win the Heisman Trophy.

“I didn’t want to go to Washington. I really didn’t,” said Mitchell, who was switched to wide receiver exclusively in 1964 and became one of the greatest pass-catchers in the league. “I loved being in Cleveland. I loved my teammates, and I loved my coaches.”

Mitchell thought right away that Brown was making a big mistake.

“Jim Brown and I really complemented each other. We were a great combination,” Mitchell said. “I was the smaller, quick, elusive guy with the moves, while Jim was such a strong, powerful runner. So when teams played the Browns, they had to contend with two very different runners who could both score a touchdown from anywhere on the field. That made it tough on teams.

Advertisement: Buying or selling a home? Visit the Jacob Coker Group with Keller Williams Chervenic Realty

“When the Browns got Ernie, their backfield was going to be made up of two big, strong guys. That would have made it easier for teams to go against the Browns as it limited the scope of what they had to defensively.”

Added Jim Brown, “Ernie and I were exactly the same kind of runners. Paul made a real error when he pulled off that trade.”

And in addition, Paul Brown never informed owner Art Modell before he made the deal. He had to hear about it in a phone call made to him by Redskins owner George Preston Marshall. That infuriated Modell and caused a rift with Brown that could never be fixed, and wasn’t.

Sadly, Davis never played a down for the Browns, coming down with leukemia in the 1962 training camp and passing away on May 18, 1963. He was one of three Browns players who died between the 1962 and ’63 seasons, the others being Shadyside, Ohio native Don Fleming, a real up-and-coming young safety who was electrocuted in a construction accident just 2½ weeks after Davis died, on June 4, 1963, and two-way back Tom Bloom, a sixth-round draft choice in 1963 who was involved in a car accident on an icy stretch of Interstate 70 in Western Ohio on Jan. 18, 1963.

Davis’s jersey number (45) and Fleming’s (46) are two of the five numbers retired by the Browns. Bloom, in that he never got to Cleveland to meet his new team, was never assigned a jersey number, or else his number might have been retired, too.

With Davis unavailable, a desperate Paul Brown knew he had to do something to fill the huge hole in his backfield alongside Jim Brown. As such, he called Lombardi during the 1962 training camp to see if he had anyone he might be willing to trade to Cleveland. Lombardi told Paul Brown that one of his rookies, Ernie Green, had some real promise but, with Hornung and Taylor, there was no room on the roster for him. So Lombardi was willing deal him to the Browns to help out his friend.

Green, though, didn’t really play much for Paul Brown in 1962. He instead began blossoming in 1963 under the guidance of Brown’s successor, Blanton Collier.

Mitchell’s first trip back to Cleveland with the Redskins was immediate – in Week 2 of the 1962 season — and memorable.

The Browns led 16-10 late in the fourth quarter as the Redskins drove to midfield. Quarterback Norm Snead then threw a short pass to Mitchell, who made an incredible 50-yard run-and-catch, bobbing and weaving, starting and stopping, cutting back and forth to elude a slew of Browns defenders to hand Cleveland – and Paul Brown – a stinging 17-16 defeat.

Snead completed just eight passes all day — in 18 attempts – for 147 yards, and Mitchell was on the receiving end of three of those completions for 94 yards. The Browns out-gained the Redskins in total yards, 355-209. So, then, without Mitchell, the Redskins would have had no chance to win.

“I’ll never forget that run,” Mitchell said. “I caught the ball and turned toward the Browns sideline and there was Paul Brown. I could see his face clearly amongst all the other people there. I changed direction a little later and again turned toward the Browns sideline and there was Jim Brown. I could see his face clearly amongst all the other people there. I turned back toward the Browns sideline a couple more times, and each time, I was able to clearly see the faces of a number of my former teammates amongst all the other people there.

“It was strange, incredible. Each time when I would turn toward the Browns sideline, I looked at those guys for only a split-second, but it seemed like it was so much longer. It was like everything was happening in slow-motion.”

The loss, as mentioned, really jolted – and, as turned out, demoralized — the Browns. They were coming off a season-opening 17-7 win over the defending Eastern Conference champion Giants, marking just the second time they had beaten New York in 10 tries dating back to 1958.

And the Redskins, who had been a doormat in the conference since Cleveland entered the NFL in 1950, came into the game having lost eight straight to the Browns and had not beaten them in 10 attempts dating back to 1957. In addition, it was just the fourth win for the Redskins over Cleveland all-time in 25 games.

Following that loss to Washington, the Browns never really got their traction again in an up-and-down season, taking a step backward for each one they took forward. They even lost again to the Redskins, this time a little more convincingly, 17-9.

Despite all that, the Browns were at 6-4-1 after a two-game winning streak and were trying to make a push to the end since they had climbed to within two games of the Giants (8-2-1) with three to play. But they then dropped two of those last three games, their offense, without a solid runner to go with Brown, scoring a combined total of just 47 points. They finished 7-6-1, Brown’s second-worst record in his 17 seasons in Cleveland and the worst since 1956 (5-7).

Modell had seen enough. Not having any relationship with Brown and, after talking to some Browns players, also convinced that the coach’s controlling ways and refusal to change had allowed the game to pass him by, fired him on Jan. 9, 1963. It was done during a Cleveland newspaper strike and decades before the advent of sports talk radio and cable TV, thus muting the roar of longtime Browns fans – and many in the media – who were aghast that Modell would have the nerve to fire the iconic Brown, the man for whom the team is named.

And it all traces back to that resounding Browns loss to Green Bay in 1961, when Paul Brown’s bad idea turned out so terribly wrong for almost everyone involved, including even Bobby Mitchell, who admittedly never wanted to leave Cleveland and, all those years later, told me that he still considered himself a Cleveland Brown first and foremost.

Advertisment: Rough hair days ahead with closed salons and barbershops?

Canton Clothing Co. has you covered. Literally.

Cleveland Browns:

We may earn an Affiliate Commission if you purchase something through recommended links in this article.

Facebooktwitterredditpinterestlinkedinmail
SHARE TWEET PIN SHARE