Brian Sipe owns most of the Browns’ passing records.

But he made his first real contribution to the team not with his arm, but with his feet.

Really.

And it happened 41 years ago today, on Oct. 27, 1974.

With his team down by 12 points in the fourth quarter, Sipe ran for two touchdowns, including the game-winner on a one-yarder with just under two minutes left, as the Browns defeated the Denver Broncos 23-21 at Cleveland Stadium.

Cleveland halted a four-game winning streak and improved its record to 2-5.

Sipe had been taken in the 13th round of the 1972 NFL Draft out of San Diego State, but had not been able to earn a roster spot in his first two seasons with the team. He had instead been relegated to a place on the taxi squad, the forerunner of today’s practice squad.

He had played little in the first the six games of the 1972 season, and when he did play, he had not done anything noteworthy. He was just another faceless young player on a bad team.

Instead, the entire focus of the team was on Mike Phipps, a fifth-year pro who was drafted at No. 3 overall in 1970 after the Browns pulled off a blockbuster trade with the Miami Dolphins in which they gave up wide receiver Paul Warfield. Projected to be a franchise quarterback when he came to the Browns, Phipps had been just OK overall in his career, but he was off to an especially rocky start in 1974.

Would Phipps get it together? Or was he a bust? Nothing else mattered with the Browns other than finding the answers to those two questions.

Phipps had played well as the Browns behind 21-9 in the fourth quarter, with their points coming on three Don Cockroft field goals of 27, 30 and 25 yards. Trying to jump-start the offense, fourth-year head coach Nick Skorich, a native of Bellaire, Ohio, put Sipe into the game. It was a shot in the dark, but there was little risk. If Sipe fizzled, then no one would have been upset. After all, that’s what low draft choices usually do.

But instead of fizzling, Sipe was fantastic with the way he rallied the Browns.

He scrambled eight yards for a touchdown to cut the lead to 21-16 and then, after Greg Pruitt’s 72-yard punt return to the Denver 3, he got his one-yard scoring run and with it his first bit of notoriety as a pro.

He would have to wait a while, but many more plaudits were coming.

Sipe was 4 of 6 passing for 32 yards, completing half as many passes as Phipps in 17 less attempts. That was enough to convince Skorich to give Sipe another start the following Sunday at San Diego against the Chargers.

Fullback Hugh McKinnis had the game of his life with six receptions for 111 yards, nearly hall of Cleveland’s totals. Gloster – not Trent – Richardson added two catches for 32 yards.

Six years later, when most of the players in that 1974 game had long been out of football, Sipe was setting the world on fire – by then, with his arm – en route to leading the Kardiac Kids to an 11-5 record and their first AFC Central title in nine seasons. And oh, yes, he was also named the NFL MVP.

Sipe was no longer a virtual unknown. In fact, his passing was so important to the Browns that head coach Sam Rutigliano held his breath every time Sipe decided to scramble out of the pocket and run.