The Mount Rushmore of Browns defensive ends – Browns drive a Ford into the NFL

6+4+3=2 Shirts under $15!

EDITOR’S NOTE: This is the 11th in a series of stories about the Mount Rushmore-worthy players – the best players – in Browns history. Today we look at defensive ends.

By STEVE KING

The first and the most recent members of the Mount Rushmore of Browns defensive ends began their Cleveland careers exactly 40 years apart.

The two men in the middle were teammates for six years, and had their biggest individual moments in the same big game.

Click here for a Daily Dose of our best coffee

We’re talking about Pro Football Hall of Famer Len Ford (1950-57) and Rob Burnette (1990-95) in the first regard, and then Paul Wiggin (1957-67) and Bill Glass (1962-68).

Here they are:

LEN FORD

Embed from Getty Images

A Michigan product, Ford played as a two-way end for one of the Browns’ rivals in the All-America Football Conference, the Los Angeles Dons, in 1948 and ’49. As good as he was on defense for the Dons – and he was very good – he was even better on offense, catching 31 passes for 598 yards (19.3) and seven touchdowns the first year and then having 36 receptions for 577 yards (16.0) and one score in the second season.

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

After watching that, head coach Paul Brown, when the AAFC was dissolved after the 1949 season, eagerly grabbed Ford for his team as the Browns went to the NFL in 1950 and made him exclusively a defensive end. Brown was getting a man who was athletic and fast, but, at 6-foot-4 and 245 pounds, was also big, strong and intimidating. With the talented George Young at the other end for the next three seasons, and with Hall of Famer Bill Willis at middle guard, the Browns had a dominating five-man defensive line, and a great defense overall. Ford made the Pro Bowl four times, tying him with Glass for the most in Browns history by a true defensive end.

ROB BURNETT

Embed from Getty Images

Even though they did not have a first-round choice, having traded it away to the Green Bay Packers, the Browns did pretty well in the first part of the 1990 NFL Draft, getting running back Leroy Hoard in the second round, and their starting defensive ends for the next six seasons in third-rounder Anthony Pleasant and Burnett, a fifth-rounder, at No. 129 overall, out of Syracuse. Burnett, who made one Pro Bowl, played consistently well, especially in his final four seasons in Cleveland when he recorded 35.5 of his 40.5 sacks overall, which is fifth-best in Browns history. Had the original Browns franchise remained in Cleveland, that number would have been much greater.

PAUL WIGGIN AND BILL GLASS

Embed from Getty Images

The latter of the Browns’ two sixth-round draft picks in 1956 out of Stanford, Wiggin became a starter in his second season of 1958 and stayed there, mostly at end, for the next decade, making the Pro Bowl twice near the end of his time in Cleveland. Glass was a first-round draft pick, at No. 12, out of Baylor by Detroit in 1957 but played his rookie season with the CFL’s Saskatchewan Roughriders before joining the Lions in 1958. He played with them for four seasons before being traded to the Browns in 1962. He was a starter at right end, opposite Wiggin, for the next six seasons. A superb pass rusher, Glass set team records with 14.5 sacks in 1965, and with seven consecutive games with a sack in 1966. His and Wiggin’s biggest individual moments were really a combined moment. It came in the 27-0 victory over the Baltimore Colts in the 1964 NFL Championship Game when the Browns defense dominated one of the best offenses of that era, with Wiggin and Glass being in the face of quarterback John Unitas all day.

Embed from Getty Images

NEXT: Defensive tackles.  

Cleveland Browns:

• “Stefanski makes move to Northeast Ohio after long delay” (BrownsZone) 
• 6+4+3=2 Shirts under $15!
• On this date in Browns history (Browns Daily Dose)
• “Report: Browns Remain in Contact With Jason Peters” (OBR) 
• “ESPN’s Dan Orlovsky on Baker Mayfield: ‘He’s going to have a monster season’” (cleveland.com)
• The ‘Corner Brothers’ (Browns Daily Dose)
• “Arby’s Foundation and Browns team up to provide free meals, internet to students and families in NE Ohio” (Browns.com)

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