The Mount Rushmore of Browns safeties

The Mount Rushmore of Browns safeties – Konz, Scott, Darden, Turner and ‘what if?’

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

By STEVE KING

As they say at many “heavy lifting” companies, safety first.

And so it is with this Mount Rushmore of Browns greats series.

With special teams having been completed, we now move on to defense, and at the back of the defense – as its quarterback because everybody on both sides is in front of him in full view, allowing him to see things and make calls – is the safety.

The best Browns safety of all-time?

With all due respect to the people who made it, he’s not on this list.

It’s Don Rogers, who died on June 27, 1986, on the night before his wedding, of a cocaine overdose.

Rogers played only two seasons for the Browns after being taken in the first round, at No. 18 overall, of the 1984 NFL Draft out of UCLA , so that’s not nearly enough of a sample size to put him onto Mount Rushmore. But everyone in the know who saw him play, says he would have been the greatest Browns safety of all-time, and possibly would have even made it into the Pro Football of Fame had he lived and played out a normal career. He was that good. He checked all the boxes in that he was big, strong, fast, smart and hit like a sledgehammer. Plus he was a great young man with a killer smile. Everybody loved him. That made his passing just that much more painful. It’s one of the saddest moments in Browns history.

And, had Rogers lived, there is another strong belief that “The Drive,” Denver Broncos quarterback John Elway’s 98-yard march for a tying touchdown in the final minutes of the fourth quarter of the 1986 AFC Championship Game to tie the score and force overtime and eventually deny the Browns of that elusive first Super Bowl berth, would have never happened. At some point, Rogers would have scared off Elway from taking off on one of his scrambles on that drive, or scared him off of throwing the many crossing routes. Rogers would have been looming back there as too much of a threatening, and daunting, presence. He changed the way the game was played, and certainly would have done so again on that cold afternoon with a trip to the Super Bowl on the line. Remember, the Browns, who were leading 20-13, needed just one stop on that drive to clinch the win, and he would have helped provide it.

But back to the matter at hand. The Mount Rushmore of safeties, again in chronological order of the years they played, includes Ken Konz (1953-59), Clarence Scott (1971-83) and Thom Darden (1972-74, 1976-81), all Cleveland Browns Legends, and Eric Turner (1991-95).

Here they are:

KEN KONZ

The team’s first-round draft choice, at No. 14 overall, in 1951 out of LSU, he immediately made quite an impression when he began playing for those great Browns defenses two years later, typing for the club lead with five interceptions as a rookie in 1953. He had a career-high seven picks, two of which he returned for touchdowns to lead the NFL, in 1954, and added five more in 1955. When it was all said and done, he had 30 interceptions, which places him fourth in Browns history, and also had four interception returns for TDs, second all-time on the club. In addition, he topped the league with a 14.4 yards-per-punt-return average in 1956.

CLARENCE SCOTT

He could be on two Mount Rushmore lists as, for the first eight seasons of his 13-year career, he was an outstanding cornerback for the Browns. When head coach Sam Rutigliano asked Scott to move to safety in 1979, it hurt his pride but he never said a word, instead working hard to excel at that position. And he did just that, getting 14 interceptions over those final five seasons, including a diving one in the final minutes at Houston off Ken Stabler late in that 1980 Kardiac Kids season that secured a key 17-14 win over the Oilers. Scott’s 39 interceptions overall are No. 3 in team history.

THOM DARDEN

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One of Scott’s teammates in the secondary for a decade, and beside him at safety for three seasons, Darden was the best ballhawk the Browns have ever had, as evidenced by his team-best 45 career interceptions. The most impressive part of that is how the Sandusky High School product came back from a knee injury that caused him to miss all of the 1975 season. He rebounded to get seven picks when he returned in 1976, just one less than he had had in 1974 before the injuury. His best season for interceptions was 1978 when he had an NFL-best 10 for 200 return yards, which also led the league.

It should be noted that Darden holds another distinction. When Ohio State head coach Woody Hayes picked up a down marker and threw it onto the field in protest of what he thought was a missed call late in a 10-7 loss at Michigan in 1971, it was Darden, then a senior for the Wolverines, who he thought had committed pass interference.

ERIC TURNER

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Believing from his days working under Bill Parcells with the New York Giants that a team should be built up the middle, Bill Belichick’s first draft pick as head coach of the Browns was Turner, who arrived at No. 2 overall out of UCLA in 1991. He didn’t disappoint, flying around in the back of the defense to make plays for the final five years in Cleveland of the original Browns franchise, including in 1994 when he topped the NFL with nine interceptions as Cleveland went 11-5 and made the playoffs for the first time in five seasons. The Browns allowed just 204 points in 1994, still a team record for a 16-game season, in Nick Saban’s fourth and final season as defensive coordinator, and Turner was an integral part of that.

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NEXT: Cornerbacks.

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The Mount Rushmore of Browns safeties