YES, WALT MICHAELS WAS A TRULY GREAT PLAYER
By STEVE KING
Browns longtime radio play-by-play announcer Jim Donovan, who doubles as the longtime sports director at Cleveland’s WKYC-TV, texted me Thursday night when the news broke that Walt Michaels, a Browns star linebacker who played with them for 10 seasons (1952-61), had passed away at 89.
“Was he a great player with the Browns?,” Donovan asked, presumably to get some understanding and perspective for his sportscast on the 11 o’clock news that night.
My reply came quickly. It was a no-brainer.
“Yes, he was great, very much so,” I wrote back. “With all those offensive stars the Browns had back then, the defensive stars never got their due. Michaels was one of the greatest, the most complete and perhaps the smartest linebacker in the NFL during his era.”
Defense throughout pro football never received the love back then that it gets now, and that was especially the case with the Browns. The presence of future Pro Football Hall of Famers on offense such as quarterback Otto Graham, running backs Jim Brown, Marion Motley and Bobby Mitchell, wide receiver Dante Lavelli and offensive linemen Lou Groza, Frank Gatski, Mike McCormack and Gene Hickeson, along with Cleveland Browns Legends in wingback Dub Jones, wide receivers Mac Speedie, Ray Renfro and Pete Brewster and offensive linemen Jim Ray Smith and Abe Gibron, was overwhelming.
So, too, was the fact the early Browns revolutionized offense with the spread passing attack that was built on timing routes, the trap play and the messenger guard system to send in plays.
It didn’t matter that Michaels made four Pro Bowls (all in a row, following the 1956, ’57, ’58 and ’59 seasons), tied with Clay Matthews, Jim Houston and Chip Banks for the most by a linebacker in Browns history.
Not even the franchise’s two defensive Hall of Famers, middle guard Bill Willis and end Len Ford, both of whom played in the early years, got the attention they deserved.
And that’s a real shame.
Standout Coach
Walt Michaels, isn’t a fixture in Browns history simply for his exploits as a player after being a standout linebacker from 1952-61.
He is also part of the great coaching tree of former Paul Brown players – and assistant coaches — in Cleveland.
The most interesting part of that coaching phenomenon occurred in the famous – and tremendously impactful — Super Bowl III following the 1968 season between the New York Jets and Baltimore Colts.
The Colts were overwhelming favorites – by 18 points, according to oddsmakers – in that game. They went 13-1 in the regular season, their only loss being by 30-20 to the Browns, whose head coach, Blanton Collier, was a former Paul Brown assistant coach. But they avenged that defeat — and then some – by rolling past the Browns 34-0 in the NFL Championship Game. The victory was also revenge for the 27-0 loss the Colts suffered at the hands of the Browns in the 1964 title game.
The head coach of both of those Colts teams was Painesville Harvey High School and John Carroll University product Don Shula, who was a safety for the Browns in 1951 and ’52 when Collier was a Browns assistant. An assistant on both of those Colts clubs was Shula’s close friend Carl Taseff, a Cleveland area native who played as a defensive back with Shula at both John Carroll and with the Browns in 1951.
The defensive coordinator of the 1968 Colts was Cleveland Benedictine High School product Chuck Noll, a Browns linebacker and then messenger guard from 1953-59. His Baltimore defense that season was historic with the way it shut down opponents.
The head coach of the 1968 Jets was Weeb Ewbank, who had been an assistant in Cleveland with Collier when Shula and Taseff played there. New York’s defensive coordinator was Michaels, who put together the great scheme to stymie John Unitas and the powerful Colts offense.
The result was a 16-7 Jets victory as an AFL club defeated an NFL team in the Super Bowl for the first time. It was a seminal moment for the AFL – and pro football in general — as the much newer league struggled for acceptance on the way to the finalizing of the merger of the two leagues in 1970.
Michaels later became head coach of the Jets from 1977-82, during which time his teams played the Browns on four occasions, all in consecutive years. Although the Jets were just 1-3, all the games were tight, with Cleveland winning the first three, 37-34 in overtime in 1978, 25-22 in OT (’79) and 17-14 (’80) and New York gaining a 14-13 triumph in 1981.
As is the case now, the Jets of that era were in the AFC East with the Miami Dolphins. By then, Shula was head coach of the Dolphins and Taseff served as an assistant, and Miami played New York twice each regular season. The most memorable Jets-Dolphins meeting during that time, thugh, was in the postseason. It came in the 1982 AFC Championship Game during Michaels’ last season when Miami won 14-0 to advance to the Super Bowl.
