When Paul Brown Decided Bigger Was Better at Running Back

EDITOR’S NOTE: In honoring the fact that February is Black History Month, we continue with a short series on Browns Pro Football Hall of Fame running back Bobby Mitchell. Previous Post

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Sometimes, the answer is so big —so very obvious — that you don’t see it at first. You have to step back, gather yourself and look again, and when you do, that’s when you see it.

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And so it was with Browns head coach Paul Brown. He was still reeling from his team’s blowout 49-17 loss to the Green Packers on Oct. 15, 1961. Whoa! And at the same time, he continued to try to figure out how his club could get back on top in the NFL’s Eastern Conference.

Then the answer eventually hit him like a ton of bricks. The Packers, under the direction of head coach Vince Lombardi, had gone from being one of the laughingstocks of the league to one of the best teams in a pretty short period of time. They had made it to the NFL Championship Game in 1960 against the Philadelphia Eagles and would win the league title in both 1961 and ‘62, beating the New York Giants both times. One of the keys was a power running attack featuring two big, hard-nosed backs in Jim Taylor and Paul Hornung. Taylor had rushed for 158 yards and four touchdowns in the win over the Browns. The great Cleveland defense had no answer for him.

What if the Browns had two big backs like that?, Brown wondered. After all, the Browns already had one of those kind of backs in Jim Brown, the best running back in the game and now considered to have been the best player at any position in pro football history. Plus, the Browns already had a great offensive line, just like the Packers did. So, then, all Paul Brown had to do was find another runner to put next to Jim Brown. His current man was Bobby Mitchell, who was a scatback, using his moves and speed to break into the clear and gain yardage. that was not the kind of runner Paul Brown wanted. Though no one knew it at the time — and Paul it Brown certainly wasn’t going to make it public — Mitchell quickly became a trade piece for the future to get that big back.

But for who? What big back did Paul Brown need to go after?

That was the problem now.

Steve King