Blanton's Browns

Roger Gordon

Description

Great players, great coaches, great fans, and a great stadium-the 1965-69 Cleveland Browns Two very exciting games in Cleveland Browns history-their upset of the Baltimore Colts in 1964 and the Monday Night Football game on September 21, 1970, when they beat Joe Namath and the New York Jets-bookend this in-depth look at a highly successful era in the franchise's history. During the five years from 1965-69, the Browns qualified for the postseason four times, played in three NFL championship games, and twice came within a game of the Super Bowl. Roger Gordon presents the narrative of the team along with personal profiles of players like Hall of Famers Paul Warfield, Leroy Kelly, Gene Hickerson, and Lou Groza. And, of course, there was the team's-and possibly the NFL's-greatest Hall of Famer, Jim Brown, albeit in 1965 only. Headed by Coach Blanton Collier, the Browns had an impressive record, remaining first or second in their division, and yet fell just short in the playoffs.Longtime Browns fans who remember this era will be eager to revisit it, and younger fans will learn about a very successful time in team history. Gordon connects the characters and stories of this era into the full franchise timeline, up to and including the modern day.

Sujets

• USA
• Fútbol americano
• American football
• History of sport
• États-Unis
• Ohio

Informations

• Publié par: The Kent State University Press
• Date de parution: 06 août 2019
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781631013713
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 1 Mo

Extrait

Blanton’s Browns
Blanton’s Browns
The Great 1965–69 Cleveland Browns
Roger Gordon Foreword by Gary Collins

Black Squirrel Books ®
Kent, Ohio
BLACK SQUIRREL BOOKS®
Frisky, industrious black squirrels are a familiar sight on the Kent State University campus and the inspiration for Black Squirrel Books®, a trade imprint of The Kent State University Press.
www.KentStateUniversityPress.com
© 2019 by Roger Gordon
Foreword © 2019 by The Kent State University Press, Kent, Ohio
All rights reserved
Library of Congress Catalog Number 2018037637
ISBN 978-1-60635-364-6
Manufactured in the United States of America
No part of this book may be used or reproduced, in any manner whatsoever, without written permission from the Publisher, except in the case of short quotations in critical reviews or articles.
Portions of this book were originally published in the magazine Bernie’s Insiders/The Orange and Brown Report .
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Gordon, Roger, author. | Collins, Gary B., author of foreword.
Title: Blanton’s Browns : the great 1965-69 Cleveland Browns / Roger Gordon ; foreword by Gary Collins.
Description: Kent, Ohio : Kent State University Press, [2019]
Identifiers: LCCN 2018037637 | ISBN 9781606353646 (pbk.)
Subjects: LCSH: Cleveland Browns (Football team : 1946-1995)--History.
Classification: LCC GV956.C6 G66 2019 | DDC 796.332/640977132--dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2018037637
23 22 21 20 19      5 4 3 2 1
Contents
Foreword by Gary Collins
Preface
Acknowledgments
1 The Last Championship
2 Repeating Is Hard to Do
3 Nine-and-Five Ain’t Too Shabby
4 Ryan’s Last Hurrah
5 Nelsen Wins the Lotto
6 Swallowed by the Purple People Eaters
7 The Aftermath
8 The Orange and Brown
Postscript
Index
Foreword
Gary Collins, Wide Receiver, Cleveland Browns, 1962–71
In his eight seasons as the Cleveland Browns’ head coach from 1963 through 1970, Blanton Collier directed us to seven winning seasons, five playoff berths, four NFL championship games, and the 1964 league title. Imagine what we could have done had he actually been able to hear what we, the players, and his assistant coaches were saying when trying to speak to him! Blanton was plagued by some serious hearing problems. He was a great coach and I loved playing for him, but the guy was deaf! He couldn’t hear squat! Despite his ear issues, we were among the finest teams in the NFL for most of his tenure as head coach. Our 1963 team improved from a 7–6–1 record the year before—the franchise’s second-worst mark ever up to that point—to a 10–4 record that nearly brought us the Eastern Conference title.
Of course, everybody knows about our 1964 NFL championship, in which we defeated the heavily favored Baltimore Colts 27–0 in the title game. As good as that 1964 team was, though, I believe that most of our teams during the rest of the decade were even better. We just couldn’t get over the hump by winning the “big game.” We lost to Green Bay for the championship in 1965. The next season, a Thanksgiving defeat to the up-and-coming Cowboys essentially cost us the East crown. We lost badly to Baltimore and Minnesota, respectively, in the 1968 and 1969 NFL title games, costing us berths in Super Bowl III and Super Bowl IV.
I had a pretty successful run with the Browns. In fact, my career statistics are similar to those of Hall of Famer Lynn Swann, a wide receiver for the Pittsburgh Steelers from 1974 through 1982. Swann’s Steelers played in, and won, four Super Bowls from 1974 through 1979. Swann was an exceptional talent and is certainly deserving of being in the Hall of Fame, but without those Super Bowl wins, would he be in the same situation I am in—having to buy a ticket to enter the hallowed hall? I am convinced, if I may humbly say, that our championship-game defeats to the Packers, Colts, and Vikings have kept a handful of our players, including myself, out of the pro grid shrine.
Would I rather that we’d won those three championship games? Of course. Would I like to see my bronze bust in the Hall of Fame one day? No doubt about it.
But even if I’m never enshrined into the Hall of Fame, I will always have fond memories of being a member of those magnificent Browns teams in the late 1960s. We had great players, great coaches, great fans, and a great stadium. I will never forget being a part of the pomp and pageantry, the excitement and exhilaration, that surrounded the 1965–69 Cleveland Browns.
Preface
When Cleveland Browns fans think of the good old days, successful eras during the 70-year history of the franchise, it seems like there are four that always come to mind.
And with good reason.
One is the Otto Graham period from 1946 through 1955, in which the future Hall of Fame quarterback led the Browns to 10 straight championship games, seven of which they won. Another is the 1964 Browns, who shocked the Baltimore Colts for the franchise’s last NFL title. The 1979 and 1980 “Kardiac Kids” will hold a special place in fans’ hearts forever, as will the Bernie Kosar–led Browns of the late 1980s, who were on the doorstep of the Super Bowl three times.
One prosperous era in Browns annals that seems to get brushed under the rug for some reason is the period from right after the 1964 championship to just before the first ABC Monday Night Football game on September 21, 1970, in which the Browns defeated Joe Namath’s New York Jets.
That period is the one that ended 50 years ago—1965–69.
The 1965–69 Browns were wildly successful. The 1965 team came close to repeating as NFL champion, falling to Green Bay in the title game after trailing by just a single point at halftime. The 1966 and 1967 teams each finished 9–5, the latter of which won the first of three consecutive Century Division championships. The 1968 and 1969 Browns both upset the Dallas Cowboys in the playoffs and came within one win of qualifying for the Super Bowl.
Not only were the Browns of the late 1960s one of the finest teams in the NFL, they were stocked with star players. There were Hall of Famers Paul Warfield, Leroy Kelly, Gene Hickerson, and Lou Groza. And, of course, there was the team’s—and possibly the NFL’s—greatest Hall of Famer, Jim Brown, albeit in 1965 only.
According to home attendance figures from that era, the city of Cleveland and Northeast Ohio seemed to be excited about the Browns’ success. The following are the team’s average home attendance figures from 1965 through 1969:

• 1965—79,612
• 1966—77,750
• 1967—77,830
• 1968—75,430
• 1969—82,623
The 1965 Browns attracted five home crowds of 80,000 or more. The 1966, 1967, and 1968 teams each drew three home crowds of 80,000 or more. The 1968 Browns drew 81,497 fans and 78,410 fans, respectively, for their home playoff games against Dallas and Baltimore. The 1969 Browns attracted crowds of 80,000 or more in all seven of their home games, the only time that has happened in the history of the franchise. Even in the preseason back then, the Browns drew huge crowds. In five home exhibition games—one per season—from 1965 through 1969, they averaged 84,244 fans per contest! Each of those five games was the nightcap of doubleheaders that included two other professional teams, a series that lasted from 1962 through 1971, but even so, the numbers were impressive.
Which brings us to the $64,000 question: With all of the success and great players they had, and with those astronomical attendance figures, why do the late 1960s Browns teams seem to be forgotten? I don’t have the answer, but I am hoping that Blanton’s Browns: The Great 1965–69 Cleveland Browns will inspire readers to recognize just how significant those Browns teams were to the history of the franchise, and give them the credit they deserve.
Acknowledgments
I would like to thank Will Underwood of the Kent State University Press for giving me the opportunity to write this book—and everyone else at the Press for their assistance, especially managing editor Mary Young. I would also like to thank the many people I interviewed, especially Jim Brown, Dan Coughlin, and Mike Peticca, plus Jonathan Knight for his invaluable advice. Gratitude also goes out to the Cleveland Press Collection in the Michael Schwartz Library at Cleveland State University and AndersonsClevelandDesign.com for providing photos.
Special thanks to Gary Collins for writing the foreword.
Chapter 1
The Last Championship
Most longtime Cleveland Browns fans probably do not realize just how close their favorite team was to having either Ross Fichtner or Bobby Franklin as its starting quarterback in the NFL championship game against the visiting Baltimore Colts on December 27, 1964.
Quarterback? Weren’t Fichtner and Franklin safeties on that 1964 Browns team? Yes, they were. But injury and illness nearly forced the late Blanton Collier, Cleveland’s head coach that day, to put Fichtner or Franklin under center. “Back then,” said Franklin, “teams only carried two quarterbacks. Our starter, Frank Ryan, had gotten hurt a little bit two weeks before in the season finale against the Giants, and the coaches weren’t sure whether he was going to be able to play. So they were getting backup Jim Ninowski ready just in case, but Jim had been real sick the previous few weeks.”
“I had some sort of virus,” Ninowski said. “I think it might’ve been food poisoning from a restaurant I ate at. In a period of two-and-a-half to three weeks, I lost 25 pounds. I had to stay at the hospital for several nights to get IV fluid.”
Collier and his staff were in panic mode—and with good reason—thinking, We might not have a quarterback for the NFL championship game !
It just so happened that Fichtner and Franklin had both been starting quarterbacks in college, Fichtner at Purdue University and Franklin at the University of Mississippi. They were the only two players on the 1964 Browns other than Ryan and Ninowski who had had any kind of