The 1955 NFL championship game revealed intricate narratives and key moments that shaped the landscape of American football. I had the privilege of conversing with esteemed historian Robert Cohen, who elucidated the remarkable achievements of the Cleveland Browns during that unforgettable season. We explored the team's dominant performance, culminating in a decisive victory against the Los Angeles Rams, which underscored their prowess in the league. Through our discussion, we unearthed not only the players who defined that era but also the strategic brilliance of coach Paul Brown, whose innovations laid the groundwork for the future of the sport. Join us as we delve into this rich tapestry of football history, offering insights and anecdotes that illuminate the significance of the 1955 season and its enduring legacy.

Our guest Author, Robert Cohen, has written many books, including "The 50 Greatest Players in Cleveland Browns History."

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Get ready for a deep dive into football history that you'll find nowhere else.

It's all coming up with Robert in just a moment.

This is the Pigskin Daily History Dispatch, a podcast that covers the anniversaries of American football, football events throughout history.

Your host, Darren Hayes is podcasting from America's North Shore to bring you the memories of the gridiron one day at a time.

Hello, my football friends.

This is Darren Hayes of pigskindispatch.com welcome once again to the Pig Pen, your portal to positive football history.

And welcome to another edition of our championship series, the National Football League championships before the Super bowl.

You know, 10 years after World War II, things are going great.

The NFL has survived a rival league and getting ready to face another one here in a few years.

We have, as always, an expert on on the team that won the championship joining us tonight.

His name is Robert W.

Cohen.

And Bob will help us out tonight.

Bob Cohen, welcome to the Pig Pen.

Hi, Darren.

Thank you for having me.

Bob, it is such a pleasure to have you here with your expertise and you know, I'm sure you've done so much research on this Brown's franchise to get these 50 gentlemen that you wrote in your book.

Maybe you could tell us a little bit about your background and maybe some of the other works that you have.

Sure.

I began writing professionally about a little over 20 years ago and I've written about more than 30 books since then.

Most of them are actually part of my 50 Greatest Series of books where I looked at the some of the most iconic franchises in the history of reform professional sports.

And I, I've listed their 50 greatest players and provided biographical, statistical and anecdotal information about each player.

And the Browns were my one of my more recent ones I did a few years ago.

And they certainly have a storied history.

So that's one of the reasons why I wanted to do one about them.

Yeah, most definitely.

Why don't you give us the title of this Browns book and we'll talk about some of the other books here later in the podcast and where people can can buy the Browns book.

Sure.

Exact title is the 50 greatest players in Cleveland Browns History and it's available on Amazon.com barnesandnoble.com, you'll probably have to order from a bookstore individually because it's probably not in bookstores anymore at this point.

Okay.

And folks, if you're driving or don't have a way to write that down right now, don't worry, we're going to put it in those links to get to Bob's book in in the show notes of the podcast and on the YouTube channel.

So Bob, why don't we get into talking about the 55 Browns and maybe the 50 Browns.

How are this team structured to be such a dynamic dominant force in the National Football League?

So Brown spent the first four years of the existence in that conference and they won four straight championship league championships, by far the most dominant team in the conference.

I think they lost a total of only four games over the course of those four seasons.

Four or five games, yeah, that's dominant.

They lost in the NF in the NFL championship game the next three years and they won again at 54 and 55.

So in the first 10 years of their existence, the Browns won 10 division titles and seven league championships.

And aside from Paul Brown, the one constant they had all those years was the quarterbacking about o' Graham, who was considered to be one of the greatest winners in the history of professional sports.

He won, he led them to all those titles and he earned six league MVP awards in the process.

Yeah, that is definitely a dominant performance by not only what Paul Brown assembled, but to carry that on.

The city of Cleveland in professional football had a team in the championship game either winning or losing it for like 11 straight years, both through the AFC and the National Football League between the Rams and the Browns, that blows me away.

And some of some of those games were the Browns against the Rams when the Browns, when they moved to la.

Amazing what that city got to experience during that decade.

Yeah.

And Paul Brown was one of the first major geniuses of football.

Football.

He was the first coach to do player profiles, you know, to the MyQ test, personality test to call in place for his quarterback, and really the first head coach in National Football League to sign black players, make a strong effort towards doing that.

And that was one of the things that allowed them to be so dominant.

Yeah, most definitely some great athletes, you know, like what?

Marion Motley and Bill Willis are the first two that he brought in.

But so many more really opened up the door for some of the young athletes of color that are with us today that we get to enjoy on Sundays and Monday nights and I guess every day of the week now at the National Football League and the UFL and everything.

But, yeah, Paul Brown was definitely instrumental in and helping that to occur.

Yeah.

He was the first great pass rusher, a great defensive end.

And he's bigger than most of the players for his, about 6 foot 4 and 265 pounds, which was huge for that day.

And he was just phenomenal.

And he was the.

The dominant force.

One of the most dominant forces on those teams.

Yeah.

And just like the Browns of today, when you have a dominant pass rusher, it definitely helps your defense.

Your defense do a lot more things to confuse the offense when you got to worry about one guy especially, and you got to throw your double teams and your protections that way.

I'm sure Lynn Ford was very similar to Mr.

Miles Garrett in that way.

Yeah.

Yeah.

They went back to the east and West.

They've had some crazy names over the last few years.

They're changing them all the time.

But the Browns are in the east division now.

They've a long time been in the West.

And the Browns are with the Redskins, Giants Cardinals, Eagles and Steelers.

And over in the west is the Rams, Bears, Packers, Colts, 49ers and the Lions.

They finished in last place in the west and the the Rams and the Bears fought it out for the top of the West.

Rams finishing with an 83 and 1 record.

The Bears are 8 and 4.

And in the east the Browns were 92 and 1 and beat out the Redskins by a couple games who were 8 and 4.

Giants were 65 and 1, the only other team over.500 in there.

So kind of interesting that we're up to 12 teams.

They're playing 12 games and a lot of competition and now local rivalries because the Browns are probably in the area that they should be a little bit closer to the teams that they play against the most.

And just like you mentioned, the Lions were the had the worst record, I think you said, in the Western Conference, Western Division.

They did that because they had lost their.

They traded away their starting quarterback Bobby Lane during the off season and the following season the Otto Graham would retire, would announce his retirement at the end of the 55 season and they would have the first losing record in their franchise history.

Just shows you how important it is to have a really good quarterback.

Yeah.

And as a Steelers fan I know where Bobby Lane went and the Steelers finished in last with Bobby Lane that first year.

They had him too and, and Buddy Parker I believe at the same time the former Lions coach at time.

So those two guys didn't help the Steelers very much.

Maybe, maybe they gave him another win or two.

But still in the basement.

Well, it took the lines a few more years to recover.

Eventually their defense made them a good team again because they had, they were really had one of the best defenses game at that time.

But it took them a while to recuperate after they lost Lane.

Just like it took the Browns a little while to recuperate after they lost Otto Graham.

Yeah, I mean Otto Graham, amazing player.

And I am so glad that the National Football League decided just recently here in the last few weeks to include the records of the aafc, including the player records, team records.

And now Otto Graham sits tied with Tom Brady for seven championships of play professional football.

And it's recognized by the National Football League.

So I think that's kind of cool to get him up on the pedestal where he should be with the elite quarterbacks.

Yeah, I believe when The NFL Network was either the NFL Network or one of the other Sporting News.

They selected their 100 greatest players of all time.

I think one of them had out of agreement in the top 10, I think number seven and I know he was named to the NFL 100 all time team when they.

So is that a couple years ago he definitely ranked as one of the greatest quarterbacks of all time.

Yeah, it's.

I think it's part of his defactoring of, of not being considered, you know, by the mainstream media and everything for so long is because four of those years were a dominant AFC performance where the Browns, like you said earlier, they whitewashed the competition in the afc, won it every year, four losses and you know, there was nobody even close to competing with them.

And they brought that dominance over in the NFL, you know, right out of the gate.

I think one of the reasons he fails to often get the credit he deserves is the fact that the NFL back in those days was predominantly a running league.

And so the numbers, when you look at the numbers of these quarterbacks, they killed by comparison.

So you can't compare the numbers to what they do today.

But it was a totally different game.

If you look at his winning his one loss record is the number of times he led the league in statistical category for passers and you realize how good he really was.

Yeah, he definitely was and had a couple good guys catching the ball too.

And maybe you could talk a little bit about those guys.

Sure.

The.

Well I, I think prior to 55, I think the all time AAFC leader in exceptions and receiving yards was Max Speedy.

That's a great, great name for a receiver, isn't it?

Max Speedy.

But I think by 55 you had Dante Lovelli who was nicknamed Blue Fingers for the.

Because he hardly ever dropped a pass if ever.

He was out of Graham's favorite target most of the time, including gave him.

And they also had a speedy youngster named Ray Renfro who spent his first few seasons shifting back and forth between running back and receiver.

And he holds the all time Browns record for most yards per reception.

I think it's close to 20 yards per reception.

Over the course of his career now, he didn't catch a tremendous number of passes.

He would typically catch maybe 35, 40 passes a year.

But they were all, most of them were close to 20 yards or more.

So.

So they were their two top receivers.

On that team.

Yeah, that's great.

Great going there.

And how about back in the backfield with, with Otto Graham who was his running back at that time, do you know?

I think they had a guy named Morrison and another guy named Matzielewski.

I think Mazaluski might have been the brother of the Giants defensive tackle Dick Mazzolewski.

I'm not that familiar with those two players because they didn't make my, my top 50 list.

But they were their two starting running backs and of course two years later they got Jim Brown and then a year or two after that they had Bobby Mitchell.

Yeah, they comprise one of the greatest, greatest running, greatest backfields in the history of the NFL.

Yeah, that's for sure.

So this might be the year two span where they didn't have the high profile name that people recognize today.

But still very good backs.

Back in that era, Paul Brown didn't have any slackers back there handing the ball off by autogram.

I think they, Their offensive line though was probably the best in the league though.

I mean you had sent.

He had Frank Gatsky, a Hall of Fame center who I believe made the Pro bowl pro like five, five years in a row.

You had it right tackle Mike, Mike McCormack, I believe.

Mike McCormack, yeah.

Who Paul Brown called the greatest offensive tackle he ever saw.

Then you had someone at left tackle who people may remember more as a place kicker, earned the nickname the Toe during his career.

But he was actually the first 10 or 12 years of his career a tremendous offensive lineman named Rug Rosa.

He was a starting left tackle and a great one on that team.

And then he eventually, as he got older, he transitioned to being strictly a place picker.

But he was a combination place kicker and offensive lineman.

His first over 13 years in the league.

But he was a multiple time all throw and pro Bowler with the Browns during the 50s.

They had a really good offensive line.

Yeah, that's.

So did any of those gentlemen you just mentioned or did all of them, they make your top 50 Browns?

All of those four?

Yes.

Gatsky and McCormack.

Rosa made it into the top 10 and Gibbon also made it into the top 50.

Yeah.

So Rose was the highest rated of those four, but he.

All four of them made it into the top 50.

Well, that is tremendous.

Well, as long as we're going back, you know, talking about the top 50, tell us a little bit about this top 50 book that you have on the Browns.

What can a reader expect when they go on and click our links and get to you your book and purchase it?

What can they expect in there?

Well, I formulated my rankings primarily based on the overall level of domination that each player attained during his years with the Browns.

So to determine that, I looked at things like whether or not he ever won the league MVP award, whether or not he ever led the league in a major statistical category, how many Pro Bowls he made, how many old throws he made, times he made all pro.

And then I also looked at the overall influence he had on the team, how, how he impacted the fortunes of the team, whether or not he improved the way their fortunes during his years in Cleveland.

So, yeah, I looked up and it was.

Sometimes it was difficult because you had.

You're comparing players from different years.

So you have to weigh.

Looking at the numbers.

You have to the way the year that they played in comparing their numbers.

But in addition to looking at the numbers, I, I just looked at the overall reputation they attained during their careers, what other players had to say about them, what coaches had to say about them.

And I covered basically every year in Brown's history.

Obviously the 50s and 60s had a lot of those plays because they were more successful during those years.

But even in the 80s and 90s and.

And up until now, the guys have always had at least a few great players on their team.

Like right now they have Miles Garrett.

And in the more recent times, you had players like Joe Cribbs and Eric Metcalf, you know, players like that.

Yeah, probably Ozzie Newsome, I'm sure, is probably in there.

Yeah, you had the 60s.

You had Leroy Kelly and Nick Shafrap a little bit after.

Right.

Short time after this 55 rounds, you had players like Gene Hickerson coming in and Jim Houston.

So you had the 60s.

Have I had a lot of outstanding players too.

Yeah.

That's.

That's an interesting franchise.

Now, I, I mean, I'm.

I'm fortunate enough being an Erie, Pennsylvania.

I'm 100 miles from Buffalo Stadium, Cleveland Stadium and Pittsburgh Stadium.

So I can get within an hour and a half to any of those three stadiums and get to watch them.

And of course, being a Steelers fan, it's easier to get a ticket in Cleveland games.

Most of the time there's one in Pittsburgh, so I've been to quite a few games back at the Old Cleveland Municipal.

When I was a kid, my dad would take me all the time.

In fact, the most prominent game there is I got to see when Terry Bradshaw got dumped by Turkey Jones.

And I think 76 season or 77 season somewhere in there.

I was like 9, 10 years old at the time and.

But very memorable.

And Cleveland Municipal Stadium was very archaic and it was almost, it was almost like being what I imagine the Roman Coliseum must be like.

I've never been there, but you know, all cement and giant pillars in a way.

And I always remember trying to watch a game and you lose like 10 yards of the field because one of these giant pillars, if you're in the upper levels, is blocking your view.

But good memories and good people there in Cleveland.

We've always had a lot of fun going there.

Did you ever sit near the dog pound And.

I never sat in a dog pound.

I'm not brave enough to do that, especially at a Steelers game.

But I have seen it from afar when I've been at some games.

So yes, yeah, definitely a passionate fan base.

And for everything that those folks have gone through, especially you know, losing a franchise at one point having some, some down seasons, they are still just as riled up and, and fiery even in the bad times as they are in the good times.

And it's a, it's good to see a passionate fan base like that.

And let's not forget them losing the AFC championship team and back to back seasons to the Denver Broncos in terrible fashion.

Yeah, that definitely, definitely was bad too.

Probably not as bad as Buttell taking them to the Baltimore and Baltimore winning a championship shortly thereafter.

But yeah, they've been through some hard times, but we're in the good times.

We're in the 50s.

This is good times for Cleveland Browns fans and Cleveland fans in general because they're winning championships.

I believe the Indians were pretty good back in that, that era too.

Of course Indians seem like they're always have some good teams, but.

Yeah.

So you know, who, who else on this, this 55 team would you like to talk about?

We already discussed Len Ford and how dominant he was at right defensive end.

They had Bob Gaines who was playing the middle guard position.

He basically took over that position from Bill Willis after he left.

Gaines spent most of his career at playing left tackle, but that particular year he was playing the middle guard position which was very similar to the middle linebacker position today.

And he was one of the, he was very good against both the run and the pass.

So he was, he was a multiple time pro Bowler, he had the other tackle, one of the other tackle positions.

Don Kolo, who was towards the end of his stint in Cleveland, he was, he was a very effective run stuffer for the Browns in the middle of the defensive line.

And they had as one of their linebackers a name that you'll, you'll be very familiar with as a fan of the Pittsburgh Steelers.

Chuck no.

One of the linebackers on that team.

He was not as great a player as he was a coach, but he was, he was a formative, pretty good player.

Starting linebacker.

And they also had another future NFL coach, Walt Michaels.

He played, he played all three linebacker positions at different times.

And that year I believe he was playing, I'm not sure which linebacker position he was at that year, but he played all three at different times.

He later became a long time defensive coordinator and actually became a head coach of the jets later on in his coaching career.

And their defensive secondary featured three very solid players, one of whom made my top 50 list.

Warren Lar, he was playing quarterback that year.

He spent his last couple of years in Cleveland at safety.

Like he slowed down a bit, but he was, he placed second in team mantles in both interceptions and interception return yards.

He was very effective.

And they also had in their secondary, Don Paul played one of the cornerback positions.

They had a strong safety, Ken Conns, who was another very solid defensive back.

Their defense was pretty much loaded too.

Yeah, there's quite a few people you're mentioning there too, so that's.

You've got a good portion of the starting 22 you're calling out there.

So you know, they gotta be good.

When you're talking about that many of.

These guys, almost half of them probably made my top 50.

Yeah, yeah.

@ least.

Honorable mention, at the very least.

Yeah.

That's is amazing now.

I mean, we must say, you know, I told you earlier that the Rams had the best record over in the West.

So these two teams are meeting for the championship of the National Football League and they're going to play it this year because they're rotational.

They're meeting out in the LA Coliseum on December 26, day after Christmas.

So this is one of the later times of the year that the NFL championship games were being played back then.

You know, we, we know now they're in February, but this is like a holiday tradition now.

You know, they're playing a day after Christmas.

And the Browns, excuse me, they actually.

Played the Rams twice in the NFL championship game.

They roasted them in 51.

They came back and they beat them three years later.

That's right.

That's right.

And didn't they have four years later?

Yeah, I think.

Yeah, they played him two times prior to that before this one.

Right.

That they play another one too.

Trying to look here, they beat him in 50.

I forget about it.

I'm not sure about it.

I'm going back.

Yeah.

50.

They.

They beat the Rams.

Yeah.

So this is the third time they've met in the championship.

And.

And of course, as we've discussed on previous episodes of the series, the Rams are the previous Cleveland franchise.

So this is kind of a cool thing when those two teams meet.

But the Rams still have, you know, they're still loaded too.

You know, you have Norm Van Brocklin, a Dutchman at quarterback.

You know, they are, you know, very.

Bob, Bob Waterfield had retired by then, right?

Yes, yes, he had, he had, he had really.

They had that two quarterback system there for so long that worked so well for them.

And you know, when you have coaches like, you know, previously, Shauna Shaughnessy and Joe Steidahar and Crazy Lakes Hurst was on that team.

Yeah, Hirsch is on that team.

What's his name again?

Tom.

Tom Fears.

Right.

But their coach in this 55 game is another legend.

Sid Gilman is coaching the Rams, you know, one of the greatest innovators of offense.

You know, next to probably like Shaughnessy and in Brown, you know, Gilman's up there because he's really bringing in some innovative things too.

So really was we viewbank one of the assistants on that team?

You know, I don't know.

Let me, let me just call them up and take a look here.

It's not really giving me the assistance on the page.

I'm here right now.

No, he was, he was the head coach in 58.

They beat the Giants.

So I'm pretty sure he was probably an assistant on that staff, but I'm not sure about that.

Yeah, I'm not, I'm not 100% sure if we was.

Was with them at that time.

But you know, they're 8, 3 and 1 record for the Rams.

Their losses were.

They lost to the Bears twice that season and once at Green Bay and they end up tying the, the very strong Baltimore Colts team at the time.

So, you know, pretty, pretty good record for them too.

And with all their stars, you know, this is a matchup made in heaven once again for the National Football League.

They just love these games and they were really getting some good matchups in their highlight Game of the season.

So yeah, unfortunately we were still three years away from the real growth of the league when the Giants played the Colts and they call the greatest game ever played.

So, so that I don't think this game is probably even televised.

I could be wrong about that.

But it may not even be televised.

I don't think it was.

I don't think it was nationally televised, but it was.

I think there was a lot of local television because they had, back earlier, a few years earlier, they had some spot games or they have some videos.

That's why there's video of it, because they were televising some of these games.

So go back and see some of these championship shows.

How, how little publicity the National Football League received in those days.

There was a show called I Believe I've Got a Secret or Watch My Line.

I watch one of those shows and they had as their guest one time Ring Nitschke.

And no one, no one, no, no questioning, knew who he was.

I mean, now you recognize the face right away.

But it was so, so under publicized back in those days.

Yeah, college football and Major League Baseball were definitely king of the sports world back then.

The NFL was boxing and also thoroughbred.

Horse racing were big back then too.

That, that's true.

So yeah, people really didn't appreciate the National Football League for, for what it was.

I mean, just an interesting thing, attendance of this game in the LA Coliseum in pretty big metropolitan area, you know, and a lot of people in Southern California and it's, people want to go there.

They had 85,000 for this game, so not too bad.

That's, that's comparable what today's games are.

But, but prior to that the games were 43,054 played in Cleveland at Briggs Stadium in Detroit.

The year before that it was 54,000.

50,000 at Cleveland three years prior.

So they jumped up almost 30,000 people by attending the game, by going to a more pleasant weather and being in a little bit bigger area, la probably a little bit bigger than Cleveland at the time.

And you mentioned of only about 50,000 people in Cleveland.

And you can say that Municipal Stadium held, I think was close to 80,000 people.

That's really not a lot.

Right.

And it really wasn't appreciated.

But I'm sure they get more than 50,000 for a Browns game even, even during the O16 season.

I'm sure they got more than 50,000 in attendance at Cleveland, whatever their stadium Was called back two years ago when they were had that bad season.

So that just shows you how much popularity the NFL grew.

But it really was some of these games here with these profile, high profile players that we appreciate more today than they did at the time.

Like you mentioned earlier, they got us up to that 58 game with your, your Giants and the Colts.

That really, that was a milestone moment for the NFL and really put them on a great trajectory to become America's number one sport now going around the world as one of the top sports.

Yeah, I think after that 58 game, the networks decided to televise National Football League weekly.

And during the 60s is when the game really exploded.

I remember watching a game every Sunday.

In fact, they used to have double header games on all the time where you'd see the one o' clock game, you'd have like the east coast teams playing and 4 o' clock it had like the Rams playing the 49ers or someone, you know, things like that going on.

Yeah, and then you even had the other network showing the AFL game back then.

So you see the Raiders and the Chiefs or the jets, you know, things like that going on NBC.

That's amazing.

And all that was the building blocks to get us to where we are today with the behemoth of the NFL.

Billion dollar industry or multi billion dollar industry that's just really dominating television.

It's affected the advertisers, you know, now a lot of gambling sites are doing, which is kind of interesting in itself.

And I think gambling is one of the things that makes the game so popular though, you get right down to it.

A lot of people watch, I think, because they have money riding on the games or they're in fantasy football leagues or whatever.

And I think that has a lot to do with it.

Yeah, I was reading something not too long ago and they were talking about.

And if, if you remember back in the 70s and the 60s, the major advertisers for the National Football League were cigarettes, hard liquor and you know, not so much beer.

Beer sort of came in after the cigarettes were phased out when the government wouldn't allow them to.

Shaving cream.

Shaving lotion.

Shaving lotion.

Yeah, yeah, shaving lotion.

Yeah.

And even Joe Namath wearing pantyhose was a big commercial back then.

But now it's sort of shifted and you still have the beer commercials, you have some of the other ones, but now it's mainly DraftKings, FanDuel and some of the other betting sites.

Because I think fantasy football and gambling on teams has now become accepted in mainstream and the NFL is making so much money on it, they're not going to deny it now.

Even though back in the 60s they're taking their premier players like Paul Hornig and Alex Karras and suspending them for a couple seasons.

So interesting how it's turned around on that.

But it all came from these games here in the 50s, really moving the NFL up the ladder.

As far as the fan support in.

55, you were only 10 years after the end of World War II, so you still had some guys playing the game who were World War II veterans.

Yeah, some of the guys, some of the guys on this team fought during World War II.

Do you have some of the names of the guys that by chance I.

Believe in the military?

I, I don't know if he was playing football in the military or he was.

He was doing better.

But I think Otto Graham served during World War II.

I think Dante Lovelli did.

We know Paul Brown was coaching the up in the Great Lakes military.

Yes, Paul Brown was coaching then.

I think Lynn Ford might have served in the military during World War II.

I know Bill Willis did.

He was no longer on this.

He wasn't on this team, but I think.

I know he was in the military.

Of course, one of the.

One of the more famous players not, not on this team, but one of the more.

One more notable figures who was in the service during World War II is Chuck Vayner of the Eagles.

I know he was.

He was serving in the military during World War II.

There were at least a handful of players who served me a little bit.

By the way, another.

Another player we haven't mentioned who was on this team was a punter, Horace Gillum, who.

People who saw him punt say he was the greatest punter in the history of the league.

He used to punt the ball so high and far that he.

And he.

He had such control over his kicks that he would be able to tell the guys which way the ball was going to bounce.

So he would tell them where to go on the field and he caught.

During his career he recorded three punts of more than 80 yards, which is pretty phenomenal when you think about it.

Yeah, that's a phenomenal in any era.

I think teams would love to have an 80 yard punter right now.

Maybe, maybe not in Dallas where you could hit the big TV screen in the middle of the field, but you probably can't get the height.

I remember reading some of.

One player said he kicked the ball so high that One time he kicked it beyond the.

Kicked it so high that he lost the ball in the light so you couldn't see it.

It was.

It was coming down.

So.

Phenomenal punter.

Yeah.

That is definitely.

That's a great weapon to have for a team, isn't it?

He was with the team starting in their AFC days, I believe, like this second or third year.

He was one of the early, early black players signed by Paul Brown.

That's amazing.

We can have a leg and last that long.

Now you're a decade into your career and you're still booting a ball like that.

That's great.

He was towards the end of his career by this time, but he was still.

He's still one of the better.

He's better punters at this time.

Yeah, I.

I didn't realize it, but kickers and kickers especially probably punters are the same way.

I didn't realize it, that their legs sort of wear out.

I had actually a gentleman that I grew up with on the show a couple years ago, Sean Connolly, who.

He never was a mainstay on it as a kicker, but he was always like the.

One of the kickers in camp for multiple National Football League teams over a few seasons.

And he was a walk on it for the Pitt Panthers and was their starting kicker for in the 90s.

And he told me that that's what happened with his career.

They.

That's why they bring in an extra leg into camps for the NFL right now.

And in preseason games, you know, you're starting kickers not kicking all that often.

And in practice, they definitely are the starting kickers only want to kick, you know, very few kicks in practice where the other guys are kicking them because your leg wears out.

And I.

Which I never realized, and I.

I've always thought their leg would get stronger and they're kicking almost like a soccer player.

You just keep kicking the ball, but I guess there's something in their muscles or ligaments.

I don't know exactly what it is, but eventually you burn your leg out and you can't kick anymore, which I found kind of interesting.

So that's.

That's why I think it's amazing now that I know that to hear guys still being successful a decade into their career kicking or punting the ball, I.

Think at some point they'd at least pull a hamstring or something the way they're extending those legs.

Yeah, I don't know.

Actually, Sean now is.

He's down in Pittsburgh and he is.

He owns Aerobic Studios and Yoga studios to help people with their muscle tone or anything.

Which kind of interesting too.

I think that was what spawned him into doing that.

Have the healthy bodies, you know, and try to take care of your bodies and your muscles.

So good for him that he found that through his football career.

Now I guess getting into this game, this championship game we were talking about.

Cleveland went up 3 nothing early in the game off of Groza's kick in the first quarter.

And in Cleveland scores a touchdown.

Again they're up 10 nothing before the Rams come back and battle back to make it a 107 game.

But right near the end of the first half, Van Brocklin throws an interception and the Browns return it to midfield.

And the next play, Otto Graham hooks up with Lavelli for a 50 yard touchdown to basically end the half.

And the browns are up 17 to 7.

So that's kind of a big number to go into halftime.

And the LA crowd had to be, you know, beating your chairs a little bit after that.

Have it such a close game, but to give away a touchdown right at the end of the half.

The Browns came out in the third quarter, scored two quick touchdowns to go way up.

And then they trade touchdowns in the fourth quarter.

The two teams for a 38 to 14 victory for the Cleveland Browns at LA.

So pretty amazing stuff there for the Browns to show their dominance over the next best team in the National Football League.

Yeah, and that's a pretty one sided victory for 24 points.

Yeah, sure that, I'm sure that the points for it wasn't that big.

No, no, I'm sure it wasn't.

I don't have that statistic, but it's pretty amazing.

Oh, you know what, I just see here too.

We were talking about television.

So that's kind of interesting.

I didn't, didn't realize that at the time.

So our listeners are probably already typing their emails out to me, so worry.

We got it right here eventually.

But thank you for the email.

Send them in anyway.

Pigskind dispatch gmail.com.

so Bob, now you said you have other books, you know, besides your Cleveland Browns book.

What are some of the ones that football fans that are listening to this podcast might be interested in?

Let's see, I did a 50 greatest players in New York Giants Football history.

I did one on the Dallas Cowboys.

I did one on the Philadelphia Eagles.

Pittsburgh Steelers, Buffalo Bills.

Nice.

New England Patriots, Cincinnati Bengals.

You're.

You're covering a good portion of the NFL there.

That's the San Francisco 49ers I plan on doing in the future.

Books on the jets and Dolphins, but those are on hold for a while.

I'm working on.

I have A Detroit Lion, 50 Greatest Detroit Lions were coming out later this year, right around the start of the next football season.

I go Minnesota Vikings, Chicago Bears, Green Bay Packers.

So I've completed that division.

Yeah, I may, I may eventually get to doing one on Washington Redskins Commanders, whatever you want to call them.

I'm not.

I may eventually get to one on them, but still a handful of teams I haven't done.

I, I'm doing more the historical older teams.

I'm not doing teams like the Baltimore Ravens or the.

Okay, yeah, I might do one of the Saints and Seahawks eventually, but I put to the forefront the more historic teams, more iconic franchises.

Yeah, that's.

That's a great era.

It's underappreciated.

You know, these, these older things.

The modern fan loves the modern players, which we do too.

But you got to appreciate these guys in the past, like we alluded to earlier, they set the stage and were the building blocks to get these guys, these multimillionaires now that are coming out and haven't even played a game.

It just came out of our most recent draft to be to that point when these guys are working two or three jobs in the off season and then playing football basically for fun and, you know, few thousand dollars on game day.

So personally, if I was a younger fan, I think I'd be more interested in learning about the older players because it's more than I don't know about them.

So like when I'm doing my research, I mean, I know I've basically watched the game for the last 15, 50 plus years.

50, 55 years.

I, I've seen most of those players play, but when I do my research, I mean, I've heard of some of the names of the older great players, like people like in this book, Glenn Ford and Otto Graham, but I never saw them play.

So when I do my research on them, I find that more interesting.

So I'm learning things that I didn't know before this.

You are preaching to the choir here.

You know, Pigskin Dispatch and our fan base are.

They're very smart and we get to talk to a lot of folks about that.

In this evergreen history of the National Football League, college football and some of the other rival leagues, AFCs and AFLs, multiple AFLs over time have really provided some great players to talk about with Some some great information and you know, gives you some some good fodder to put in your books.

Lets me have some great stuff too to put in some of my books right now.

A little bit older professional football but and college football but all the same, you know, we want to recognize these players and preserve the history and we really appreciate you doing that in your books and today coming on here and talking about this great Browns team and some of these awesome players that played for the Cleveland Browns.

Well, thank you so much for having me.

By the way, anyone who's interested in any of my other books, you can find them all on Amazon.org barnesandnoble.com look up the name Robert W.

Cohen or just look on look up for the title and you'll find them there and any future books will be available in bookstores.

All right.

Well Bob, we really appreciate you joining us today.

And folks, like we said, we will have links to get to Bob, at least get to his Amazon authors page.

So Bob, thanks for being a part of our series on National Football League championships pre super bowl and for preserving that football history.

Thank you for having me, Darren.

I enjoyed it very much.

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