It’s that time of year again, the beginning of the NFL season, when we revive one of our favorite pastimes on Rayonsports.com , the weekly Throwback Thursday post. Each week during the season, we pick out a matchup on that week’s schedule and then feature a game from the past between those teams. To open the 2016 season, we’ll feature a matchup between the Cleveland Browns and Philadelphia Eagles, who play on opening day. The historical matchup we’ll remember was not only played on opening day, of the 1950 season, but was also the first game the Browns ever played in the NFL. They had been members of the All American Football Conference, a league formed to challenge the established NFL, and had dominated the AAFC for it’s entire four year existence, winning every championship from 1946 to 1949. The Browns, San Francisco 49ers and an early version of the Baltimore Colts were merged into the NFL when the fledgling league folded, and all began play in the established league in 1950. NFL Commissioner Bert Bell set up the schedule to match the Browns against the two-time defending NFL champion Eagles on opening day of the ’50 season purposely, with the intent of showing the public his league’s superiority over the champions of the AAFC. The game was even scheduled for Saturday, a day before the rest of the league’s scheduled games, to further feature the matchup.
Game program from the Eagles-Browns 1950 opening game matchup
The Browns were considered by all the pro football experts at the time to be a good team, but only the best team in a “minor” league and certainly no match for the NFL champion Eagles. Of course, things didn’t go the way Bell and the so-called experts had expected. The Eagles kicked an early field goal to go ahead 3-0, but the Browns’ passing attack, directed by quarterback Otto Graham, then proceeded to carve up the supposedly vaunted Philadelphia defense. Graham threw for 3 touchdowns, one apiece to Dub Jones, Dante Lavelli and Mac Speedie, and scored himself on a one yard keeper to stake his club to a 28-3 lead they never relinquished. The teams traded fourth quarter scores to put the final score at 35-10 in favor of the upstart Browns. The game is widely considered one of the greatest upsets in NFL history, but the contest itself was a little sloppy. The teams combined for 9 turnovers, and in what a skeptic might consider favoritism toward the Eagles, the Browns were penalized 12 times for 98 yards (compared to only 3 calls against Philly). But Cleveland’s dominance couldn’t be denied – they outgained the Eagles 487 yards to 266 in addition to the lopsided score. Eagle coach Greasy Neale reluctantly congratulated the Browns on the win, critiquing the team for relying heavily on the pass and comparing them to a basketball team. Neale certainly would not be a fan of today’s game.
Obviously all the experts underestimated the quality of play of the old AAFC, and also the powerful team Cleveland coach Paul Brown had assembled which dominated that league. The opening day dominance was no fluke. Paul Brown’s forces went on to win the NFL championship in that season, their first in NFL play. That was quite a remarkable achievement, and the franchise continued to be one of the league’s strongest well into the 1960s.
Browns’ legends Otto Graham and Paul Brown