Super Bowl Zero: AAFC Cleveland Browns vs NFL Eagles, 1950
Although the Cleveland Browns have never made it to the Super Bowl, one of their games in 1950 could be considered the first Super Bowl.
When the All-America Football Conference merged with the NFL in 1950, it fell upon the shoulders of the Cleveland Browns as the reigning AAFC champion, to play the NFL hampion Philadelphia Eagles. This game was quite a bit like Super Bowl I because the leagues had never before played a meaningful competition, so no one quite knew what to expect.
The Eagles were the dominant NFL champion two years in a row, compiling a record of 22-3-1 during that span. Stars of that team included second-year man Chuck Bednarik, who starred at center on offense and at linebacker on defense, star halfback Steve Van Buren and quarterback Tommy Thompson.
Head coach Greasy Neale could perhaps be forgiven for being overconfident. Rick Reilly in Sports Illustrated quotes Neale as saying, “This is the best team ever put together. Who is there to beat us?” That wasn’t necessarily a slam against the Browns or the AAFC, but nevertheless it made for fodder for Paul Brown’s bulletin board.
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Brown’s Cleveland team had been part of the AAFC since its formation in 1946, challenging the established NFL. In many cases the AAFC teams outdrew NFL teams attendance-wise, and tried to outbid the NFL for college talent. In 1946, more players from the College All-Star Game signed with the AAFC instead of the NFL. Consequently, many teams lost money. In order to stop the bidding war on talent, the NFL finally agreed to allow three AAFC teams to join the NFL: the Browns, Baltimore Colts (who would crash and burn after one losing season, only to be reincarnated as an expansion team in 1953), and the San Francisco 49ers.
Since the two leagues did not play each other, nobody really knew how good the AAFC was. Louis Effrat of the New York Times called it “the most repeated question in professional gridiron history: “Can the Browns beat the Eagles?”
In the Cleveland Plain Dealer, (December 20, 1948 p. 23), Harry Jones wrote “Some say that the 1948 Cleveland Browns, undefeated and untied champions of the All-America Conference, unquestionably have the greatest football team of all time. Others say that the Browns may or may not be among the all-time greats, but are certainly the best in the land today, better by far than the Philadelphia Eagles of the National League. And there are a few who say that the Browns are simply a good team in a weak league.”
You could pencil George Preston Marshall, the owner of Washington’s NFL team, in the latter category. “The worst team in our league could beat the best team in theirs.” Needless to say, such comments sparked enormous controversy.
At any rate, game one of the 1950 season pitted the NFL Champion Eagles against the Browns, who had won the AAFC Championship four years in a row. Hence, it really was a game between the two champions of the rival leagues, and for that reason sportswriters were calling it the “World Series of Pro Football.” Although most of the games were played on Sunday, this game was played on Saturday night in front of a huge crowd of 71,237 in Philadelphia.
The Browns did not simply beat the Eagles. Rick Reilly’s account, though written in 1991, mimics the style of 1950 and describes it thus:
"“The Cleveland Nobodies, four-time champions of the laughed-at All-America Football Conference, roasted, braised and fricasseed the big, bad, two-time defending NFL champion Eagles in a game that needed to be a lot closer just to get filed as a blowout. Playing in their first-ever NFL game, the Browns outscouted, outcoached, outran, outblocked, outpassed and out-and-out humiliated the Eagles from just past the national anthem until just after the last shower trickle was turned off.” – Rick Reilly, Sports Illustrated 1991"
Otto Graham passed for a mind-blowing 346 yards against the defensively-minded Eagles, while holding Tommy Thompson to 73 yards, competing only eight of his 24 passes. Graham’s heroics included three touchdown passes. The first was to halfback Dub Jones who caught the ball on the 25 and scored a touchdown without being touched. In the second quarter, Graham connected with Dante Lavelli for a 26 yard touchdown, and added a third touchdown pass to Mac Speedie for 13 yards in the third quarter. In addition, the Browns ran all over the Eagles’ vaunted defense, with halfback Dub Jones rushing six times for 72 yards, and bruising fullback Marion Motley adding 48 yards on 11 carries.
The game was even more of a blowout than the 35-10 final score would indicate. Punt returner Don Phelps returned a punt 64 yards for an apparent touchdown in the first minute of play, but it was called back due to clipping. Even worse, tackle and placekicker Lou Groza was injured on the wasted play, and the Browns were unable to kick a field goal later when they had the opportunity for a 25-yard attempt. Also, the Browns were careless with the football, with Graham throwing two picks and the normally sure handed Motley putting the ball on the turf twice, once when the Browns were driving toward the goal line, and the other time contributing to a Philly score. Had the Browns played an error-free game, the Eagles might have been totally buried.
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The NFL was changed forever. The Browns not only proved that they belonged in the NFL, but went on to win the NFL Championship in 1950, beating the hated Los Angeles Rams (formerly Cleveland Rams, of course) on a last minute field goal by Lou Groza, 30-28. That first game came as a stunning upset, but after viewing the entire season, the Browns really were better than the Eagles, as well as the rest of the NFL. If we believe Bill Parcells’ adage “you are what your record says you are,” well, the Browns were world champions that year. History would repeat itself 10 years later with the birth of the American Football League and eventually the creation of a new championship game, the Super Bowl. Once again, the stodgy NFL would refuse to take the rival league seriously until Super Bowl III when Joe Namath and the AFL Jets beat the NFL Colts 16-7, followed by an even more emphatic 23-7 thumping of the NFL Minnesota Vikings at the hands of ex-Brown and future Hall of Famer, Len Dawson and the AFL Kansas City Chiefs.