Cleveland Browns’ Otto Graham Named to NFL’s Top 100 Team
A Cleveland Browns legend from the past was honored this week as Otto Graham was named to the NFL Top 100 Team
Cleveand Browns legendary quarterback Otto Graham has been selected to the NFL Top 100 Team. Others announced on Friday were Slingin’ Sammy Baugh, Tom Brady, John Elway, Brett Favre, Peyton Manning, Dan Marino, Joe Montana, Roger Staubach, Johnny Unitas. The Top 100 Team is being selected as part of the celebration for the 100th birthday of the NFL in 2020.
The names that the committee came up with for the quarterbacks are about right, though there are one or two quarterbacks that I think should have made the list. Of course at that level, there is always room for debate, and there is always a fine line about who was really better than who and a lot depends on the criteria that are being used to describe the “Top 100.” But there can be no debate about the dominance of Otto Graham and the fabulous Cleveland Browns teams of the 1940s and 1950s.
Graham’s Browns won the All American Football Conference (AAFC) four years in a row, then made it to the NFL Championship Game six straight years and won the World Championship three of those six years. Thus, Graham played 10 years and got to the Championship game 10 years in a row. He never missed a game. In seven of those 10 years, he came away with the Championships.
Graham’s ghost is the one that Tom Brady is chasing today. Of course, Brady has the disadvantage of playing in a league with many more teams, and moreover from 1946-1949, there were two championships each season, one for the NFL and one for the AAFC. Nevertheless, Graham went to the championship every year he played, an unbelievable stat. In terms of team dominance, only Brady can lay claim to having quarterbacked teams that were remotely as dominant as Graham and the Browns.
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Actually, Graham’s first professional Championship came in basketball, rather than football. He played guard and forward for the Rochester Royals who won the 1946 championship of the National Basketball League, forerunner of the National Basketball Association. His 5.2 points per game were good enough for the fifth highest on his team.
Former head coach Paul Brown recruited Graham to play football for the Browns in the inaugural 1946 season, recognizing that he had the skill set to play quarterback, though Brown’s vision for the position was vastly different than the Single WIng formation used at Northwestern.
Brown’s team would play the more modern T formation as its base formation. Graham was given a crash course in playing quarterback at the pro level but was not the starter in Week 1. But by Week 2, Graham was running the offense with big Marion Motley as his fullback, and Mac Speedie and Dante Lavelli as the high flying split ends. The Browns, of course, won the first AAFC title game and followed by winning the AAFC championship a total of four straight years.
Franchise quarterback? Graham, guided by his innovative coach Paul Brown, put two football leagues on his back, and ushered in the modern passing era. Prior to Graham, football was more about three yards and a cloud of dust, with the riskier forward pass used only sparingly
Graham’s stats are unbelievable, especially considering the era in which they were accumulated. Perhaps the most impressive is that to this day Graham is the all-time record holder for most yards per pass attempt, with 8.63. He also has the highest career winning percentage for an NFL starting quarterback, at 81 percent.
He was a five-time Pro Bowler, four-time First-Team All-Pro, one-time Second-Team All-Pro, three-time NFL MVP, two-time NFL passing yards leader, two-time passing rating leader and also led the NFL in touchdowns once.
He was a four-time champion of the All-American Conference, two-time AAFC MVP, and three-time All-AAFC. For good measure, he was selected to the NFL’s 1950’s All-Decade Team and to the NFL 75th Anniversary Team. No one will ever wear number 14 for the Cleveland Browns again.
The NFL Hall of Fame website provides the following summary of Graham’s love of football.
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