Top Five 1940s Cleveland Browns games to watch while social distancing
Game 2: AAFC Championship, Cleveland Browns at NY Yankees, 1947
The Yankees improved significantly from 1946 to 1947, putting together an 11-2-1 season which included a tie with the Browns in game 12 of the season. Ace Parker had retired at the age of 34.
He was replaced by diminutive fullback Buddy Young, who stood only 5-foot-4 but was amazingly fast, agile and tough. He managed to achieve over 1,000 yards from scrimmage including 712 rushing yards.
Spec Sanders moved to halfback and had a brilliant year (recall that the halfback and fullback threw the ball more often than the quarterback in the Single Wing offense). Lamar Jackson has nothing on old Spec, who gained 1,432 yards on the ground and passed for 1,442 yards through the air.
That single-wing team produced acres of real estate on the ground, an incredible 2,930 rushing yards.
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In the video link below, the audio has been lost, so it is a little tough to sit through the entire video even if you are forced to chill out due to coronavirus. However, check out 5:30, which shows Motley taking a pitch for Graham and taking it 51 yards to about the New York 13 yard line, where he is tripped up by defensive back Harmon Rowe. Thereafter after two ineffective runs, 58 Mac Speedie took a pass to the one-yard line and Graham scored on a quarterback sneak.
A second apparent touchdown is seen at about 13:30 of the video, in which 90 Edgar Jones makes a nice move to squirt into the end zone, but the Browns get called for a penalty. A sack takes them out of the red zone, and Groza is wide right on the ensuing field goal attempt.
The Browns second-half scoring drive starts at about 20:00 when Tommy Colella intercepted Sanders. Then you see Marion Motley beating up almost the entire defense running straight up the middle. Passes are completed to Jones and then 86 Lewis Mayne. After a few runs up the middle. Graham faked a handoff and spins 360 degrees to hand off to Jones, who this time got into the end zone and it counted. Special delivery!
Otherwise, the game was dominated by the defense on an icy field. The Browns outgained the Yankees on the ground, 172 yards to 123, and through the air, 112 to 89.
Louis Effrat covered the Championship game for the New York Times. Somewhat diplomatically, he reported that the Browns were the better team, but offered the partial excuse that the weather and injuries played a role. As he put it:
"“The better team won. Not even the most ardent Yankee rooter would question that. Without detracting from the Cleveland triumph, however, the bad field hurt the New Yorkers more than it did the visitors. Orban (Spec) Sanders, below par, anyway, because of the ankle injury that had plagued him for the past week, and Claude (Buddy) Young–the pair of Yankee aces–needed firmer footing than did Cleveland’s Marion Motley, Jones and Graham. With such a handicap, Sanders and Young simply were not at their best.” — Effrat, NY Times"
Such a sorrowful lament for the Yankees might bring tears to your eyes. Actually, we could get into an entire discussion on who has an advantage on a slippery field. Spec Sanders was clearly the best player on the Yankees and he was listed at 6-foot-1 and 196 pounds, which is exactly the same height and weight as Otto Graham, and only three pounds heavier than Special Delivery Jones.
Buddy Young might have had more of a case, because he was one of the shortest players in NFL history at only 5-foot-4 and 175 pounds and relied on his quickness and speed. On the other hand, when the field was icy or muddy, we have seen Greg Pruitt and Gerald McNeil fake opponents out of their jocks and put up numbers.
The Times loved to cover the business side of football and dutifully reported the attendance of 61,870 fans and the paid gate of $209,820.50. From that, we can infer that the average ticket price was $3.39. Correcting for inflation, that would be about $39 bucks in 2020 (well, as of today–hopefully we will still have an economy in upcoming weeks. Anyway, the game sounds like a bargain.