Top five 1970s Cleveland Browns games to watch while social distancing
Pittsburgh Steelers at Cleveland Browns, 1972
For one game, Mike Phipps seemed to vindicate Modell’s judgment that it was worth it to trade Warfield to draft Phipps in the first round. This is the season and the game that established the Browns/Steelers rivalry. Prior to this, the Steelers were so sorry that it was hard to hate them. They had not had a winning record since 1962, and were simply not a threat. Now, however, the young team was starting to feel their oats.
They were really a running team at this point with Franco Harris having a breakout season. Francophile Frenchy Fuqua was the fullback.
Wideout Ron Shanklin led the team with 665 yards, which was not very many. Frank Lewis was the other wide receiver, and unlike Ted Williams, did not hit 400, although five years later he would develop into a 1,000 yard receiver. The Steelers, even then, were patient with young players and allowed them to develop. Their offensive line had a Hall of Famer at center in Ray Mansfield, an excellent left tackle in Jon Kolb, and were solid at the other positions.
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Franco Harris, after a slow start to the season, was piling up huge rushing yard totals week by week. Over his first six games, he had averaged 36.8 yards per game. Since then, he had had three games in a row over 100 yards, and was averaging 7.9 yards per carry in those games.
On defense, they were starting to collect Pro Bowlers and even Hall of Famers, including Mean Joe Green, L.C. Greenwood, Andy Russell, Jack Ham, Mike Wagner and Mel Blount.
The Steelers fans were going absolutely berserk, realizing that they had a good team after a half century of total futility.
For this writer it was the first game in which I would see the Browns without either parent present, just me and a high school buddy. We got tickets from a scalper for like six bucks to the sold out game, and somehow we wedged ourselves into seats at the Dawg Pound, although back then it was just the bleacher section.
There were a lot of fans from Pittsburgh that had come down to cheer for their team, and they were annoying. Being a teenager I thought it was awesome that there were fights in the stands, so that policemen had to be sent in to break things up, and general chaos everywhere. There was one yuppie fan who wanted to lead Pittsburgh cheers in our bleacher section. I should not say this as a law-abiding citizen, but I’m grateful to the fan ten rows back that threw a little milk carton at him and hit the Pittsburgh guy in the back of his head.
We were apprehensive that the Browns might get killed by this new PIttsburgh juggernaut, but the Browns managed to take the lead with an inspired effort. But you can see why Franco Harris was such a threat, as Pittsburgh opened up a massive hole on the right side of the Browns line. I can still see Franco hitting his top gear and flying through, and the air just sort of went out of the stadium. But at the end of it, there was Mike Phipps, calm, cool and collected looking much like a Cleveland version of Tom Brady, leading a comeback as time was ticking away. You will have to see the video below to know whether they were successful or not at the end.