The 1950 Cleveland Browns season was the team's first in the National Football League (NFL) after playing the previous four years in the All-America Football Conference (AAFC), which folded after the 1949 season. The Browns finished the regular season with a 10–2 win–loss record and beat the Los Angeles Rams to win their first NFL championship in franchise history in their first NFL season. It was Cleveland's fifth consecutive championship victory, the previous four having come in the AAFC.
Cleveland added 12 new players to its roster before the season began, several of whom came from other AAFC teams that had dissolved as part of a selective merger of the Browns, the Baltimore Colts and the San Francisco 49ers into the NFL in 1949. They included guard Abe Gibron, who went on to a 10-year football career, and Len Ford, a defensive end who had a Hall of Fame career with the Browns. The team's top draft choice was halfback Ken Carpenter.
After winning all five of their preseason games, the Browns faced the two-time defending champion Philadelphia Eagles in their first regular-season game. Many sportswriters and owners considered the Browns inferior despite their success in the AAFC, calling them the dominant team in a minor league, but Cleveland defeated Philadelphia 35–10, the first of 10 victories on the season. Cleveland's only two losses came against the New York Giants, with whom the team shared a 10–2 record at the end of the regular season. Philadelphia only finished 6-6 in 1950. They were obviously not the same team that won back to back titles in 1948 and 1949.
The tie forced a playoff to determine whether the Browns or Giants would win the American Conference and play in the championship game. Cleveland won the playoff 8–3 in freezing weather at Cleveland Stadium. A week later, on Christmas Eve, the Browns faced the Rams at home in the championship. Cleveland fell behind 28–20 in the fourth quarter against the Rams' potent offense, but quarterback Otto Graham engineered a comeback with a touchdown pass to Rex Bumgardner and a long drive that set up a winning field goal by Lou Groza with 28 seconds left to play. It was the first of six straight NFL championship appearances for the Browns. Cleveland fullback Marion Motley led the NFL in rushing, and seven Browns were selected to play in the first-ever Pro Bowl, the league's all-star game.
The 1950 Browns ranked #25 on the 100 greatest teams of all time presented by the NFL on its 100th anniversary. They were the highest ranked team from a season before the 1960s.
Joining the NFL
The Cleveland Browns were founded and started play in 1946 in the All-America Football Conference (AAFC), a league formed to compete with the more established National Football League (NFL). The team was a success both financially and on the field under head coach Paul Brown, drawing large crowds and winning all four of the AAFC's championships between 1946 and 1949. In a bid to end a competition for talent that raised player salaries and ate into owners' profits at a time when attendance in many large markets was declining, the NFL and AAFC agreed to a peace deal at the end of the 1949 season. Under the deal, four of the AAFC's seven teams were to go out of business, while three of them – the Browns, Baltimore Colts and San Francisco 49ers – would play in the NFL starting in 1950.
Cleveland had been the AAFC's most successful team, but some NFL owners and sportswriters considered the Browns an inferior competitor – the top team in a lesser league. George Preston Marshall, the owner of the Washington Redskins, said the NFL's weakest team "could toy with the Browns". The AAFC had proposed an inter-league matchup between the AAFC and NFL champions in each year of its existence, but the NFL owners rebuffed those approaches each time. The Browns' entry into the NFL thus became the first time the team would be tested against NFL competition. NFL commissioner Bert Bell scheduled the team's first game against the Philadelphia Eagles, the two-time defending NFL champions. The Browns and Eagles were to play in Philadelphia on a Saturday, one day before the other NFL teams began their seasons, further spotlighting the matchup.
Offseason and roster moves
The dissolution of the AAFC left 13 professional football teams in the U.S., a significant reduction from the 17 in existence the year before. That resulted in a large pool of players without teams. As part of the AAFC and NFL owners' peace deal, the Browns and the AAFC's Buffalo Bills reached an agreement under which the Browns would get the rights to guard Abe Gibron, defensive tackle John Kissell and halfback Rex Bumgardner. In exchange, Bills owner James Breuil got an ownership stake in the Browns. Similar deals were made between former AAFC owners and NFL teams in Los Angeles and New York City. The players left over after those deals were entered into a special draft from which the Browns selected defensive end Len Ford from the Los Angeles Dons and linebacker Hal Herring from the Bills. Gibron went on to a 10-year pro career, Kissell was a starter for the Browns for six seasons, and Herring played for three years. Ford, a tall and hard-hitting pass-rusher, became one of the top defensive ends of his era. He was inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 1976.
Cleveland added several more players to its roster in the 1950 NFL draft, selecting halfback Ken Carpenter in the first round and tackle John Sandusky and guard Jim Martin in the second. Later selections included fullback Emerson Cole, halfback Don Phelps and defensive back Dom Moselle. Those additions aimed to replenish a backfield depleted by the departure of Edgar Jones, Bill Boedeker, Les Horvath and Ara Parseghian. Ken Gorgal, a lanky safety from Purdue, was another draft pick who earned a starting role in his rookie year, supplanting long-time starter Cliff Lewis.
The Browns also tried to acquire Doak Walker, a Southern Methodist University back who had won the Heisman Trophy the previous year. Cleveland had chosen Walker in the 1949 AAFC draft, while the Detroit Lions had secured his NFL rights in a trade with the New York Bulldogs. Both teams claimed him after the Browns entered the NFL, leading to a dispute that was settled by giving Walker to Detroit and awarding Cleveland an extra second-round draft pick. Cleveland used the pick to select Sandusky, while Walker went on to have a hall-of-fame career with the Lions.
The 1950 season was one of major change for the Browns, with seven rookies on the roster and 12 new players overall. They joined an offense that featured quarterback Otto Graham, fullback Marion Motley and ends Mac Speedie and Dante Lavelli and a defense that featured linebacker Bill Willis and defensive back Warren Lahr. Two of the new players – Ford and Cole – were African-Americans, joining Willis, Motley and Horace Gillom to bring the number of black players on the team to five. With the additions, the Browns employed about a third of all the black players in the NFL at the time.
NFL draft selections
Roster and coaching staff 1950 Cleveland Browns rosterQuarterbacks
Running backs
CB OLB
CB
Receivers P/DE
Offensive linemen C G T/K G G/MLB T
Defensive linemen DE DT/K DT DE DT/T DT MG DE Linebackers OLB/FB MLB/MG OLB MLB/C
Defensive backs S CB CB S/QB
Head Coach Paul Brown
Assistants Blanton Collier (Backfield) Weeb Ewbank (Tackles) Fritz Heisler (Guards) Tim Temerario (Ends)
rookies in italics
Preseason
Cleveland held its training camp in Bowling Green, Ohio, as it had each year since its first season in 1946. The team played five exhibition games, against the Green Bay Packers, Baltimore Colts, Detroit Lions, Chicago Bears and Pittsburgh Steelers.
Schedule
Week Date Opponent Result Record Game site Attendance GameRecap 1 Green Bay Packers W 38–7 1–0 Glass Bowl 10,000 (est.)Recap 2 Baltimore Colts W 34–7 2–0 Nippert Stadium 22,500 (est.)Recap 3 Detroit Lions W 35–14 3–0 Rubber Bowl 23,670Recap 4 Chicago Bears W 27–23 4–0 Cleveland Stadium 51,076Recap 5 Pittsburgh Steelers W 41–31 5–0 War Memorial Stadium 15,259Recap
Game summaries
Week 1: vs. Green Bay Packers
Source: Plain Dealer
The Browns beat the Green Bay Packers 38–7 in their first preseason game, played before a crowd of about 10,000 at the Toledo, Ohio Glass Bowl. The Packers got out to an early 7–0 lead on their first drive, a 73-yard advance capped by a touchdown pass to Ted Cook. Cleveland responded with a touchdown from quarterback Otto Graham to end Dante Lavelli on the ensuing drive, tying the score. Cleveland's Alex Agase blocked a punt later in the quarter that set up a Lou Groza field goal on the first play of the second quarter. Lavelli caught another touchdown pass from Graham to give the Browns a 24–7 halftime lead. While Brown rested Graham for most of the second half of the game, the Browns built on their lead with an 87-yard rushing touchdown by rookie Don Phelps and another score by Rex Bumgardner. Phelps suffered a head injury in the game and did not remember making the run, the longest rush from scrimmage in team history to that point. He got X-rays after the game and spent two nights in the hospital after being diagnosed with a mild concussion. Brown was pleased with the team's performance after just three weeks of training camp, saying Phelps "looked a knife cutting across the field".
Week 2: vs. Baltimore Colts
Source: Plain Dealer
Cleveland beat the Baltimore Colts, a rival from the old AAFC, in its second preseason game. Scoring in the game, played in Cincinnati, began with an 18-yard passing touchdown from Graham to halfback Dub Jones in the first quarter. Baltimore's Billy Stone received the ensuing kickoff and ran it back 100 yards for a touchdown to tie the game at 7–7. Graham then led the team on a 75-yard drive composed mostly of passes to Lavelli that ended with a one-yard touchdown by Graham on a quarterback sneak. A short field goal by Groza gave the Browns a 17–7 lead at halftime. The Browns widened the lead with another Groza field goal in the third period and a touchdown set up by a 63-yard punt return by Ken Carpenter at the beginning of the fourth. Holding a 20-point lead, Brown rested his starters and sent in a squad composed entirely of rookies. The rookies managed another touchdown on a two-yard rush by Tom O'Malley that was set up by a Carpenter interception, giving Cleveland the 34–7 win. Cleveland's defense played well, allowing 42 net rushing yards and 86 passing yards.
Week 3: vs. Detroit Lions
Source: Plain Dealer
Cleveland won its third preseason game in a row over the Detroit Lions at the Rubber Bowl in Akron, Ohio. Graham threw a touchdown pass to Jones on the team's second offensive play after receiving the opening kickoff, the first of three touchdowns in the first quarter. The second score came on a one-yard rush by Graham set up by several passes to Jones on the team's second possession. The third was an eight-yard run by Rex Bumgardner at the end of the quarter. Neither team scored in the second quarter, although Cleveland had two touchdowns called back because of penalties. A 41-yard rushing touchdown by Motley extended Cleveland's lead to 28–0 in the third quarter, and Brown rested his starters. With Cleveland's best players out of the game, Detroit scored two touchdowns in the fourth quarter on a pair of two-yard rushes by Dan Sandifer and John Panelli. Brown put his starters back in the game following Detroit's second touchdown, and a Graham pass to Bumgardner sealed the 35–14 win.
Week 4: vs. Chicago Bears
Source: Plain Dealer