Professional Football Researchers Association Forum

To try to set the record straight:

The Cleveland Browns lost eleven players from their 1949 roster including not only Lou Saban, but also their best guard in Ed Ulinski and another very good guard in Bob Gaudio. They also lost their best running back, outside of Marion Motley, in Edgar Jones. Jones ended up playing in Canada in 1950 and was named to an all-star team up there. They sold their starting right defensive end, John Yonakor to the 1950 Yanks to make room for Len Ford and because of the 33 player limit. Paul Brown wanted to start a trading partnership with Green Bay and gave them tackle Joe Spencer for a 4th round draft choice. Green Bay was desperate for tackles and Spencer was an immediate starter for them.

Most of the players lost in 1950 for whatever reasons were replaced by rookies (7 made the Browns in 1950). Ken Gorgal was the only starter for them and the rest were reserves in 1950. Herring and Ford were taken in the dispersal draft and most teams passed on them (most passed on Ford twice, who was taken in the second round). I doubt that they improved the Browns defense that much because Ford only played in 5 regular season games as he suffered a broken jaw and was lost for the season in Cleveland's 5th game. Lou Saban was the best outside linebacker in the AAFC and maybe all of football in the late 40's. Rex Bumgardner only started for a year in 1950. In 1951, 1950 rookie Ken Carpenter became the starting left halfback for the Browns.

Also, despite a great 1950, Motleys 1946 - 1949 was far superior to his 1950 - 1953. Same could be said for Bill Willis. Ford was an upgrade on Yonakor in the sense that he would have been an upgrade on anyone in the league but AAFC John Yonakor was amongst the best DE's around.

NWebster wrote:It's hard to think about this and ignore what the Browns did to the Eagles in 1950.

1950 was an inflection point for the Eagles. An injured 30 year old Van Buren didn't play the first game against the Browns and would never regain the form he had in the '40s. Thompson had an off year in '50 then retired. The players were disgruntled about not getting raises after 2 championships, neither of which resulted in the expected winners' share due to weather. Neale clashed with the owner and wound up getting fired.

Here's a thread:

https://www.profootballresearchers.org/ ... 2ae1c0637c.

I know the Giants improved because they were able to somewhat unfairly add some key AAFC players, but it doesn't tell the whole story. Lindskog, Sears, Wistert, Woji, other key players had their best years behind them by '50. A young Bednarik couldn't replace all of them. Giants probably win the east in '50 either way.

The Eagles absolutely win the conference in 1950 if there’s no merger and there’s a mountain of evidence that indicates it wouldn’t have been close. The seven AAFC players the Giants added – all of whom became starters -- made a massive difference and were overwhelmingly the primary reason they improved from their mediocre season in 1949 to 10-2 in 1950. Without them, New York probably goes 6-6 again, maybe 7-5.

Despite van Buren’s injuries, the Eagles had an outstanding running game in 1950 as they missed leading the league in rushing by a mere eight yards. The difference between how they did on the ground in their four games between the AAFC newcomer Cleveland and the drastically improved Giants is huge: 127 yards per game, 2.7 yards per attempt and one touchdown in four games against New York and Cleveland, compared to 227 yards per game, 4.6 YPA and 12 touchdowns in their eight other games.

Even with New York’s massive infusion of AAFC players, the Eagles hung very tough in both games against the Giants, losing by scores of 7-3 and 9-7. The dramatically stronger New York D was clearly the main reason.

On defense, the Eagles were outstanding again in 1950 and not so far off their great 1949 year. They led the league in fewest points allowed and several other key defensive categories such as a microscopically low passer rating against of 29.6. After their blowout loss on opening night, they allowed an equally microscopic 9.6 points per game for the rest of the season.

The impact of the merger on Philadelphia's schedule is also huge. If there’s no merger, they play two games against the pathetic New York Bulldogs, who were 1-10-1 in 1949, instead of two against the Browns (they lost both games to Cleveland). I don’t think it’s much of a stretch to say they win both those games against the Bulldogs. I also think it’s very likely they win two and certainly at least one game against the Giants if New York doesn't have Weinmeister, Schnellbacher, Rowe, Landry, Mastrangelo, Rapacz and Woodard. All of those players immediately became starters when they joined the Giants and four got some all-pro honors in 1950. That puts the Eagles comfortably ahead of the Giants in the standings.

I’ve been doing research for some Coffin Corner articles about the 1950 season and there’s a lot more along the same line I’ll be happy to add.

Saban wrote:To try to set the record straight:

The Cleveland Browns lost eleven players from their 1949 roster including not only Lou Saban, but also their best guard in Ed Ulinski and another very good guard in Bob Gaudio. They also lost their best running back, outside of Marion Motley, in Edgar Jones. Jones ended up playing in Canada in 1950 and was named to an all-star team up there. They sold their starting right defensive end, John Yonakor to the 1950 Yanks to make room for Len Ford and because of the 33 player limit. Paul Brown wanted to start a trading partnership with Green Bay and gave them tackle Joe Spencer for a 4th round draft choice. Green Bay was desperate for tackles and Spencer was an immediate starter for them.

Most of the players lost in 1950 for whatever reasons were replaced by rookies (7 made the Browns in 1950). Ken Gorgal was the only starter for them and the rest were reserves in 1950. Herring and Ford were taken in the dispersal draft and most teams passed on them (most passed on Ford twice, who was taken in the second round). I doubt that they improved the Browns defense that much because Ford only played in 5 regular season games as he suffered a broken jaw and was lost for the season in Cleveland's 5th game. Lou Saban was the best outside linebacker in the AAFC and maybe all of football in the late 40's. Rex Bumgardner only started for a year in 1950. In 1951, 1950 rookie Ken Carpenter became the starting left halfback for the Browns.

I'm not an expert on that era, but only 4 Brown starters were new to the team, Herring, Gorgal, Bumgardner, and Ford/Jim Martin. Most of the rookies and other new players were backups, and they also had enough coming in to deal off Yonaker and Spencer as you mentioned, but also Bill Boedeker.

By way of comparison the Rams had six different starters from 1949. Like the Browns, they had a couple of draftees (West and Stephenson) and a couple of AAFC guys (Statuto and Vasicek.) The other two were Glenn Davis, who they'd made a series of moves to get, and Bob Reinhard, who they traded three players to get. Paul Brown and company possibly could have swung similar deals had they been so inclined.

Unmentioned in 1950 inflection points is future Brown nemesis the Detroit Lions, who acquired many of their top players before this season. In the short term the Lions would need to be content with a modest improvement from 4-8 to 6-6 and also ran status.

I don't think that Paul Brown could have swung deals with the NFL teams from 1949 because those teams were not about to help either Cleveland or the 49ers out with trades in 1950. That is why the Browns and 49ers had to replace the retired players with either rookies or former AAFC players that they could get (the 49ers had to replace almost half their team with rookies and did not get any former AAFC players in the 1950 dispersal draft).

The Browns did send Yonakor to the 1950 Yanks, who were kind of like an AAFC team with mostly players from the 1949 AAFC Yankees and 1949 Yankees head coach Red Strader and only about 3 players from the 1949 Bulldogs. The trade of Spencer helped the Packers in 1950, but Cleveland did not get any players that helped them that year. Cleveland did get E/PK Gordie Soltau from Green Bay but the Browns were set with Lavelli and Speedie as their ends and had a pretty good place kicker in Groza, so they sent Soltau to the 49ers for a future draft choice. Brown wanted to get a trade partner in the NFL and Green Bay needed tackles. They made many trades for years and the trades helped both teams.

Andy Piascik wrote:The Eagles absolutely win the conference in 1950 if there’s no merger and there’s a mountain of evidence that indicates it wouldn’t have been close.

This is your opinion. I'll concede that you are an expert on the era, but no one could know this. Whether its 1920, 1950, 2020 - no one really knows before the season starts what's going to happen.

Andy Piascik wrote: The seven AAFC players the Giants added – all of whom became starters -- made a massive difference and were overwhelmingly the primary reason they improved from their mediocre season in 1949 to 10-2 in 1950. Without them, New York probably goes 6-6 again, maybe 7-5.

You would know better than me, but was it really 7 or more like 5? Mastrangelo and Woodard don’t appear to be difference makers to me.

I think a big reason for the Giants improvement was Eddie Price. They didn't have a back who could win a rushing title in '49.

Andy Piascik wrote: Despite van Buren’s injuries, the Eagles had an outstanding running game in 1950 as they missed leading the league in rushing by a mere eight yards.

I don't think cumulative yardage is the best measure of success. Sometimes if you have a lead on a team, you are happy to let them run the clock out on themselves. Empty yards.

Van Buren contributed 629 yards to that total, but he did so at a 3.3 yards per carry clip. That's not good. To me that's a team hoping their old star has some gas left in the tank, but he didn't.

Andy Piascik wrote:The difference between how they did on the ground in their four games between the AAFC newcomer Cleveland and the drastically improved Giants is huge: 127 yards per game, 2.7 yards per attempt and one touchdown in four games against New York and Cleveland, compared to 227 yards per game, 4.6 YPA and 12 touchdowns in their eight other games.

This makes perfect sense to me. Van Buren in his prime came up big in big games. If that wasn't the case, he wouldn't be one of the all-time greats. I've read every interview I could find on this and he wasn't the same in 1950. He got himself out onto the field and gutted it out largely by taking pain injections. Frank Ziegler wasn't a great back - he wasn't just going to replace Van Buren against the better teams.

Let's look at Van Buren chronologically in the 4 games you mention:

Game 1 v. Browns: DNP
Game 1 v. Giants: 22-47
Game 2 v. Browns: 10 - (-2)
Game 2 v. Giants: 20-41

He did his best, but there just wasn't a magic injection that they could give him to turn back time.

Andy Piascik wrote:Even with New York’s massive infusion of AAFC players, the Eagles hung very tough in both games against the Giants, losing by scores of 7-3 and 9-7. The dramatically stronger New York D was clearly the main reason.

In the final battle scene of the movie "Gladiator", the Gladiator was stabbed before he got to fight the emperor, but still hung tough, although he was killed in the battle. Was it because the emperor had trained and was greatly improved or did the stabbing have something to do with it? (The analogy being playing against the 1950 version of Van Buren and Thompson was like stabbing the Gladiator before the fight and still not winning convincingly.)

Andy Piascik wrote:On defense, the Eagles were outstanding again in 1950 and not so far off their great 1949 year. They led the league in fewest points allowed and several other key defensive categories such as a microscopically low passer rating against of 29.6. After their blowout loss on opening night, they allowed an equally microscopic 9.6 points per game for the rest of the season.

Outstanding except for one area. The object of the game is to hold your opponent to less points than you score and they failed half the time in this area.

Andy Piascik wrote:The impact of the merger on Philadelphia's schedule is also huge. If there’s no merger, they play two games against the pathetic New York Bulldogs, who were 1-10-1 in 1949, instead of two against the Browns (they lost both games to Cleveland). I don’t think it’s much of a stretch to say they win both those games against the Bulldogs. I also think it’s very likely they win two and certainly at least one game against the Giants if New York doesn't have Weinmeister, Schnellbacher, Rowe, Landry, Mastrangelo, Rapacz and Woodard. All of those players immediately became starters when they joined the Giants and four got some all-pro honors in 1950. That puts the Eagles comfortably ahead of the Giants in the standings.

I don't think the '50 Eagles were a championship team in any scenario. You can't just overlook losses to the Steelers and Cardinals in 2 of the 8 games not against the Giants and Browns. If they go 9-3 and that 9-3 turns out to be better than the Giants record, a big if, I think they lose to the Rams in the championship. Also, its pretty rare to have to argue that a 6-6 team ('50 Eagles) was actually better than a team that went 10-2 ('50 Giants) in real life. That's just a huge swing.

P.S. I've enjoyed your recent CC articles on the '50s and noticed you didn't reply to my pm, so I'm glad you are back.