Professional Football Researchers Association Forum

I think that I have mentioned before here that I think that the 1967 Cleveland Browns was their worst team of that decade, despite the fact that they did make the playoffs. They struggled with some weak teams and looked terrible losing badly to good teams like Green Bay, Dallas, and even Detroit. Anyway. here is my top 10 list on things that went wrong with the Cleveland Browns in 1967.

(1) Tight end Milt Morin was lost for almost the entire season. Milt was a big, strong guy (6'4", 240 lbs.) who could block well, catch passes, and was very difficult to bring down after catching passes. Ralph "Catfish" Smith did a capable job starting at tight end for most of the season, but Morin was one of the best tight ends in the league.

(2) Flanker/punter Gary Collins - was still a problem for defensive backs around the league that had to cover him on pass plays, but his punting had slipped compared to earlier years. Gary had been one of the best punters in the league in previous years, but his average fell off in 1967. He also had punts blocked for the first time in the NFL and one blocked in the first Giants game gave the Giants and easy TD and might have cost Cleveland the game as they lost, 38 to 34. Don Cockroft took over the punting chores in 1968.

(3) Middle linebacker Vince Costello was traded to the Giants in preseason and played well for them that year even though he was 35 years of age. I think that Costello was missed by the Browns as MLB became a problem area for Cleveland in 1967 and maybe beyond. Costello was one of the keys in the Giants 38 to 34 upset over the Browns previously mentioned.

(4) Lou Groza - His field goal kicking wasn't so bad that year, but he did not get the power in his kickoffs at 43 years of age that he did in previous years. His shorter kickoffs may have been part of the reason for Travis Williams 2 touchdown run backs in the Green Bay game, lost by Cleveland 55 to 7. Groza retired after the 1967 season.

(5) Walter Roberts - was taken in the expansion draft by the New Orleans Saints and was missed. Roberts was a good return man on punts and kickoffs and a good pass catching end who could spell Paul Warfield at left split end and did for almost the entire season in 1965.

(6) Carl Ward - had plenty of potential and was very fast. As a rookie in 1967, Ward happened to fumble at a couple of the worst times that year. One was on a kickoff against the Giants that led to an easy 6 points for New York. Between that and Collins blocked punt, a shanked Giants punt that hit a Browns players leg as he ran down the field in punt coverage, Costello's heroics, and some other things, there was a lot of blame to go around in the 4 point loss to the Giants. Ward also fumbled a kickoff against Green Bay that led to a TD for the pack in their 55 to 7 rout of the Browns. Ward made up for some of this with a kickoff return for a TD against the Redskins where Cleveland won by 4 points.

(7) The Holdouts - Five Cleveland players: Leroy Kelly, John Wooten, Mike Howell, John Brown, and Sidney Williams had a joint holdout in the 1967 preseason. They threatened to quit if any of the players were traded. Well, two of the players, John Brown and Sidney Williams were traded, and the other three reported to the Browns training camp. A nice way to start the season. Anyway, the holdout and the way it was handled probably went over like a pregnant high jumper with some of the players on the team.

(8) John Morrow - Long time center Morrow was taken in the expansion draft by New Orleans and I believe was missed by Cleveland. Morrow was a very good player and although second year center Fred Hoaglin did fairly well as the new center, I doubt if he was quite as good as Morrow was at that time in his career.

(9) Jim Ninowski - Traded to Washington for quarterback Dick Shiner in preseason. Ninowski was one of the better backup quarterbacks in the league and I think was missed in 1967. Nino probably would have got more playing time than usual that year and may have even been able to take over the starting quarterback job that year as starter Frank Ryan had an off year.

(10) Frank Ryan - Battered and bruised in 1967, Frank Ryan was just not the same player as he was even the year before. In earlier times, Ryan had many times run for first downs when his receivers were covered. He also was sacked more due to his lost mobility. His passing suffered as his stats show. I think that the team lost some confidence in him by season's end. Ryan had a terrible game in Cleveland's 55 to 7 slaughter at the hands of the Packers.

All through 1967, I kept asking, "What is wrong with the Cleveland Browns this year?" Well, here are at least some of the reasons, IMO. In 1967, they got slaughtered in the first round of the playoffs 52 to 14 by Dallas and also lost 30 to 6 in the Playoff Bowl to the Rams, for whatever that was worth.

Actually, Cleveland beat Washington 42 to 37 that year, so 5 points rather than 4. Ward's long kickoff return for a TD was really welcome by the Browns.

What bugged me a little at the time, as a Browns fan, is that most football fans seemed to think of the 60's Browns more in terms of the 1967 team rather than their other better teams during that time. Cleveland had very good teams in 1964, 1966, 1968, and 1969. Thinking of those Browns teams as 1967 being the norm is kind of like thinking of Lombardi's Packers as 1964 being the norm. Actually, outside of Green Bay, Cleveland won as much as any other NFL team during the 1960's.

Frank Ryan, acquired in a trade in 1962, was really a great thing for the Cleveland Browns right up through 1966. In 1967, Frank had injuries and maybe other things that prevented him from playing at his best, and I think that the team lost confidence in him that year. Ryan attempted passes less than 100 times in 1967 than he did in 1966, yet threw more interceptions. Here is a comparison of Franks stats for the two seasons:

Passed 382 times in 1966 compared to 280 times in 1967.
Completed 200 passes in 1966 compared to 136 times in 1967.
Threw 14 interceptions in 1966 compared to 16 in 1967.
Completed 52.4 per cent of his passes in 1966 compared to 48.6 per cent in 1967.
Averaged 7.8 yards per pass attempt in 1966 compared 7.2 per attempt.

Ryan also ran the ball much better in 1966 than in 1967. He ran for many more yards in 1966 and was sacked less. Frank averaged over 5 yards per carry in 1966 compared to over 2 yards per rush in 1967. Frank was really an offensive weapon prior to 1967. Not so that year.

So, 1967 was an anomaly for the Cleveland Browns, not the norm.

Cleveland quarterbacks (mostly Frank Ryan) were sacked 44 times in 1967, which was easily the highest number ever up to that point for the Browns. In 1966, there was 29 sacks and in 1968 there was only 20 quarterback sacks, 11 in the first 3 games when Ryan was still the starting quarterback. In the fourth game in 1968, Bill Nelson took over as the starting quarterback, and this seemed to give the Cleveland Browns a new lease. The Browns then won 9 of their next 10 games including 8 in a row. They also upset the Dallas Cowboys in the 1968 playoff game after losing to them 52 to 14 in the 1967 playoffs.

Frank Ryan just did not have his usual mobility in 1967 due to leg and other injuries that year. Not to knock Ryan, who led the Cleveland Browns to the NFL Championship in 1964 and had some great years for the Browns in healthier years. Frank went on to prove an unproven mathematics theorem and some other things and apparently lived pretty well and probably still does.

As a Cowboy fan, I never thought of the 60s Browns in terms of the 1967 team. I thought of their NFL title in 1964 and their two wins over the Cowboys in the 1968 and 1969 Eastern Conference Championship Games.

The Cowboys came of age in the mid-60s, but it was their fate to have to deal with the Packers at the height of their dominance, and later with the Browns, at the end of the NFC dominance (they transferred to the AFC the next year).

fgoodwin wrote:As a Cowboy fan, I never thought of the 60s Browns in terms of the 1967 team. I thought of their NFL title in 1964 and their two wins over the Cowboys in the 1968 and 1969 Eastern Conference Championship Games.

The Cowboys came of age in the mid-60s, but it was their fate to have to deal with the Packers at the height of their dominance, and later with the Browns, at the end of the NFC dominance (they transferred to the AFC the next year).

I believe you, but many seemed to think that 1967 was the norm.

My own brother was a big Cowboys fan, and a remark he made after the 1967 playoff rout of Cleveland was, "The Dallas Cowboys are going for the Super Bowl. They are not going to let a little team like Cleveland get in their way."

That didn't bother me that much because Cleveland had been disappointing me all year. They just did not seem to have it in 1967 for some reason (or some of the reasons mentioned above).

I will say this about the 1967 Cleveland Browns: They did not play too badly at home. The Browns lost only one game at home in 1967 and that was a 21 to 14 loss to the Dallas Cowboys in the opener. That was the only home loss to Dallas during the 1960's in 9 Cleveland home games against the Cowboys. The Browns lost four games to the Cowboys in Dallas during the 60's counting playoff games.

Cleveland had some terrible games on the road in 1967, which may indicate that the Browns were maybe not in the best physical condition that year. Their two worst losses, 55 to 7 to Green Bay and 52 to 14 to Dallas in the playoffs were both on the tail end of three game road trips.

Cleveland played well the week before their Green Bay fiasco beating Pittsburgh 34 to 14. Maybe they wanted to show off to the Pack how good they were knowing that Green Bay players would be looking at the game films (Jerry Kramer remarked in his book "Instant Replay" that the Browns do look good when viewing the Browns game films). If that was a ploy by the Browns, it didn't work.

Cleveland was coming off a loss to the Giants when they played Pittsburgh, and Green Bay was coming off a loss to Baltimore when they played Cleveland.

Another thing, the NFL did Cleveland a big favor in 1967 by dividing the Eastern Conference into two divisions, putting Cleveland in one division (the Century Division) and the Dallas Cowboys in the other (Capitol Division). If not for this, then the Browns would have likely finished second to Dallas in the East.

I think that Cleveland now felt that all they had to do is get a split with the Cardinals to win their division and get into the playoffs. I am sure that they were not worried about the Giants, 1-12-1 in 1966, even though the Giants had a new quarterback named Tarkenton. Also, the Cards had to go with a new second year quarterback in Jim Hart, as Charley Johnson was drafted into the army.

So, Cleveland appeared to have it made in 1967, at least as far as their division went, which may have helped keep them from working quite as hard in training camp. They did lose their first five preseason games, which may not have meant much. They did lose their home opener against the Cowboys, which was their first home loss ever to Dallas, and their only home loss in nine games to the Cowboys during the 1960's.

They then lost their second game to Detroit, 31 to 14, after leading 14 to 3 early in the game. As it turns out, during the late 1960's Cleveland often suffered letdowns the week after their games with Dallas, so maybe that could partially explain that. Maybe they missed their middle linebacker, Vince Costello, who had been dealt to the rival Giants, as Detroit kept running for first down after first down and the Browns could not seem to stop them.

Speaking of Costello, he was a big factor in Cleveland's next upset loss to the Giants, intercepting a pass that led to the Giants first TD and knocking both Leroy Kelly and Ernie Green out of the game. Not a good idea to trade a good player to a division rival, but Art never would pass up an opportunity to help out his favorite team with a trade.

Then, of course, there was the 55 to 7 fiasco against the Pack, and the 52 to 14 slaughter at the hands of the Dallas Cowboys in the eastern playoff game, which made 1967 the only year that Dallas beat Cleveland twice during the 1960's.

The 1967 Browns are good measure of both how good the original franchise was (In that a 9-5 record, and a playoff appearance is deemed a bad or struggling team with a lot of flaws compared to the other editions right around that same time) and how pathetic that the "New Browns" are (only 2 winning seasons, only 1 playoff appearance and NO season with a winning percentage as high as 9-5 produces, which is .643 when rounded. [10-6 is .625] )

I will always wish they had "retired" the original Browns name and colors (like they did for the Oilers) and treated the new team as exactly what it really was, a brand new team and an expansion team. It's horrendous to me that this terrible organization has been allowed to drag the proud name and reputation of the original Browns through the mud with it's ineptitude.

MarbleEye wrote:The 1967 Browns are good measure of both how good the original franchise was (In that a 9-5 record, and a playoff appearance is deemed a bad or struggling team with a lot of flaws compared to the other editions right around that same time) and how pathetic that the "New Browns" are (only 2 winning seasons, only 1 playoff appearance and NO season with a winning percentage as high as 9-5 produces, which is .643 when rounded. [10-6 is .625] )

I will always wish they had "retired" the original Browns name and colors (like they did for the Oilers) and treated the new team as exactly what it really was, a brand new team and an expansion team. It's horrendous to me that this terrible organization has been allowed to drag the proud name and reputation of the original Browns through the mud with it's ineptitude.

Good points. The present day Browns are just another bad expansion team.

The 1967 team was part of a dynasty of sorts (a 60's dynasty, or a Blanton Collier dynasty, or part of an overall Cleveland Browns dynasty that started in 1946, depending on how you want to see it). Yes, 9 and 5 is not too bad of a record, but the Browns were in an easy division that year and only played 3 teams that had winning records out of 14 games. They got slaughtered twice by two of those winning teams, Green Bay and Dallas, and the 55 to 7 loss to the Pack was their worst in history. They also lost 30 to 6 to the Rams in the playoff bowl, if anyone wants to count that for anything. Detroit was a loser in 1967, but they scored 28 unanswered points on the Browns after Cleveland was leading 14 to 3, seemingly running for first downs at will against the Browns defense.

Cleveland still had a lot of talent in 1967 with guys like Leroy Kelly, Paul Warfield, Gene Hickerson, Dick Schafrath, John Wooten, Gary Collins, Erich Barnes, Jim Houston, Ernie Green, Bill Glass, Paul Wiggin, etc. Too much to be having the kind of things happen to them that did that year. They also had a great coaching staff.

MarbleEye wrote:The 1967 Browns are good measure of both how good the original franchise was (In that a 9-5 record, and a playoff appearance is deemed a bad or struggling team with a lot of flaws compared to the other editions right around that same time) and how pathetic that the "New Browns" are (only 2 winning seasons, only 1 playoff appearance and NO season with a winning percentage as high as 9-5 produces, which is .643 when rounded. [10-6 is .625] )

I will always wish they had "retired" the original Browns name and colors (like they did for the Oilers) and treated the new team as exactly what it really was, a brand new team and an expansion team. It's horrendous to me that this terrible organization has been allowed to drag the proud name and reputation of the original Browns through the mud with it's ineptitude.

I'm in total agreement. Pretending that the Ravens were an expansion franchise and the new hapless Browns were a continuation of a very proud franchise was and is simultaneously farcical and sad.