'58 Browns, and hypo they-vs-Colts NFLCG

[74_75_78_79_]

What's your historic take on this very squad?

They start off gang-busters with that 5-0 start! But then they lose at home to the G-men. And then, the next week, they get clobbered by the Lions (yet again) who now were no longer good (and wouldn't be good the following year either). The loss was also at home and so precursorly resembling that of the loss that the Cowboys (also despite now being the better team) would suffer ten years later, and also at home, to the Packers (a la Steelers beating Big D on the road in '82, Big D blowing things up at Three Rivers in '97).

Browns would win their next four and go into their finale at 9-2 vs the 8-3 G-men. Just win and you host the NFLCG! Not to be. They just missed avoiding that tie-breaker game!

If they would have avoided it (or wouldn't have avoided it, but simply played better and won the next week), it would have been they hosting that Final Game instead of Yankee Stadium doing so.

Just how far beneath the 'Greatest Game Ever Played' would that Ewbank-vs-Brown World Championship match-up have been?

Colts and Browns didn't play against each other in 1958.

[RichardBak]

Well, with the immortal Milt Plum at the helm vs. Johnny U & Co. in their prime, I figure the final score would be something like Colts 35-7.

Here's Milt's composite postseason numbers from 1957 (lost 59-14 to Detroit) and '58 (lost to NYG 10-0): 12-24, 134 yards, 4 picks, 0 TD, 27.4 QB rating.

Howzabout Jimmy Brown? Well, the Giants and Lions both did a nice job of bottling him up. Take away the 29-yd TD run against Detroit and a 20-yard burst against NYG and his composite total was 25 carries for 28 yards. (Overall it was 27 carries, 77 yards, but even with a couple 20-plus runs his YPC was still only 2.8.) But let's say No. 32 did pop one in this hypothetical game against the '58 Colts. That would just make the final score a slightly more respectable 35-14. OK, let's throw in a long TD run by rookie Bobby Mitchell. Now it's 35-21. Still a Colts win.

But then again....remember the 1964 title game between Colts and Browns. A guy could've taken Cleveland and spotted the Colts 26 points and still come home a big winner. So ya just never know, do ya?

[SixtiesFan]

A hypothetical Colts-Browns 1958 NFLCG is one I've often thought about. I think the Colts would have won, probably a close game but Unitas would give them the edge. The Browns could have won.

The next year they played in Baltimore with the Browns winning 38-31. The Browns led 31-17 at the end of the third quarter, 38-24 when the Colts scored the last TD of the game. The stats are at Pro Football Reference (Colts were favored by 7.5). Plum had a good passing day (14-23, 200 yards). Jim Brown had a big stat day (32-178, 5 TDs). JB had a 70 yard TD run and a 17 yard TD run, 3, 1, 1, the other TD runs. Mostly short gains the rest of the day, apparently.

Johnny U. was 23-41 for 397 yards, 4 TDs, 3 interceptions in the 1959 regular season game.

[RichardBak]

A hypothetical Colts-Browns 1958 NFLCG is one I've often thought about. I think the Colts would have won, probably a close game but Unitas would give them the edge. The Browns could have won.

The next year they played in Baltimore with the Browns winning 38-31. The Browns led 31-17 at the end of the third quarter, 38-24 when the Colts scored the last TD of the game. The stats are at Pro Football Reference (Colts were favored by 7.5). Plum had a good passing day (14-23, 200 yards). Jim Brown had a big stat day (32-178, 5 TDs). JB had a 70 yard TD run and a 17 yard TD run, 3, 1, 1, the other TD runs. Mostly short gains the rest of the day, apparently.

Johnny U. was 23-41 for 397 yards, 4 TDs, 3 interceptions in the 1959 regular season game.

I'd forgotten about that game---Brown's 5 TD performance. So again, you just never know....on any given Sunday (or Thursday or Monday nite, etc.)

[RichardBak]

I haven't got time to look it up, but in the real 1958 title game, the Colts had a chance to blow it wide open, 21-3, but I think they ran Ameche on a fourth down from the 1-yd line and he got smothered on what was supposed to be an option pass. Why anybody thought that was a good idea is beyond me, but that definitely shifted momentum.

[CSKreager]

The real what if: does the NFL explode in popularity The way it did if no Giants/Colts?

The impact on professional football's popularity in the years that followed because of that OT game cannot be underestimated

If Cleveland won, hosted the championship, and even lost to the Colts in the same dramatic OT manner…. would that have lifted the game to a national consciousness level as what we got with the game played in NYC?

Having the biggest media market with the Madison Avenue executives latching on to the game contribute to the mythology of what we got in real life

If the NFL title game was held in Cleveland, the sport would've still elevated to the top in time, but not nearly as fast.

If so, perhaps another NFL CG game elevates it’s popularity?