Cronin's Corner: 1950 Eastern Division championship game

by george cronin on Mar 8, 2008 7:03 AM EST

[EDITOR'S NOTE: George Cronin is one of the senior members of Big Blue View Nation. He will be sharing memories of yesteryear on Saturdays throughout the offseason.]

The Cleveland Browns of the All American Football Conference won the conference championship every year of the league's existence ('46-49.) Their overall record during the life of the league was 47-4-3. In 1948, they went 15-0. Many consider that team the best football team of all time.

In 1950, the AAFL and NFL merged. The NFL absorbed the 49ers, Colts and Browns. The best players from the other AAFL teams were distributed to NFL teams. The Giants got two Hall of Famers, Arnie Weinmeister and Tom Landry.

No AAFL stats were kept, so it's difficult for those who didn't see them play to get a full appreciation for Hall of Famers on the Browns 1950 squad like QB Otto Graham, FB Marion Motley and WR Dante Lavelli.

In addition to these players, the team included three other Hall of Famers, center Frank Gatski, G Bill Willis and Lou Groza, kicker and offensive tackle. (He didn't kick soccer style, but his kickoffs invariably wound up behind the other squad's goal line.)

I don't believe any other team has placed six guys who played in the same years in the HOF. Graham, Motley and Groza also made the 2000 Sporting News list of the 100 Greatest Football Players of All Time.

In their first year in the NFL, the Browns played the Giants three times.

The Giants won their first game vs. the Browns, 17-3 and shut them out in the second, 6-0. Both battles featured the kind of brutal defensive struggles that came to categorize contests between the teams.

The Giants roster, not quite as star-studded as Cleveland's, included two Hall of Famers, Emlen Tunnel and Arnie Weinmeister, an All-Pro DB, Otto Ole Schnellbacher (who also played pro basketball), two good RBs in Choo-Choo Roberts (who held the Giants single game running record until Blabber beat it in '05), and Eddie Price. The legendary Charlie Conerly QB'ed and made All-Pro that year (as did Roberts.)

Although they mastered the Browns during the year, the Giants lost to the Chicago Cardinals featuring Hall of Fame RB Charley Trippi and to Pittsburgh, whose lineup included HOF T Ernie Stautner. The season ended with the Giants and Browns tied for first at the top of the Eastern Conference with identical 10-2 records, necessitating a playoff to decide which team would represent the East in the NFL championship game.

Having already beaten them twice, the Giants were favored to win again. The Browns scored a FG in the first quarter and held the lead into the fourth, when Choo-Choo broke into the clear and headed for a TD, only to be dragged down from behind inside the 10 after 47 yards by Bill Willis, a middle guard (the precursor to MLB). Our best RB, a speedster caught from BEHIND! The Giants settled for a FG to tie the score.

Later in the fourth, Willis(again!) tackled Conerly in the end zone for a safety. Still later, Groza kicked a field goal and the game ended with the Browns on top, 8-3.

The Browns went on to win the NFL championship by beating the Los Angeles Rams (who were the Cleveland Rams from '37-'45) in a squeaker, 30-28.

For the six years '50-'55, the Browns won the Eastern Conference title 5 times and the NFL championship three times.

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Jim White

George -

Any chance that you remember Jim White from that team? Jim was a neighbor of mine growing up and had played tackle between 1946 and 1950. Mr. White (as we called him then) was a local hero and probably the biggest reason most of us in the neighborhood became lifelong Giants fans.

by django48 on Mar 8, 2008 1:22 PM EST reply actions

I vaguely recall Jim White

He was a DT from ND who played for the Giants for for about five years after WWII. I believe he was a starter for at least some of those years

by george cronin on Mar 9, 2008 3:41 PM EDT up reply actions

That's him.

Played for the Irish and never let you forget it.

by django48 on Mar 9, 2008 8:12 PM EDT up reply actions

Lou Groza

George,
Lou was pretty hefty wasn't he? Seems to me he played well into the sixties.

Do you know what school "Chukin" Charley Connerly hailed from?

by giant fan since 57 on Mar 8, 2008 6:26 PM EST reply actions

Groza was huge for those days.

He was an offensive tackle for the original Browns and played that position for something like 12-13 years. His nickname was "the Toe," because of his prodigious leg, booming kickoffs into the end zone and very reliable in scoring FGs.
Like all the kickers in those days, he wasn't a sidewinder, but booted straight ahead.

After he retired he came back to the Browns strictly as a booter and wound up playing more than twenty years. (In those later years, he'd sometimes kick extra points with a cigarette in his hand.) He retired some time after '65

He was a terrific athlete as was his brother Alex(who might have been more famous than Lou), an All-Amerocan center at Kentucky and later a star in pro basketball.

Charley's college was Ole Miss.

by george cronin on Mar 9, 2008 3:54 PM EDT up reply actions

Thanks for the info...

I wish I could remember all the players and games as well as you do. A lot of my memories of the late fifties and early sixties are spotty.

By the way, who do you think is the most unfogettable defensive player of all time? It's an impossible question I know, but for me it has to be Butkus. He wasn't the fastest and there may have been a few who had more impact on the game (like LT) but what a thrill it was to watch him pick up a running back like a rag doll, legs still flailing, and drive him into the turf.

by giant fan since 57 on Mar 10, 2008 6:05 AM EDT reply actions

Butkus was great, but I'd have to go

with LT. He was in a class by himself. Unlike Butkus, he was fortunate to avoid major injury. That slowed Butkus down a lot in his later days. I haven't seen him in a long time, but it was painful to watch him walk after his retirement (like Namath and other former players with artificial knees, more side-to-side than straight ahead.)
I'm only going to continue Cronin's Corner up to the early sixties. I'd just as soon not recall the Wilderness Years before things turned around. Maybe you or Pot or someone else can pick up the reminiscences schtick from there?

by george cronin on Mar 10, 2008 7:18 AM EDT reply actions

Ha Ha....

Sure, leave me with Rocky Thompson, Eldridge Small and Pete Athos. I think I could tell the story of the Giants from 1967 to 1983 in about three phrases....Bad coaching, bad drafting, and bad execution.

by giant fan since 57 on Mar 10, 2008 6:25 PM EDT reply actions

The worst years began in '64,

when Allie Sherman traded Huff towashington and Modzelewski to Cleveland, completing the dismemberment of the Giants superb defense that he started in ' 62 when he traded Livingston and '63 when he sent Grier to the Rams. It took eighteen years to recover.

by george cronin on Mar 10, 2008 7:30 PM EDT reply actions

Hey, 57, my memory isn't that great.

I can't remember Pete Athos. Is Athos right. I remember a Pete with a last name something like Athos (a Greek name, I think.) I also remeber this guy (a defensive back?) committing some kind of unforgiveable blunder that cost the Giants a key game. Is any of that right?

by george cronin on Mar 10, 2008 10:31 PM EDT reply actions

Pete Athas....

Pete Athas was a cornerback for the G-men from 1971-74.

Pete was OK with coverage but was scared stiff to make a tackle. Third rate receivers would blow through him as he made his half hearted attempt to stop them. He was one of the first guys to play with long hair hanging out of his helmet.

He ws definitely not a fan favorite. I think he finally got traded to Cleveland.

by giant fan since 57 on Mar 11, 2008 5:50 AM EDT reply actions

Yes! Now I remember.

Athos, Athas--so close yet so far away. I think what he tried to do in that blunder I half remember was lateral after an interception that was itself intercepted. Sounds like the kind of play those Giants would make.

by george cronin on Mar 11, 2008 7:26 AM EDT reply actions