1950: Browns Win First NFL Championship

For the first four years of their existence, the Browns dominated the All-America Football Conference. 

When they joined the NFL In 1950, that was all expected to change.

But the Browns hammered the two-time defending champion Philadelphia Eagles in the season opener, and then romped through the regular season, finishing tied with the New York Giants in the conference. The two teams met at a frigid Cleveland Stadium for a tiebreaker game, and the Browns won 8-3 without scoring a touchdown. (Their points came from two Lou Groza field goals and a late safety.) The Browns would host the NFL Championship Game against the Western Conference winners, the Los Angeles Rams. It was the Rams’ first game in Cleveland since they played the 1945 NFL Championship Game there as the home team, moving west a month later.

Television rights to the game were sold for $45,000 — the most in league history to that point — but the game was unavailable to watch locally in Cleveland. On Christmas Eve, nearly 30,000 fans braved 27-degree weather (with a wind chill near zero) to see an instant classic.

A total of a dozen future Hall of Famers took the field, and six records were set (and another three were tied). The Browns were trailing by a point when they got the ball back with two minutes left in the game. Otto Graham (who had already thrown four touchdowns that day) drove the team downfield, and Groza booted a chip-shot 16-yard field goal to seal the 30-28 victory.

NFL Commissioner Bert Bell called it “the greatest football game” he’d ever seen.

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