Exploring the Dynamics of the 1964 NFL Championship Game

If our NFL Championship series before the super bowl was a horse race, we'd be rounding a final turn and heading for the home stretch.

Yes, that's right.

This is the Pigskin Daily History Dispatch, a podcast that covers the anniversaries of American football events throughout history.

Your host, Darren Hayes, is podcasting from America's North Shore to bring you the memories of the gridiron one day at a time.

Hello, my football friends.

This is Darren Hayes of pigskindispatch.com welcome once again to the Pig Pen, your portal to positive football history.

And welcome to our championship series, the championship games in the National Football League before the super bowl.

Rich, welcome back to the Pig Pen.

Darren, thank you so much.

It's great to.

It's an honor to be on your show again, and I'm glad that I'm able to get back on there and talk about the 64 Browns or the 51 Rams.

Anything you need.

I love it.

I love the whole expert thing.

I was looking around behind me going, who's he talking about?

So I so appreciate that.

Well, well, let's.

Let's quantify that expert thing.

You know, that's.

I think you're the perfect expert.

I can't think of anybody else that has done that, and you are the man.

Thank you, Darren.

It's called Drive to Conquest.

It's.

I had a lot of fun doing it.

A lot of fun doing it.

Yeah.

And folks, as always, we'll talk a little bit more about the book near the end of this episode.

But if you're on the road, you don't want to.

Don't have a pen to jot it down.

Don't worry.

We have in the show notes.

We'll link you to Rich's book and any other projects we talk about in the show notes of the podcast or on the YouTube channel, whatever you're watching.

And also on pigskindispatch.com in the accompanying article.

You know, we had, you know, the rivalry going on with the afl, but we also had a couple things that happened in football history that we don't even think about today.

Prior to that, the home team was always in darks.

So.

So now you see teams like Miami and the Cowboys are most common.

They always wear white at home.

They wear white on the road.

You very rarely see them in their dark jerseys.

So that's kind of an interesting tidbit of, of the National Football League.

Actually, Darren, I didn't even know that.

I just remember the Browns having the white jerseys in the 64 title game, and I always just assumed that's how they, how they were.

I never knew that little bit of information on that.

So thank you very much.

Yeah, put it in the book.

But.

Right.

The other, the other big News from the 64 season was the commissioner had brought back two former stars, Alex Karras and Paul Hornig, who were suspended for the 63 season for some nefarious alleged gambling, which they, they didn't win any appeals on.

And they both came back, you know, to.

The star of the National Football League.

Came back after missing a full season.

So that was the other big news.

And then we get into the season itself.

Yeah, it's kind of ironic as both of those guys wound up in the hall of Fame.

So, you know, it's, it's interesting, you know, and Paul Horning wound up winning a couple more championships after that.

So.

Yeah, I mean.

And of course you're going to be.

Yeah, we talk about Horning on a few of these episodes.

That's.

That's for sure.

Yeah.

So we've already talked him about a little bit the prior episodes to this, and we have a few more that his name, I'm sure, will be mentioned, and we'll, we'll check that out here in the next few episodes.

But what can you tell us about the 64 season and in particular how the Browns were.

Well, the Browns weren't supposed to go anywhere.

And I would probably say around the whole nation, Blatton Collier took over.

Had a lot of pressure on him and he just allowed the players to be the players and he would listen to what they said and everything.

And the Browns turned it around and they won 10 games that year and they just couldn't get past the New York Giants who were going for their third straight Eastern Division champion or Eastern Conference championship.

But they did wound up, they wound up being in the, the playoff bowl.

But.

And people didn't really like that because it was like a runner up bowl.

It didn't really matter.

They were even saying that the St. Louis Cardinals were going to possibly win that.

And so the Browns were favored to be third place at best.

And there's a lot of talk, you know, their defense was terrible.

You know, they, they didn't have, they had small guys in the defensive backfield.

Their only stars that they really had was Jim Brown.

And Paul Warfield was a rookie, but he turned out to be a sensation.

Gary Collins was a fantastic wide receiver, but that was really about it.

I mean the defense again, as I said, was average at best and all and.

But the Browns came out of nowhere again because Blanton Collier listened.

He was a great statistician.

They said give him a quart of ice cream, vanilla ice cream and a projector and he could beat anybody.

And in the long run he did.

Yeah, I mean it's, it's really amazing.

There's always a graphic that whoever enters things in Wikipedia for these.

If you look up each NFL season on Wikipedia, somebody has gone in and done the standings of each week.

So each week they had who was in first for each of the conference because we had a Western and an Eastern Conference was be pre before the merger of the AFL.

So the I believe 14 teams in the league that year and so they have, you know, there's a three or four way tie after week one.

And if you look on the eastern side, which Cleveland was in, they were in first place every single of the 14 seasons or 14 weeks and except the first six, they were tied with St. Louis.

So you talked about the Cardinals a little bit before that.

They Were tied with them.

And early on, their.

Philadelphia was in there after week one, but the rest of the way, Cleveland, Cleveland, Cleveland all the way down the chart.

Same thing with their opponent, the Baltimore Colts, who they end up ultimately facing.

You know, spoiler alert.

They're.

They're in first place, but everything except the first three weeks, it's the Rams in Detroit and Green Bay the first three weeks, and then the Colts come on like gangbusters and dominate the rest of the year.

So these were definitely the two marquee teams in the National Football League that season.

Well, they were supposed to.

The Baltimore Colts were supposed to just come into Cleveland and blow them out.

Now, even though Baltimore had the better record back back in the days before the super bowl, the winning team, the.

The.

The host of the.

Of the championship game, it didn't matter if you were 14, 0 or, you know, 7 and 7 if you want it.

Whoever.

Whoever that year was, that is the even years where the Eastern Division or the Eastern Conference, a lot of times they went by different names, and then the odd years were the West.

It just so happens that that 64 championship came on an even year.

So the Browns were able to, you know, host that game, and the Colts were supposed to come in and just be wrecking machines, and rightfully so.

I mean, you had Johnny Unitis at his peak.

Lenny Moore was comeback player of the year.

He scored 20 touchdowns.

I mean, he was just an amazing ballplayer.

He had Raymond Barry, unbelievable wide receiver John Mackey, one of the stereotypical preeminent or preeminent tight ends, first one of the first ones beside Ditka.

So, you know, I mean, you had.

You had this wrecking machine and a great defense, you know, and it was just.

It was supposed to be so lopsided, you know, Unitis was supposed to just rip this team apart because it had a.

The Browns had a weak secondary.

They had the worst secondary in the league.

And Unitis was again at the height of his career.

And so even Carol Rosenblum, who owned the.

The Colts at that time, when he came into town, Art Modell went up to him and said, you know, just kind of doing the stereotypical, you know, hey, let's be good sports.

He came up, he goes, hey, Carol, please do me a favor and have your boys, you know, you know, I hope you guys give us.

I hope we give you guys a good game.

And Carol Rosenblum, instead of saying, oh, I'm sure you will, he goes, oh, don't worry, Art.

We'll try to take it easy on you, you know, and it was like he goes, I'll try not to run up the score.

And it was kind of like.

And they said he wasn't laughing, you know, and people were just, you know, like, Jim Kinicki, he was a second year defensive tackle.

He'd be in a shopping center somewhere, a grocery store, and people would come up to him, hey, the Colts are going to crush you.

You know, Jim Parker is going to eat you alive.

You know, and they.

What they underestimated was again, Blatton Collier, who just again, you give him a projector, a movie projector, and, you know, some vanilla ice cream, and he'd sit in his house and just break everything down.

And Bernie Parrish, who is the defensive signal caller in the backfield, he would go there and, you know, chart all these plays, and he would be there with him.

And they would study film and all.

And then they started to pick up on certain things where, you know, if.

No matter how invincible that this team is, he was.

They were watching some of the defensive backs against, you know, on how they.

They reacted from the Colts and they said, well, you know, what if they did this to Raymond Barry in practice?

That's probably how he made the team.

So they were kind of like, okay, so let's do this.

You know, let's, you know, you know, give him a shot at the line instead of, you know, trying to back off and let Barry.

Barry get his bearings and stuff like this and let him get into the.

Into the field, you know, chuck him a little bit at the line of scrimmage and kind of throw him off, because unit said perfect timing.

Unit would drop back a certain amount of time and throw the ball where he.

Where it was and you better be there.

And so it was just a total absolute timing, timing thing on the Colts.

So they said, if we do that and we do like a bump and run and we just stick with that and we just drop.

We send that.

We send the line.

The Browns had a thing called a charging line instead of a reaction line.

Nick Scorch was the offensive story, was the line coach and wanted them to have a charging line.

Because we charge that team, have those backers drop back into the passing lanes to kind of block unite us, and the secondary, you know, will take care of the.

Take care of the receivers, Jimmy or and Raymond Berry and John Mackey, they go, we can't lose this game.

There's no way that we can lose this game.

And then also we had the great Jim Brown, who was a psychological weapon more than he, even just as equal as he was a physical weapon.

So, you know, you had all these elements and that defense did a fantastic job.

It was nothing, nothing.

At the end of the first half, I mean, they were shocking the football world.

And then all of a sudden, then the offense just exploded.

You know, Jim Brown ran off a 46 yard run and almost scored a touchdown.

And then on the play, right after that, Gary Collins scored a touchdown.

Because Gary Collins kept saying, I can beat Bobby Boyd.

Because Gary Collins was a taller man.

Bobby Boyd was a shorter defensive back.

He goes, I can beat him anytime.

And it was a cold day.

But Collins always said that his hands, he never got cold.

So he says, my hands were never cold.

He goes, I can catch this ball with no problem.

He goes, I can beat him anytime.

And he did, you know, he's Mr. Post Pattern.

He ran in there, you know, first touchdown.

And then, you know, and you know, well, Groza scored a field goal and then Gary Collins scored, scored a touchdown.

So before, you know, it's 10 or nothing, then Collins scored another touchdown.

It was, you know, you know, 17 and nothing.

And then rose again with a field goal.

And then Collins delivered the coup de gras when, you know, he scored on, I believe it was a 51 yard pass.

And he beat Bobby Boyd.

I mean, Bobby Boyd was just trying to hang on for dear life onto him.

And then Jim Brown, they should have had another touchdown.

Jim Brown did go over the.

You could see that the ball broke the plane.

And that's when they used to have the goal line or that.

I'm sorry, that's when they used to have the, the goal post real close to the end zone or to the goal line.

Jim Brown reached up over and grabbed a hold of it and you could see the ball broke the plane.

But they did not give it to him on three straight times.

So Blue Groza had a kick, a field goal.

And Jim Brown said that that always bothered him.

And I read it in his book called out of Bounds years Ago.

And Jim Brown was coming into town, into Cleveland to do a book signing.

And I couldn't make it.

So I asked my dear wife, she said that she would gladly go and do it for me.

And she went with a friend of hers.

I had a picture of him running the ball behind Jake Schaffraft and Gene Hickerson and, and the book.

So I said, if you can only sign one thing, just have them sign the picture.

You know, just show that you have the book.

Well, she went up over there.

And they were saying, oh, he can only sign one thing.

And Jim Brown looked and he said, he didn't say anything.

And then my wife said, he goes.

She goes, I just want you to know, my husband says in his heart that he knows you scored that touchdown.

And she said, he just roared with laughter.

And he looked and he said, he goes, you tell your husband he's okay.

And then they said, well, okay, Mr. Brown, you can only sign one of these things.

He goes, for her.

I'll sign anything she wants.

He signed the book, signed the picture, personalized it to me.

So it was a really a cool moment.

It was just one little blip in the book, but it meant a lot.

You know, it meant it went a long way.

And she goes, I can't believe Jim Brown left.

I never saw Jim Brown ever laugh, you know, so it was a nice feeling.

But, yeah, it was.

It was an incredible, incredible feeling.

And for the city of Cleveland at that time.

And then when they were having a party at a hotel after that, Jim Brown went home to get his wife, and they came back, and when Jim Brown entered the room, everybody in unison, just stood up and applauded and started to clap.

And Jim Brown said, he really never felt such camaraderie, you know, like that.

And.

But they knew when it was nothing, nothing at the end of the first half that they had the.

They had him beat.

And they said, you know, Unitis was running for his life.

He only threw for 95 yards with John Unitis.

I mean, sometimes he threw for 95 yards in one quarter.

So all of a sudden he did that for just one day and he was able to run.

Maybe he would get seven yards, whatever.

And they said, you know, it didn't matter because Unites can't beat us with his legs.

You know, he can only beat us with his arm.

And they totally took that away from him, just with some great defense and, you know, just applied pressure, dropped those linebackers back.

His passing lanes were thrown off of that little chuck.

So they.

They did a great job with them.

Yeah, so that's a pretty dominant performance of winning that championship game.

And I guess maybe we should have pointed this out earlier in our conversation here, but, you know, how did these teams get.

Get to where they are?

Because if you look at it.

It's the packers, it's the Giants.

You know, those names are coming up time after time in the championship games.

And then, you know, all of a sudden, you know, we have 63, you know, last time we talked about the Bears and the Giants, but the Giants are still in it.

And now two different teams totally, who haven't been in a championship game in over five or six years all of a sudden come in the spot and then really you don't hear about them for a while.

You know, for after that.

Yeah, the Colts, then the Colts couldn't get past the packers, then after that for it was either the packers or the Vikings and they just couldn't get past, couldn't get past them.

Just like the LA Rams at that time.

Best team that never won the super bowl in the later 60s.

But you know, you had those alpha dogs, the packers and the Vikings and the Colts just couldn't get past.

Well, they did get, they did break out in 68, but they got by Joe Namath in the Super Bowl.

But that's for a different day.

But yeah, it was, it was an incredible feeling.

I would have to say, Darren, in all honesty that that was probably.

When you look at the pre super bowl championship games, I would probably say that that 64 championship for the Browns, not only did they win where they shouldn't have won, but they won by 27 points against a powerful Colts team.

And they shut out possibly quite arguably, however you want to put it, one of the top five quarterbacks of all time.

And at that time in Unitis, his career, he was, he was, he was unmatched.

Unmatched.

But I mean you could go down the roll call of all the other teams at that time and Johnny Unitis would win out over all of them, even Bart Starr, you know, at that.

Up to that time and why tittle and all, he, he dominated, he dominated them all.

So to shut him out and Raymond Berry, you know, the great receiver that he was, and to completely shut them out was just an amazing feat.

And I would say that was probably the greatest upset in NFL championship game history.

Again from 33 to 65.

Yeah, I think you have a great argument for that.

Richard, we talked earlier that you had a book on the 64 Browns.

You've told us the title.

So once again tell us what the title of that is and where folks can get a copy of it.

You can go to Amazon and just punch in Drive to Conquest.

And it'll come up.

It's an orange cover with The Cleveland Browns 64 team picture right in the middle.

You can't miss it.

All right.

And we thank you for your time and again sharing your passion.

Darren, it's my pleasure.

Thank you so much.

And I'm going to be having a book coming out actually soon on the super on the pre super bowl championships, which is kind of ironic on their the NFL and AFL AAFC championship games from 33 to 65.

So that'll be coming out soon.

So everyone, you probably get a chance to hear me again on Darren's show.

So I'm bracing you now.

If you see my name on there, you don't want to listen to me ramble on.

You don't have to listen.

Listen to Darren because he's a great guy.

All right.

Thanks, Rich.

Thank you.

That's all the football history we have today, folks.

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