Browns Top Eagles at Municipal Stadium

Nov. 29, 1964 - The game plan was sound, and the Eagles did what they wanted to do. It was what they didn’t want to do that hurt them.

They gave the Browns three defensive touchdowns, and the Browns won the ball game, 38-24, at Cleveland’s Municipal Stadium. You don’t have to be a mathematical whiz to figure the difference those three giveaways made.

As tight end Pete Retzlaff noted: “You can’t spot a team like the Browns 21 points then pull up your britches and say, ‘Now, let’s get ‘em.’”

To their credit, that’s exactly what the Eagles tried to do. But the Browns had the sweet smell of money in their nostrils, and they weren’t about to let down.

The win put the Browns as close as a team can come to a conference championship short of actually clinching it. They can do that by beating the second-place Cardinals next week at St. Louis. And if they can’t beat the Cards, the Browns can still wrap it up by beating the lowly Giants the following Saturday at Yankee Stadium.

“St. Louis will beat them,” said Eagles halfback Tim Brown off the top of his head. But after a moment’s reflection, Tim amended: “No, I’ll have to retract that statement. The Browns will beat them. But no matter who wins, the Browns and Cardinals can’t have any luck for the next five years. They’ll have borrowed on it that far in advance just to get by this year.”

The Eagles’ star halfback might have been confusing the Browns’ “good luck” with his own bad luck. It hit him like a bolt in the first few seconds of the game, and it primed the strange forces of destiny for the Browns.

Lou Groza’s opening kickoff fell short of Brown and took a crazy bounce. Tim appeared to have a piece of the ball momentarily, but he stoutly denied this afterwards. Nevertheless, both teams reacted as if it had been a fumble, and the pigskin itself reacted like a live pig.

Three times it squirted loose from the relays of white shirts and green shirts that seemed to have it trapped. It was the white shirt of reserve lineman Roger Shoals that finally covered it a foot inside the deep end zone stripe for a Cleveland touchdown.

“The ironic part,” said Brown, “was that it wouldn’t have happened if Groza had kicked the ball as well as he usually does. I was waiting for it on the goal line when it died suddenly and started to fall. I thought I could get there on time to catch it on the run, but when I saw how fast it was dropping, I was afraid I might miss it or kick it.

“I stopped and stepped back, thinking I could catch it on the first bounce. But instead of bouncing forward, it went back and to the side. I never got a finger on it. I know the films will show that.”

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