🚨Browns Upset Colts in NFL Title Game

Dec. 27, 1964 - The Browns surprised their many critics and their most avid fans, too, by not only defeating the Baltimore Colts today but routing them, 27-0, in the NFL’s championship game before a Cleveland crowd of 79,544.

The Colts, who had won 12 of 14 regular season games, were the favorites of most ex­perts and nonexperts alike.

Gary Collins (pictured between Vince Costello and Frank Ryan), the big 24-­year‐old flanker for the Browns who stood half a foot taller than his Baltimore de­fender, Bobby Boyd, scored all three of Cleveland’s touchdowns on passes from his quar­terback, Frank Ryan. Lou Gro­za, Cleveland’s 40‐year‐old field goal kicker who played in his first championship game in Cleveland in 1946, added two field goals.

Jim Brown, a bulldozer all afternoon, split Baltimore’s vaunted defense for 114 yards on 27 carries but didn’t score a touchdown.

All the scoring came in the second half after the two teams had played a parrying, probing first half that ended in a stale­mate.

The Colts were disappoint­ing. Their usually high‐powered offense had no kick, and the team gained only 171 yards. Cleveland made 339.

With all due respect to Johnny Unitas, the Colts’ feared quarterback, he had no magic today. He rarely got any kind of an offense going and appeared to be intimidated by the 20‐knot wind that blew off Lake Erie.

The temperature remained one or two degrees above freezing, and the field was in good, if not perfect, condi­tion. The Colts had no excuses because the Browns, too, had to play “uphill”— into the wind — for two of the four quarters, the second and fourth.

The Browns’ defense, beautifully prepared, covered the pass re­ceivers so well that Unitas again and again was forced to take a long time picking out re­ceivers.

They seldom were open, so Unitas procrastinated and was dropped often before he could throw the ball. On other occa­sions, he had to run with it. This was not the Unitas the league has come to know, the man with the quick release who seldom runs and rarely throws an interception.

During the regular season, Unitas had been inter­cepted only six times in 305 pass attempts. Today the Cleve­land defense picked off two of his 20 passes, killing scoring opportunities each time.

“They just beat the hell out of us,” said Unitas afterward. “That sums it up.”

But despite the shock of the unexpected shellacking, Unitas said: “When you go over to the Cleveland dressing room, tell Frank Ryan congratulations for me. He was great.”

Said the Colts’ disappointed head coach, Don Shula: “We sure found out about the Cleveland defense, didn’t we? But you have to talk about our lack of offense with their defense. Our offense never gave our defense any break. We just didn’t execute.”

Said Cleveland’s Dick Modzelewski, who had been on the Giants’ championship squad in 1956 and on the Giants’ Eastern Conference titleholders of 1961, ’62, and ’63: “It sure felt good to win. Everybody picked us to lose, but we showed up for the game. That shutout made it a real good game for us. We didn’t just beat ‘em, we beat ‘em bad.”

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