Sept. 27, 1964 - The Eagles held the great Jim Brown within reasonable bounds but were unable to stymie Frank Ryan’s passes in the second half, and as a result, the Browns walked off Franklin Field with a 28-20 victory this afternoon.
The six-foot Ryan, who once was an understudy of the Eagles’ King Hill at Rice, threw for two touchdowns early in the third quarter and another in the fourth to erase a 13-7 Philadelphia halftime lead as the unbeaten, once-tied Browns swept to their second victory.
To the dismay of a sellout crowd of 60,671, Ryan connected with rookie end Paul Warfield on a 24-yard scoring pitch in the early moments of the second half then hit fullback Brown for a 40-yard tally before completing the conquest with a 12-yard toss to flanker Gary Collins.
The Eagles, who were given their halftime lead by Sam Baker field goals of 12 and 42 yards, played well enough to win most games, but the Browns simply had too much overall offensive strength.
“We went on four cylinders and not on six in a lot of cases,” said Philadelphia coach Joe Kuharich, who knows he’s not driving a super-charged V-8. “We’re not losing games defensively. It’s that we’re not taking advantage of the big shots when we have them.
“The tide could have gone either way in this game, so I don’t think there’s any realization on the part of the players that they’ve been outclassed.”
The thing that turned the tide, in Kuharich’s view, was a Norm Snead pass that skipped off Ray Poage’s reaching hands and was intercepted by Ross Fichtner, who ran 64 yards to the Eagle 18. Fichtner, who set up Cleveland’s last touchdown, ran right past Bob Brown, who had just reinjured tendons in his right ankle and was unable to move after Fichtner.
“I don’t say the ultimate outcome of the game was decided by the number of bad breaks we had or by the number of good breaks they had,” Kuharich said, “but I do say that was the one big break.”
Meanwhile, the Browns had given the game ball to Nick Skorich, who was the Eagles’ head coach last year and now is the Browns’ defensive line coach.
“I’m very pleased about that,” said Skorich, who was on the winning side of an Eagles-Browns game for a change.
Blanton Collier, the Browns’ coach, marveled anew at the latest big day for his great fullback, Jim Brown.
“That was something the way Jim was running, with the defense keyed on him like it was,” Collier said.
As for Warfield, the rookie from Ohio State who caught six passes today for 97 yards, he is having the time of his life. Being a pass catcher on run-prone Buckeye teams was not much fun.
“I was a running back there, until my last year,” said Paul, “so I didn’t catch many passes. I became a split end, which is like a flanker in the pros, in my last year and then — well, I guess I didn’t catch many passes then, either. We weren’t what you’d call a passing team.”
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