The Genius of Paul Brown

By Ryan Leonardo

Professional football in America has been revolutionized by many great players, athletes, student athletes and coaches.  It has been a part of the sports world here in the U.S. on a large scale for the past seven decades.  The game has become extremely competitive, and teams will do just about anything to gain an advantage over an opponent, whether ethical or not.  Long before there were the scandals of illegal videotaping of teams and performance enhancing drug use, there was a great coach from the Buckeye State named Paul Brown who only needed his brilliant mind, innovative spirit, pure determination and discipline to get the most from his teams and players.  Paul Brown forever changed the game of football not only in Ohio, but across the nation with his innovations, inventions and genius philosophies that made coaching football the exact science it is today.

Paul Brown was an incredible coach in every aspect of the game.  The Massillon High School football Tigers under Brown compiled an astonishing record of 80-8-2.  Brown captured the first National Championship for The Ohio State University in 1942, despite losing many of his top recruits to the war.  Brown also started the Cleveland Browns in 1946.  The Browns were so good that they ruined any competitive balance in the All American Football Conference and joined the NFL in 1950.  Most people were skeptical of the Browns because they dominated the teams in the AAFC, and figured they would not be able to compete with the NFL teams.  They could not have been more wrong.  The team under Paul Brown went 167-53-8 in 17 years.  They played in six championship games in their first six years in the league, winning the title in 1950, 1954 and 1955.

Paul Brown was the greatest innovator in NFL history.  Not only did he invent the face mask (to protect Otto Graham’s chin injury) but was the first to use many of the things we associate with football today.  The draw play, trap blocking, playbook knowledge, the 40-yard dash, intelligence tests for draft prospects  and “messenger guards” were all Brown’s ideas.  Paul Brown also ignored the gentlemen’s agreement that barred African-Americans form the league and allowed two future Hall of Fame inductees to play for him.  Bill Willis and Marion Motley played for Brown a year before Jackie Robinson stepped onto the baseball diamond.  Given the chance, Brown’s players frequently sung their coach’s praises.  The late Bill Walsh, one of Brown’s disciples from his time in Cincinnati, revealed in his book Bill Walsh: Finding The Winning Edge where he learned the West Coast offense: “I learned it from Paul Brown.”

It’s difficult to find much memorabilia related to Paul Brown.  It is almost hard to believe that most football fans don’t even know who he is.  One of the most popular pieces of football memorabilia is the autographed helmet.  If it weren’t for Brown’s invention, that photo of your favorite player would look like he was in a 12-round fight with a heavyweight.  Memorabilia can have a dollar value, but if it truly sparks passion with history and “fanhood” within a person, that overshadows whatever number appears on the price tag.  If you ever come across any type of Paul Brown memorabilia, buy it.  The more people and fans learn about Brown and what his innovations and inventions have done for the game, the more valuable it will become.  A fund raising campaign has already kicked off for the construction of the Paul E. Brown Museum in Massillon, Ohio.  It will hold many memorabilia items permanently, making any remaining historical items much more valuable. Hopefully, as time rolls on, fans and historians alike will come to know, remember, honor and thank Paul Brown for his contributions to the gridiron.