View full size
Jim Brown and Frank Ryan celebrated the city of Cleveland's last major sports championship on December 27, 1964.
Forty-eight years ago today the Cleveland Browns beat the Baltimore Colts, 27-0, to claim the NFL Championship, the last time a Cleveland team has won a championship in any of the major sports.
Charles Heaton was covering the game for The Plain Dealer, and
:
According to
, the Browns finished the 1964 season with a record of 10-3-1 while Baltimore went 12-2. The Colts and Browns were ranked 1st and 2nd respectively in total points and were the only two teams in the league to tally 400 or more points.
Baltimore was led by
, the AP and UPI Most Valuable Player and the Bert Bell Award winner for the Player of the Year, and
, the Newspaper Ent. Assoc. MVP.
The Browns were paced that season by
's 1,446 rushing yards and
's 2,404 passing yards.
But, according to Heaton, it was the defense that won the day for the Browns:
Read the entire
in our Browns History Database.
Then
to read every game story The Plain Dealer has ever written about the Browns.