Graham Was The Pre-cursor to Young, Vick, Wilson, Tark..ETC...

[nickers]

I thought it was interesting that Otto Graham had 44 rushing touchdowns..."The Quarterback with the most rushing touchdowns of all time is Otto Graham with 44 career rushing Touchdowns. Since the merger of the AFL and NFL and the creation of the "Super Bowl". I really think this is staggering when you think they didnt have the rules in place they do today.. the closest was Steve Young with 43... however.. the equalizer would be todays defenses being bigger/faster..

 

 

 

 

http://www.clevelandbrowns.com/news/article-5/Throwback-Thursday-Looking-back-on-Otto-Graham-one-of-the-greatest-Browns-QBs/a39ac464-cb06-4e78-98c6-e88dfd004ed0

[Zombo]

I thought it was interesting that Otto Graham had 44 rushing touchdowns..."The Quarterback with the most rushing touchdowns of all time is Otto Graham with 44 career rushing Touchdowns. Since the merger of the AFL and NFL and the creation of the "Super Bowl". I really think this is staggering when you think they didnt have the rules in place they do today.. the closest was Steve Young with 43... however.. the equalizer would be todays defenses being bigger/faster..

 

 

 

 

http://www.clevelandbrowns.com/news/article-5/Throwback-Thursday-Looking-back-on-Otto-Graham-one-of-the-greatest-Browns-QBs/a39ac464-cb06-4e78-98c6-e88dfd004ed0

 

Graham's the greatest QB ever.

 

When people say today's defenses are bigger and faster ... why do they leave out the other side of the ball? The guys blocking, running and catching for Graham were smaller and slower in equal proportion to the defenses.

 

His 86.6 Passer rating in that era compares to about 110 now.

No one had a better w/l record.

No one won more championships

Played in a championship game every year of his career.

Was first-team All-Pro seven times.

 

Brady had Manning. Montana had Elway.

 

Graham had no peers, he was above anyone who played alongside him.

 

As for running, he was a great athlete, but he didn't take off like Young or scramble like Tark, he'd just tuck it in and get a few a few tough yards to get first downs and TDs when necessary.

 

Zombo

[gftChris]

 

 

When people say today's defenses are bigger and faster ... why do they leave out the other side of the ball? The guys blocking, running and catching for Graham were smaller and slower in equal proportion to the defenses.

I think a lot of it is that when people are slower, the game is slower, you get an extra beat to make your decisions. I doubt it was ever measured back then, but if you look at average release time, my guess is it was a lot slower than today's average.

 

Look at why people are generally down on small school QBs like Wentz and Bortles, despite obvious physical attributes and production.

[The Gipper]

 

Graham's the greatest QB ever.

 

When people say today's defenses are bigger and faster ... why do they leave out the other side of the ball? The guys blocking, running and catching for Graham were smaller and slower in equal proportion to the defenses.

 

His 86.6 Passer rating in that era compares to about 110 now.

No one had a better w/l record.

No one won more championships

Played in a championship game every year of his career.

Was first-team All-Pro seven times.

 

Brady had Manning. Montana had Elway.

 

Graham had no peers, he was above anyone who played alongside him.

 

As for running, he was a great athlete, but he didn't take off like Young or scramble like Tark, he'd just tuck it in and get a few a few tough yards to get first downs and TDs when necessary.

 

Zombo

By the way....for some time, he also played DB. He had 7 career Int's.....one returned for a TD.

http://www.pro-football-reference.com/players/G/GrahOt00.htm

[Browns_Fucking_Rule]

Guys back then might have been slower and not as strong, but they were tougher. I don't know if Otto would be as great as he was if he were born in todays era... but some food for thought is, how good would the great players of today have been if you suddenly threw them back in time to play in those old school games? I'm not convinced they would all be so spectacular back then due to the rules and the mindset of their teammates. Many of those great players from back then had seen action in ww2 and the toughest football games were a cakewalk in comparison to that.

[nickers]

Guys back then might have been slower and not as strong, but they were tougher. I don't know if Otto would be as great as he was if he were born in todays era... but some food for thought is, how good would the great players of today have been if you suddenly threw them back in time to play in those old school games? I'm not convinced they would all be so spectacular back then due to the rules and the mindset of their teammates. Many of those great players from back then had seen action in ww2 and the toughest football games were a cakewalk in comparison to that.

Also the field was smaller in terms of where you could line up to run a play as the hash marks were aligned differently and you could only excute on the side of the field where the last play commenced.

[htownbrown]

Getting really tired of the bigger, faster, stronger argument against past accomplishments. My argument to this is that if guys back then had the knowledge, equipment, supplements, and yes steriods players had access to today we would never of seen one record ever broken in our era.

[The Gipper]

Guys back then might have been slower and not as strong, but they were tougher. I don't know if Otto would be as great as he was if he were born in todays era... but some food for thought is, how good would the great players of today have been if you suddenly threw them back in time to play in those old school games? I'm not convinced they would all be so spectacular back then due to the rules and the mindset of their teammates. Many of those great players from back then had seen action in ww2 and the toughest football games were a cakewalk in comparison to that.

Of course, the bigger, stronger, faster argument about today's players applies mainly to Linemen and Linebackers.

 

Otto was 6'2" about 210 lbs. The average eight of starting QBs today is about 6'2.5". So he is not far below the average of today.

 

And, like Jim Brown at 6'2" 232 lbs.....would be a BIG back today....without being Jerome Bettis fat. Adrian Peterson is not that big.

And WRs are not that much bigger..not at all really.

 

Paul Warfield at 6'0" would fit into the Browns starting WR group today where Coleman is 5.11 Gabriel 5.8, Gordon 6.3, Hawkins 5.7, Higgin 6.1. Louis 6.2,....and the big boy Terrelle Pryor is 6.4.

 

But guess what, Warfield's running mate.....Gary Collins....the leading TD receiver in Browns history, playing in the 1960s.....was 6 foot 5 inches tall 215 pounds today.

 

Do you think we could do OK at our offensive skill players with a 6.2 215 Graham....a 6'2 232 Jim Brown....a 6'0 188 Warfield; a 6'5 215 Collins playing for us.

 

Frank Ryan....Browns last title winning QB: 6'3" 200 lbs. Maybe he could use the weight room and add 10-15 lbs. RGIII is at 6'2 223 lbs. OG and Ryan could have bulked up a bit to match today's play, I am sure.

[Flugel]

Of course, the bigger, stronger, faster argument about today's players applies mainly to Linemen and Linebackers.

 

Otto was 6'2" about 210 lbs. The average eight of starting QBs today is about 6'2.5". So he is not far below the average of today.

 

And, like Jim Brown at 6'2" 232 lbs.....would be a BIG back today....without being Jerome Bettis fat. Adrian Peterson is not that big.

And WRs are not that much bigger..not at all really.

 

Paul Warfield at 6'0" would fit into the Browns starting WR group today where Coleman is 5.11 Gabriel 5.8, Gordon 6.3, Hawkins 5.7, Higgin 6.1. Louis 6.2,....and the big boy Terrelle Pryor is 6.4.

 

But guess what, Warfield's running mate.....Gary Collins....the leading TD receiver in Browns history, playing in the 1960s.....was 6 foot 5 inches tall 215 pounds today.

 

Do you think we could do OK at our offensive skill players with a 6.2 215 Graham....a 6'2 232 Jim Brown....a 6'0 188 Warfield; a 6'5 215 Collins playing for us.

 

Frank Ryan....Browns last title winning QB: 6'3" 200 lbs. Maybe he could use the weight room and add 10-15 lbs. RGIII is at 6'2 223 lbs. OG and Ryan could have bulked up a bit to match today's play, I am sure.

 

Nice write-up Gipper! Great examples used...

 

And a RB who won way more Pro Football Championships in Cleveland than Jimmy Brown - Marion Motley was 6'1" 238 lbs. Motley started in the backfield on offense and at LBer on defense. He won 4 AAFC Championships plus 1 NFL Championship in the 1950 season he also led the NFL in rushing.

 

Way back in an era where a Marion Motley was like a football version of Jackie Robinson in terms of receiving racial threats/hatred, my guess is he didn't have a lot of access to PEDs to get above the performance curves back then. I know that's a lot of speculation on my part but think about it.

 

For all this bigger, faster, stronger we read about today - there sure seems like way higher volumes of injuries. Something has to give in the physics of it all. I don't ever remember seeing the volumes of injuries to our starting lineups in the 70s, 80s and even early 90s being nearly as large as what we've had to work since 1999. More recently, we worked around huge volumes of injury in 2014 admirably and 2015 not so admirably.

 

I used to wonder why rugby has less injuries and head traumas considering how much less protective gear they used. There's rule changes or agendas putting more NFL players in space leading to more violent collisions in order to promote higher scoring. I can only speculate here, but when helmets were leather there was way less temptation to use the crown of the helmet as a weapon like James Harrison.

 

Rugby doesn't even have helmets explaining why their players rarely initiate contact with their heads. A lot of the contact in their scrums doesn't include guys getting running starts prior to collisions like you can see in the NFL when a receiver looking a pass in over the middle gets a killshot from a defender he never sees with the defender fully aware of this at tee off time.

 

There's some things the NFL could reconsider to bring the volumes of injury down at least a little IMO that wouldn't ruin the entertainment quality nearly as much as they think. The altering of various rules over the years to promote a higher scoring (pass first) league puts too many guys in space. I used to love the 70s and 80s when we transitioned from Leroy Kelly to Greg Pruitt to Mike Pruitt to the 1-2 punch of Byner and Mack later. It was cool to see Greg Pruitt taking a handoff with an ability to score from anywhere on the field. In fact, I really miss seeing this. I also loved seeing Leroy Hoard behind an impressive run blocking line in the early 90s.

 

I've been watching a lakeside climate that has never really lended itself to a pass first league from late October through January. Could this be why some of our best seasons came from a 13th round pick like league MVP Brian Sipe as well as a journeyman backup like Derek Anderson while a much maligned Vinny Testaverde orchestrated an 11-5 season (plus a playoff W)? What was a common denominator? The ability to run the ball offering up enough of a balanced attack to make life outside on the perimeter easier to target with accuracy. You almost totally forget how little gotta have any of those 3 QBs I mentioned were before they had their day in the sun here.

 

If we can prioritize running the rock like we did in 2014 where a lot of pass protections resembled our run blocking minus going downfield to the next tier of defense. Sprint out pass protections use a lot of reach blocking playside (with reach and hinge on the backside) rather than traditional cup protections that hit, retreat, rinse-repeat. At the snap, LBers and Safeties can often misread their initial key if our line looks like it is about to run-block at first contact only to be a sprint pass type of protection. Flip was cautioned he can't just light switch a zbs into certain parts of a series and expect it to work. Well, the former QB coach who became an OC here didn't foresee the advantages of using the zbs philosophy every down which meant he never really understood the overall value of the zbs and where it helped guys. Consequently, 2105 performances of Bitonio and Greco weren't nearly as impressive as they were in 2014. I'm thinking Hue will bring more experience in terms of knowing what is a sound philosophy/idea and what is not.

 

If we can run - it'll be fun.

[The Gipper]

Just a point on rugby.....there is NO blocking in rugby. The only real contact that occurs in rubgy is the tackling....and that is almost exclusively arm tackling on the waist of the ball carrier. I do not believe you are allowed to tackle the legs of a rugby runner...and certainly you can't go up around the head. And the scrum is just pushing....there is no actual hitting in a scrum like there is in football while making a block. So, while indeed it appears rough.....and certainly it can be....there isn't nearly the violence in it that there is in football.