December 26, 1955: Otto Graham Goes Out a Winner

December 26, 1955, 70 years ago: The NFL Championship Game is played at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum. It was moved up a day, because, that year, December 25 fell on a Sunday, and the NFL refused to play on Christmas Day until 1971.

The Cleveland Browns were playing in a league championship game for the 10th straight year: The 1st 4 in the All-America Football Conference (1946-49), winning all 4 of those; and the last 6 in the NFL, having beaten the Los Angeles Rams in 1950, lost to the Rams in 1951, lost to the Detroit Lions in 1952 and 1953, and beaten the Lions in 1954. Now, they were playing the Rams again.

Quarterback Otto Graham had been there for all of those games. Under head coach Paul Brown, an offensive genius, he had been, in terms of results, the most successful quarterback in pro football history. (Sure, Tom Brady later got teams into 10 championship games under the Super Bowl name, all within the NFL. But Graham did 10 in a row, and matched Brady with 7 wins. And Graham never had to cheat.)

Graham had retired after the 1954 Championship Game, but Brown talked him into returning for 1 more season. He led the Browns to a 9-2-1 record. They opened with a loss to the Washington Redskins, but shrugged it off to beat the San Francisco 49ers away, the Philadelphia Eagles at home, the Redskins away, the Green Bay Packers at home, the Chicago Cardinals away, and the New York Giants at home.

In addition to Graham, the Browns still had receiver Dante Lavelli, center Frank Gatski, tackle and placekicker Lou Groza, and defensive end Len Ford, who would all be elected to the Pro Football Hall of Fame. So would Brown. So would linebacker Chuck Noll, albeit as the later head coach of the Pittsburgh Steelers.

The Browns lost to the Eagles in Philadelphia, then beat the Steelers at home. They could only manage a tie with the Giants in New York, then won away to Pittsburgh, and closed by beating the Cardinals at home.

The Rams were coached by Sid Gillman, whose innovations in the passing game had begun to rival those of Paul Brown. They had finished 8-3-1, with 2 of their losses inflicted by the Chicago Bears. They still finished ahead of the Bears, who went 8-4.

The Rams still had several of the players who beat the Browns in the 1951 title game, including quarterback Norm Van Brocklin and his top 2 receivers, Tom Fears and Elroy "Crazy Legs" Hirsch, all of whom would be elected to the Pro Football Hall of Fame. So would Gillman, and linebacker Les Richter. Running back Paul "Tank" Younger and defensive tackle Gene "Big Daddy" Lipscomb have not yet been elected to the Hall, but should be.

And, this being an odd-numbered year, the Western Division winners would have the home-field advantage. And the Coliseum was the only stadium in the NFL that seated more than the Browns' Cleveland Municipal Stadium, so 87,695 fans came out, supporting the blue and gold, rather than the orange and white.

Groza kicked a 43-yard field goal to give the Browns a 3-0 lead at the end of the 1st quarter. The 2nd quarter featured several big plays, including Don Paul intercepting Van Brocklin, and returning it 65 yards for a touchdown, to make it 10-0 Browns; Van Brocklin throwing a 67-yard touchdown pass to Volney "Skeet" Quinlan, closing the Rams to within 10-7; and Graham throwing a 50-yard touchdown pass to Lavelli, giving the Browns a 17-7 halftime lead.

Graham himself ran the ball in for 2 touchdowns in the 3rd quarter, and the Browns led, 31-7. In the 4th quarter, Graham's last touchdown pass was 35 yards to Ray Renfro. Ron Waller scored from 4 yards out to give the Rams a consolation score, and the Browns won, 38-14.

It was the 7th league championship, the 3rd in the NFL, for Graham and Paul Brown. It would be the last. Graham retired again, and, this time, stuck with it. Brown led the Browns until 1962, before being fired by new owner Art Modell. He later founded the Cincinnati Bengals.

Gillman would further develop his passing ideas, and led the San Diego Chargers to the 1963 AFL Championship. Bill Walsh, who served as an assistant on the Bengals under Brown, and also under on the Oakland Raiders under Al Davis, who had been an assistant on the Chargers under Gillman, would coach the San Francisco 49ers to 3 Super Bowl wins.

Under the new regime, the Browns won the Championship in 1964 -- and haven't reached a world championship game since. The Rams would fare little better, not reaching another until Super Bowl XIV in the 1979 season, and losing. They moved to St. Louis in 1995, won Super Bowl XXXIV in the 1999 season, lost Super Bowl XXXVI in the 2001 season, moved back to Los Angeles in 2016, and have lost Super Bowl LIII in the 2018 season and won Super Bowl LVI in the 2021 season.

Graham started his professional career wearing Number 60, from 1946 to 1951. From 1952 onward, he wore Number 14. The Browns retired that number, and also named him to their Ring of Honor. He was elected to the Pro Football Hall of Fame in its 3rd class, in 1965.

He later served as head coach and general manager of the Washington Redskins, and as head coach and athletic director at the U.S. Coast Guard Academy. In 1999, he was ranked 7th on The Sporting News' list of the 100 Greatest Football Players, trailing only Joe Montana and Johnny Unitas among quarterbacks. He died in 2003.

In 2010, the NFL Network ranked Graham 16th on its list of the 100 Greatest Players, among quarterbacks trailing only Montana, Unitas, Peyton Manning and the even earlier Sammy Baugh, but not yet Tom Brady. He was named to the NFL's 50th Anniversary Team in 1969, its 75th Anniversary Team in 1994, and its 100th Anniversary Team in 2019. Also in 2019, a statue of Graham was dedicated outside Huntington Bank Field in Cleveland.

January 5, 1964: A Title for San Diego

 

January 5, 1964, 60 years ago: The American Football League Championship Game is played for the 1963 season. It marks a turning point for the League. In its 1st 3 seasons, it was a pass-happy league, without much defense. But now, a team was able to combine big offense with big defense.

Barron Hilton received the Los Angeles franchise of the AFL at its founding in 1959. He named the team the Chargers, after the credit card he founded, Carte Blanche. He was the son of hotel magnate Conrad Hilton, the brother of Elizabeth Taylor's 1st husband Conrad Nicholson Hilton Jr. a.k.a. Nicky Hilton, and the grandfather of Paris and Nicky Hilton. He turned out to be the last surviving member of "The Foolish Club," the 8 original AFL owners.

After reaching the 1st AFL Championship Game in the 1960 season, he realized that, even with his money, he couldn't compete with the NFL's Rams and college football's USC and UCLA for the attention of Los Angeles' football fans. So he moved the team down the Coast, and they became the San Diego Chargers. They reached the title game again in 1961, with the same result, losing to the Houston Oilers.

Head coach Sid Gillman built a high-powered offense, with 2 quarterbacks, Tobin Rote and John Hadl. Rote had filled in for an injured Bobby Layne, and led the Detroit Lions to victory in the 1957 NFL Championship Game, 59-10 over the Cleveland Browns. It was a bit of foreshadowing. Oddly, Hadl had also been drafted by the Lions, but the AFL offered more money than the NFL.

Sid Gillman

These passers' favorite target was Lance Alworth, whose running reminded someone of a deer, and so he was nicknamed "Bambi." He would end up as the 1st former AFL player elected to the Pro Football Hall of Fame. (Contrary to what some people believe, it's not the NFL Hall of Fame.) Gillman's offense also had running backs Paul Lowe and Keith Lincoln, tight end Jacque MacKinnon, guard Walt Sweeney, and offensive tackle Ron Mix. Mix would join Alworth in Canton.

Lance Alworth

But it was the defense that marked the '63 Chargers as being different from previous AFL teams. They were one of the teams in the 1960s that called its defensive line "The Fearsome Foursome": Ends Ron Nery and Earl Faison, and tackles Ernie Ladd (also a successful professional wrestler, before that competition became a scripted joke) and Bill Hudson. The linebackers were pretty good, too: Chuck Allen, Frank Buncom and Emil Karas.

Ernie Ladd

Another distinctive feature of San Diego's 1st major league sports team was their uniforms. It wasn't just the lightning bolts on the helmets. From 1960 to 1973, they wore jerseys that had been called "collegiate blue" (probably a reference to UCLA, with whom they shared the Los Angeles Coliseum in 1960), "electric blue" (which matched the "charger" theme) and "powder blue" (which is what it usually gets called today).

The Chargers went 11-3, their only losses coming at the hands of the Denver Broncos and, twice, the Oakland Raiders. They won the AFL Western Division, which meant that, being that it was an odd-numbered year, they would get to host the AFL Championship Game at Balboa Stadium.

Their opponents were the Boston Patriots, who finished only 7-6-1, but that was good enough to tie the Buffalo Bills for 1st place in the Eastern Division. And 2 of the losses were to the Chargers. To be fair, 5 of the 6 losses were by 7 points or less, and the Pats did beat the Bills in Buffalo in a Playoff to get to the Championship Game.

The title game -- postponed a week, due to the postponement of the regular-season games of November 24, 1963, and that due to the assassination of President John F. Kennedy 2 days earlier -- would not be close. It turned out to be the biggest blowout in the 10-year history of AFL Championship Games. Since the 1970 merger with the NFL, only once has the winning team in the AFC Championship Game matched the Chargers' point total, the 1990-91 Buffalo Bills; and no team has surpassed it. No team has scored this many in the NFC Championship Game, either.

The Chargers wasted little time. Rote took a quarterback sneak for a touchdown. Lincoln scored on a 67-yard run. The Patriots scored on Larry Garron's 7-yard touchdown run, to close to within 14-7, but that was as close as they would get. Lowe ran 58 yards for a touchdown, and it was 21-7 San Diego after a quarter.

George Blair of the Chargers and Gino Cappelletti of the Patriots traded field goals in the 2nd quarter. But the fact that the Chargers were able to score 24 points in the 1st half, none of them on touchdown passes, was telling. Before the half ended, Rote threw a 14-yard touchdown pass to Don Norton, and it was 31-10.

Rote threw a 48-yard touchdown pass to Alworth in the 3rd quarter, and was relieved by Hadl in the 4th. But this proved not to be a mercy move by Gillman: Hadl threw a 25-yard touchdown pass to Lincoln, and later scored on a sneak. Final score: Chargers 51, Patriots 10. It remained the most dominating performance in the AFL's 10-year history.

The Chargers reached the Championship Game again in 1964 and 1965, losing to the Bills both times. The Kansas City Chiefs won the AFL title in 1966 and 1969; the Raiders in 1967; and the New York Jets in 1968. Each of these teams had a "Mad Bomber" quarterback -- Jack Kemp, Len Dawson, Daryle Lamonica and Joe Namath, respectively -- but each also followed the Chargers in the other way, too: The philosophy that "Defense wins championships."

Charger fans, and aficionados of the old AFL, are convinced that the Chargers could have beaten the NFL Champion Chicago Bears had there been a Super Bowl at the time. They are wrong: The Bears had a defense unlike any the AFL had yet seen, including on the Chargers.

This is what a Chargers championship ring looks like.

But "World Champions"? No.

The Chargers appeared in 5 of the 10 AFL Championship Games; the Oilers, 4; the Bills and the Chiefs, 3 each; the Raiders, 2; the Patriots and the Jets, 1 each; and the Denver Broncos, and the expansion Miami Dolphins and Cincinnati Bengals, none.

But the Chargers got old, and by 1973, as mentioned by the sportswriter character Oscar Madison on the TV series The Odd Couple, they and the Oilers were the 2 worst teams in the NFL. Alworth got a Super Bowl ring, but it was with the 1971-72 Dallas Cowboys.

In 1974, the Chargers switched to dark blue jerseys and helmets. In 1978, they became one of a few teams that preferred to wear white jerseys at home, and it did look better. They went back to dark blue at home in 1984, occasionally wore powder blue as "throwback uniforms" for a few years, and in 2019, their 60th season, they began wearing powder blue as their regular home color. They have also gone back to the white helmets.

The Chargers reached the 1981 AFC Championship Game, but lost it to the Bengals. They reached the 1994 AFC Championship Game, and beat the Pittsburgh Steelers in a thriller, but got clobbered by the San Francisco 49ers in Super Bowl XXIX. They reached the 2007 AFC Championship Game, but lost to the Patriots, revenge finally achieved.

In 1966, Barron Hilton sold the Chargers to Gene Klein. In 1984, Klein, who loved football but hated the business of it, sold the team to Alex Spanos. In his memoir, First Down and a Billion, he closed every chapter with the words, "Thank you, Alex."

In 1967, the Chargers moved to San Diego Stadium, which was renamed Jack Murphy Stadium in 1981 and Qualcomm Stadium in 1997. Spanos handed control of the team over to his son Dean in 1993, and Dean Spanos, a member of a billionaire family, continually demanded that either the City of San Diego or the County of San Diego use taxpayer money to build him a new stadium. He threatened to move the team back to Los Angeles, or perhaps to another city, if he didn't get the stadium.

A ballot initiative only got 43 percent of the vote, and so Dean proved he wasn't bluffing, and moved the team back to its original home. San Diego fans were angry, but seem to value their integrity more than their football team.  

The 1963 Chargers remain the only major league sports team in San Diego that has gone as far as the rules of the time have allowed them to go. The San Diego Padres have won National League Pennants in 1984 and 1998, but lost the World Series each time.

The city lost the NBA's Rockets (1967-71) to Houston and the NBA's Clippers (1978-84) to Los Angeles. It's never had an NHL team or an MLS team. The ABA's Conquistadors and the WHA's Mariners each folded before their respective leagues did. And neither the WFL (1974-75) nor the USFL (1983-85) saw fit to put a team in what was already being called "America's Finest City," despite the Chargers being in decline on both occasions, with the Don Coryell "Air Coryell" teams being successful in between.

The San Diego Sockers won the Major Indoor Soccer League title 10 times in 11 seasons from 1982 to 1992, but, despite its name, the MISL could hardly be called major league. The old North American Soccer League could have been called that, but the Sockers never got past the Semifinals.

There has been speculation of a "curse" on San Diego sports. The most common one is that it is the result of letting Alworth go after the 1970 season, hence "The Curse of Bambi." What's more, the fact that the Chargers' title came before the advent of the Super Bowl means that it gets discounted: Even before the distance of time became what it is now, NFL fans have come to regard any title won before the Super Bowl, NFL or AFL, as not a "real" championship. And the fact that it came in the sad interregnum between the Kennedy assassination and the arrival of The Beatles is another reason it tends to get forgotten.

As for the Patriots, who changed their name to the New England Patriots when they moved to suburban Foxborough, Massachusetts in 1971, they didn't make the Playoffs again until 1976, didn't reach the Super Bowl until the 1985 season, and didn't win one until the 2001 season. After that, though, they were off to the races.

There are 14 surviving players from the 1964 AFL Champion San Diego Chargers: Lance Alworth, Ron Mix, Gerry McDougall, Paul Lowe, Dick Westmoreland, Dick Harris, George Blair, Bobby Jackson, Bud Whitehead, Don Rogers, Bobby Lane, Larry Park, Paul Maguire and Bob Petrich.