RIP Jim Brown

[ladypanther]

 

 

[RJK]

Truly an inspirational human. What a life. Rest in power

[ladypanther]

Brown ran with a rare blend of power and speed in nine NFL seasons with the Cleveland Browns, eight of which he finished as the NFL’s leading rusher. He was listed at 6-foot-2 and 230 pounds and had a 32-inch waist during his playing days. He was bigger and faster than most of those charged with trying to tackle him, and he tended to run to — and through — collisions, rather than away from them.

In his 1989 autobiography, “Jim Brown: Out of Bounds,” Brown wrote, “The key in the NFL is to hit a man so hard, so often, he doesn’t want to play anymore.”

Brown generally dominated even though he was the focal point the defensive game plan in every game of his career. A three-time NFL MVP, Brown is the only running back in NFL history to average over 100 yards per game for his career. He finished his career with 12,312 rushing yards, an NFL record until Walter Payton broke it in 1984. He’s still the only player to have led the NFL in all-purpose yards five times.

“Jim Brown is a true icon of not just the Cleveland Browns but the entire NFL. He was certainly the greatest to ever put on a Browns uniform and arguably one of the greatest players in NFL history. Jim was one of the reasons the Browns have such a tremendous fan base today. So many people grew up watching him just dominate every time he stepped onto the football field but his countless accolades on the field only tell a small part of his story,” Browns owners Dee and Jimmy Haslam said in a statement.

“His commitment to making a positive impact for all of humanity off the field is what he should also be known for. In the time we’ve spent with Jim, especially when we first became a part of the Browns, we learned so much from him about the unifying force sports can be and how to use sport as a vehicle for change while making a positive impact in the community,” The Haslams said. “Jim broke down barriers just as he broke tackles. He fought for civil rights, brought athletes from all different sports together to use their platform for good. Many thought Jim retired from football too soon, but he always did it his way. ”

He walked away from football after the 1965 season, retiring at age 29 

Brown averaged 104.3 rushing yards per game in his career, still the most in NFL history by nearly 5 yards. Brown still has six of the seven most productive rushing seasons in Browns history. The Browns played 12 games a year in Brown’s first four years and 14 games in his last five. Despite that, no other Cleveland running back topped 1,300 yards in a season until Jamal Lewis did it in 2007.

Brown had a pair of 17-touchdown seasons rushing, in 1958 and again in 1965. During that 1958 season, Los Angeles Rams defensive tackle Glenn Holtzman told Sports Illustrated that tackling Brown was like tackling a locomotive. “Fast as the fastest, hard as the hardest,” Holtzman said. “He gets off to the quickest start of any big man I’ve ever seen.”

https://theathletic.com/4535558/2023/05/19/jim-brown-dead/

Heard earlier he averaged over 5 yds per carry.

Edited May 19, 2023 by ladypanther

[Cookie Lyon]

Very sad news. My condolences to his family and friends

[rayzor]

4 minutes ago, RJK said:

Truly an inspirational human. What a life. Rest in power

2nded

[NAS]

Brown would have been a legend even in today’s NFL. RIP

[kungfoodude]

4 minutes ago, NAS said:

Brown would have been a legend even in today’s NFL. RIP

There aren't too many athletes that could span multiple generations. I believe he is one that likely could have.

[Sgt Schultz]

3 minutes ago, kungfoodude said:

There aren't too many athletes that could span multiple generations. I believe he is one that likely could have.

I believe so, too.  I've been watching the NFL since 1969, and he could have been a force in every one of those years. 

RIP Jim Brown. 

[frankw]

His playing days were before my time but I remember him in movies growing up like The Running Man I'm Gonna Git You Sucka and Mars Attacks.

Legends live on in memories. RIP.

[GRWatcher]

I remember him in The Dirty Dozen but never did get to see him play. Have seen clips by the millions. A fully imposing figure. RIP.

[Ocpanthertew714]

RIP Legend 

will be watching Mars Attacks in your honor!!

 

[Stuart Smith]

It was a different era when Jim Brown played. Leroy Kelly, Lou Groza, Paul Warfield, Quarterback Frank Ryan. I am old enough to remember a few of the Browns games. Jim Brown is always the first name that comes to my mind when I hear conversations about great running backs. He was special. 

[T-Wazzle]

Never saw him play...but he's in one of my all-time favorite war films.

 

Edited May 19, 2023 by T-Wazzle

[ladypanther]

https://theathletic.com/2796576/2021/09/07/nfl-100-at-no-2-unstoppable-force-jim-brown-was-fast-as-the-fastest-hard-as-the-hardest/#:~:text=In the second,had it all.”

In the second quarter of a game in 1963, Jim Brown caught a screen pass from Frank Ryan. The fullback burst past Washington defensive back Jim Steffen, put a move on defensive back Johnny Sample, broke a tackle attempt by defensive back Dale Hackbart, spun away from cornerback Lonnie Sanders and linebacker Bob Pellegrini, and then ran away from defensive lineman Andy Stynchula and Hackbart for an 83-yard touchdown.

The play told us everything about Brown. He had the athleticism to make the catch, the steps as quick as fingers on a keyboard, the body control to leave a defender lunging at air, the violence to trample, the light-footedness to whirl out of trouble and the sixth gear to separate.

Which is to say, he lacked nothing.

“Guys that are extremely strong may not be as agile,” former Raiders running back Marcus Allen said in the documentary “Jim Brown: A Football Life.” “Some guys have all the speed in the world but may not have the balance. Jim had it all.”

His physique could have been carved in Florence, Italy, during the Renaissance. Befitting a player who was called a fullback but ran like a halfback, Brown was 6-foot-2, 230 pounds, with a 32-inch waist. With the ball in Brown’s hands, alleged tacklers looked like hobbits at his ankles.

Patriots coach Bill Belichick told Sports Illustrated that Brown moved as if he weighed 185 pounds. Legend has it in 1958, he ran a 4.5-second 40-yard dash wearing pads and starting from a three-point stance. Cleveland’s fastest player before Brown joined the team was Ray Renfro, who had run a 4.7 and weighed 40 pounds less than Brown.

The son of a professional boxer, Brown stood out in any sporting arena. In addition to being a Hall of Famer in football, he also was inducted into the National Lacrosse Hall of Fame. Brown excelled at the sport at Syracuse, as he did in basketball and track. The fifth time he tried golfing, he shot a 77.  So confident was he in his abilities that he proposed a boxing match against his friend Muhammad Ali when Ali was the 24-year-old heavyweight champion.

But in football, he separated himself from every other who played the game. In 1958, Rams defensive tackle Glenn Holtzman told Sports Illustrated that tackling Brown was like tackling a locomotive. “Fast as the fastest, hard as the hardest,” Holtzman said. “He gets off to the quickest start of any big man I’ve ever seen.”

In that 1963 game against Washington, Brown also had an 80-yard run and accounted for 262 scrimmage yards. He was voted first-team All-Pro that season — one of eight times he was so honored in his nine-year career. He made the Pro Bowl, as he did in every season he played. He also led the league in rushing as he did seven other times. His 1,863 yards in 1963 were the most in a season in NFL history up to that point.

But really, it was just another year for Brown, who won the NFL MVP award in three other seasons but was beaten out in 1963 by Giants quarterback Y.A.

“Keep in mind, third-and-8, third-and-9 was not a passing down in Cleveland,” Browns guard John Wooten said. “It was just a case of whether we were going to flip the ball to him, or throw a little flare pass.”

At the 1957 College All-Star Game, Browns great Otto Graham, serving as an assistant coach, told Brown, who had just been picked sixth in the draft, that he never would make it in the NFL. The comment probably made Brown more resolute, but he did not need extra motivation.

“I’ll tell you why I’m the way I am,” Brown said. “It doesn’t start on the field. It starts as a person. I was dealing with race since I was born. And in my inner self, my strength was unbending when it came to accepting that BS, racial discrimination. Because I was never going to let anybody make me feel like I was not top-shelf. And that was the battle that raged. And I could use a lot of that on the field.”

Brown attended mostly white Manhasset High School in Long Island, N.Y.

“Race was always an issue everywhere, and I was the only African-American on the team,” he said. “That was very difficult based upon the racial attitudes of some people.”

The NFL Brown played in was primarily White, and Black players dealt with segregation issues when traveling. His coach Paul Brown separated the Black players from White in the team cafeteria. In interviews with sportswriters, Brown often steered the conversation to racism and civil rights. In 1966, he created the ***** Industrial Economic Union to help Black-owned businesses, and 22 years later started Amer-I-Can, a program to guide gang members.

Brown’s forceful will was evident in everything thing he did.

“He probably has the spirit of a 350-pound man,” Wooten said in the documentary “Jim Brown: All-American.” “And sometimes Jim would just make up his mind. He would not go down.”

Brown refused to drink water during games because he believed it would make him feel satisfied and diminish his drive. He never missed a game in his career. Len Dawson, who played with him for two years, said he never even saw Brown in the training room.

“He stayed away because he didn’t want people to think he was weak, and he would just fight through pain,” Dawson said, according to “Jim Brown: The Fierce Life of an American Hero.” “I mean, he never got his ankles taped.”

When it came to pain, Brown undoubtedly gave more than he got. Lions defensive end Bill Glass said getting blasted with Brown’s forearm was like getting hit with a lead pipe.

“Some of the biggest, toughest guys in the NFL got pretty scared when they saw Jim swinging that arm of his,” Glass said. “Jim Brown could knock you senseless.”

Hall of Fame coach George Allen said because Brown was stronger and more determined than his opponents, he wore them down. In his 1989 autobiography, “Jim Brown: Out of Bounds,” Brown wrote, “The key in the NFL is to hit a man so hard, so often, he doesn’t want to play anymore.”

Brown sneered at runners who were averse to contact. Eighteen years after he retired, Brown threatened to make a comeback at the age of 47 because Franco Harris was nearing his career yardage total, a record at the time. Brown thought Harris, who frequently ran out of bounds, was an unworthy successor as rushing king.

“A fullback running out of bounds is like a Hell’s Angel driving a Rabbit,” Brown wrote. “Bogie smoking a Swisher Sweet. It just isn’t right.”

Brown probably would have dominated if he relied strictly on brute force. But he also was a thinking man’s runner. He spent hours before every game visualizing where each run would take him and how he would counter every defender’s move. Wooten spoke of Brown’s “great analytical knowledge” and said Brown watched film with the offense and told blockers how to align on plays.

“He is incredibly perceptive about running the football,” said Belichick, who enlisted Brown’s help when he was coaching the Browns. “Tremendous understanding of how to beat defenders, how to attack their leverage to give them a two-way go. He has great insight into what a runner sees, and he could explain it in very simple terms. Here is the tackler, here is your leverage point.”

Brown may have been a little too perceptive for the good of his first coach, the legendary Paul Brown. When Paul Brown’s offense became stale and predictable in the early 1960s, Jim Brown sought to change the team, just as he sought to change race relations. Jim Brown led a player movement that led to Paul Brown’s firing. New coach Blanton Collier and assistant Dub Jones sought Jim Brown’s input on the playbook. As Brown had wished, they subsequently relied more on sweeps, option blocks and passes to the fullback.

In Collier’s second season, Cleveland won its only championship during Brown’s career.

“I felt … potent,” Brown wrote in “Out of Bounds.” “Sentimental. Grateful. Whole. My goddamn melon hurt from smiling. I also felt intense relief. Unless he wins a championship, even a superstar is never fully accepted.”

When Brown was filming “The Dirty Dozen” in London in the summer of 1966, Browns owner Art Modell told the press he would fine Brown heavily if he did not report to camp on time. It was enough to push Brown to walk away when he still could have run for who knows how many thousands of yards.

One of a kind.