Late Browns icon Jim Brown could have dominated in any era of NFL, former teammates say

When Jim Brown steamrolled his NFL opponents from 1957-65, the Browns icon did so with the physique of a running back who could dominate the modern-day game.

After Brown died Thursday at the age of 87, three of his former Browns teammates told the Beacon Journal in phone interviews he could have taken the league by storm in any era.

“There were a lot of big men in those days, but they didn't look like Jim and didn't play like Jim,” former Browns defensive end Paul Wiggin said Friday after Brown's wife, Monique, announced her husband's death.

“I don't know whether he lifted weights or not, but he sure looked like it,” former Browns guard Jim Ray Smith said.

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Brown's gifts were more than brawn, though, Pro Football Hall of Famer and former Browns wide receiver Paul Warfield said.

"The thing that I learned and appreciated from him most of all was his mental approach to the game," Warfield said. "He was a very scientific player and knew all of the top players, defenders and defensive fronts and what they attempted to do to stop him.

"He was totally prepared to react in ballgames. He was highly and intensely motivated to know every detail about his opponents and what their capabilities were, defensive opponents particularly.”

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Warfield remembers Brown stopping a drill to correct a scout-team defender during Browns practice because the player's impersonation of Washington linebacker Hall of Fame linebacker Sam Huff had been flawed.

"He says, 'When we show flow going from left to right, Sam Huff comes inside instead of outside. I want you to line up again, and we're going to run the play again. And I don't want you to go with the flow, which would be natural to go with the flow going from left to right. I want you to come inside as Sam Huff does all the time, because I want to see that, and I will react naturally to that in the course of the ballgame,'" Warfield said.

"Although he was this powerful runner who seemed unstoppable from a physical standpoint," Warfield added, "he was as sharpened and alert and knew exactly what he wanted to do and accomplish from the mental aspect of the game."

How big was Jim Brown when he played for the Cleveland Browns?

Wiggin explained he was 6 feet, 3 inches and 237 pounds when he played defensive end for the Browns from 1957-67. He was a two-time Pro Bowl selection.

“I'd be like a catching a minnow today. They'd throw me back in the pool,” said Wiggin, a senior player personnel consultant with the Minnesota Vikings.

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Smith said he was 6-3 and between 240-245 pounds when he played in the NFL from 1956-64, the first seven years with the Browns and the last two with the Dallas Cowboys. He made five Pro Bowls.

The online database pro-football-reference.com lists Brown as 6-2 and 232 pounds. Stories from the Beacon Journal's archives in the 1960s mention Brown being listed as 228 pounds. Wiggin said 232 was accurate, and Smith said Brown used to say his playing weight was 225. Warfield said Brown was "close to 230 pounds — it was all muscle."

Give or take a few pounds, you get the idea: Brown was almost as big as the linemen back then.

“That 232, there wasn't any fat on that,” Wiggin said. “He was a man. I'm telling you.”

He played as if he were a man among boys.

A member of the Pro Football Hall of Fame, Brown was a nine-time Pro Bowl and eight-time first-team All-Pro selection who claimed the Associated Press Most Valuable Player award three times (1957, 1958 and 1965) and helped the Browns win the NFL title in 1964.

Warren native Warfield began playing for the Browns in 1964 and made eight Pro Bowls in his 13 NFL seasons, eight with the Browns and five with the Miami Dolphins.

"When I played on that 1964 championship team, I was a rookie first-year player, and no one was interested in trying to stop Paul Warfield catching passes," Warfield, 80, said. "It was a great asset for me to be on that team because all the defensive units of the National Football League were keyed and cued and trained to stop one member of the Cleveland Browns offensive team, and that was Jim Brown. So it enabled me to do a lot of things successfully as a rookie."

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Despite appearing in just 118 regular-season games, Brown remains highly ranked among the NFL's all-time leaders in rushing average (third, 5.2 yards per carry), rushing touchdowns (sixth, 106 TDs) and rushing yards (11th, 12,312 yards).

An NFL lifer as a player, coach and personnel executive, Wiggin said he “wouldn't even hesitate” to call Brown a top-five player in NFL history.

“He was without question, in my opinion, the greatest running back that's ever played,” Wiggin, 88, said. “I played against some pretty good ones, but I'm thankful I didn't have to play against him.”

Warfield and Smith echoed the sentiment about Brown topping the all-time list of running backs.

Jim Brown highlights included many plays in which he would run over defenders

Memories of blocking for Brown felt fresh to Smith as he watched highlights of the powerful back on TV while speaking to the Beacon Journal.

“All you needed to do was give him a little crack in the line or a start, and I think he could take it from there,” Smith, 91, said. “He was quick, strong, good balance, which is great for all good runners and particularly his size.

“He was good at everything — running, running over people, hitting them straight on and bouncing off of them and keep going. In most cases, it would take two or three people to bring him down. And it wasn't like once a game. There were several times a game. So it wasn't unusual to see him do things that other people couldn't do.”

Brown entered the NFL when the Browns drafted him sixth overall out of Syracuse University. He retired at age 30 while clashing with late team owner Art Modell over his Hollywood acting career.

Wiggin said Brown was at his peak when he left the sport, and there would have been many more spectacular runs if he had continued to play beyond his ninth NFL season.

“I remember he had a 3-yard run one time that was the most dramatic run I think I've ever seen,” Wiggin said. “He was on the 3-yard line, and he beat down about five tacklers just with his arm, working and fighting his way to the goal line and scored. That was the kind of player he was.

“I had somebody ask me the other day, he said, 'I heard Jim Brown never ran out of bounds.' And I said, 'Well, I don't think anybody did back when I played, except when they were trying to stop the clock or something.' But Jim never did. Jim always fought for an inch more to win a football game. I think he's one of the great competitors I've ever been around.”

Wiggin, Smith and Warfield are convinced today's NFL players would have similar reviews of Brown if they could encounter him during his prime.

“He was definitely a force to be reckoned with," Warfield said, "and regardless of what opposing teams or opposing coaches did to try to thwart his performances, they were rarely successful in doing doing so.”

Nate Ulrich can be reached at nulrich@thebeaconjournal.com. On Twitter: @ByNateUlrich.

This article originally appeared on Akron Beacon Journal: Cleveland Browns' Jim Brown remembered as dominant by former teammates