A look back: 1948 championship team

11.29.2009

Maybe the most amazing thing about the Browns' 1948 season is not necessarily that they went undefeated at 15-0, winning their third straight All-America Football Conference championship.

Rather, it's what happened 61 years ago this week -- Thanksgiving week -- as the Browns completed an eight-day stretch in which they won three games.

Yes, the 1948 Browns won three games in just an eight-day span.

Now, much is made every year about the Lions, who have hosted Thanksgiving Day games since 1934, and the Cowboys, who have done the same since 1966 when they met -- and beat -- the Browns, having a quick turnaround to get ready for those contests. That's the case again this year. Last Sunday, the Lions, of course, edged the Browns 38-37, while the Cowboys squeaked past the Washington Redskins 7-6. So instead of having a week to get ready for their next game, as is normally the case for NFL teams, Detroit and Dallas had just three days to prepare.

While that's tough -- football is indeed a rough game, and the body needs time to heal -- what the Lions and Cowboys are doing again this year is nothing -- absolutely nothing -- compared to what those Browns of long ago did. Not only did the Browns go through the express lane of all express lane pro football schedules, but they had to do it against three of their biggest rivals at the time, the New York Yankees, Los Angeles Dons and San Francisco 49ers.

It all started on Sunday, Nov. 21, when the Browns, then 10-0, went to New York and beat the Yankees 34-21. Then, they traveled all the way across the country to the West Coast and ran past the host Dons 31-14 four days later, on Thanksgiving Day.

Staying out there after that game, the Browns ended their trek by heading up to San Francisco three days later and edging the 49ers 31-28.

Three games, all on the road, in eight days, on opposite coasts against tough competition.

The Yankees had been edged 14-9 by the Browns in the first AAFC Championship Game in 1946, then fell 14-3 in the title contest a year later. In the 1946 regular season, the Yanks lost just 7-0 to the Browns, and in '47, they fell by nine points and then tied the Browns 28-28. That stalemate was one of just two blemishes on the Browns' 29-game unbeaten string from midway through 1947 to midway through '49 during which they went 27-0-2.

The Dons defeated the Browns in both 1946 and '47, winning 17-16 the first year, handing Cleveland one of just two losses it suffered in 15 games that season, and then getting a 13-10 decision at Cleveland the second year, the Browns' only loss in 15 contests again.

Then in the 1948 opener, the Dons gave the Browns one of the toughest battles they would have that year, coming up just short 19-14.

As for the 49ers, in 1946, they beat the Browns 34-20 and lost to them 14-7. In 1947, San Francisco lost again 14-7.

And in 1948 the week before the Browns started their Thanksgiving odyssey, the 49ers fell 14-7 once more to the Browns. To prove those games were no fluke, the 49ers in 1949 handed the Browns one of their worst losses ever, 56-28.

In addition, it should be noted that when the Browns finished their three-games-in-eight-days span, they didn't get to stay at home to finish the 1948 regular season. Instead, they had to go back to the East Coast to play the Brooklyn Dodgers, winning 31-21.

Mercifully, the Browns' title-game matchup with the Bills, which they won in a breeze, 49-7, was played at Cleveland.

So when the TV announcers on Thursday made a big deal about the way the teams have to man up and play two games in five days, the few remaining members of the 1948 Browns probably enjoyed a good laugh.

The clubs playing on Thanksgiving this year will then not play again for 10 days. The Browns played again in three days after their Thanksgiving game.

Quite a feat.

So, then, the Browns' 1948 season was perfect in more ways than one.