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| Players look on as Cleveland Placekicker Lou Groza secures the game for his team with a 16-yard field goal with 28 seconds remaining in regulation. | |||||||||||||||||||
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| Date | December 24, 1950 | ||||||||||||||||||
| Stadium | Cleveland Stadium | ||||||||||||||||||
| Location | Cleveland, Ohio | ||||||||||||||||||
| Referee | Ronald Gibbs | ||||||||||||||||||
| Attendance | 29,175 | ||||||||||||||||||
| Network | ABC | ||||||||||||||||||
| Announcers | Harry Wismer, Red Grange | ||||||||||||||||||
The 1950 NFL Championship Game was the 18th National Football League (NFL) championship game, held on December 24 at Cleveland Stadium in Cleveland, Ohio.
The Cleveland Browns defeated the Los Angeles Rams 30-28.
Background[]
Before the 1950 season, the NFL added three teams from the All-America Football Conference (AAFC), a competing league that went out of business as part of a peace deal negotiated in 1949. After the addition of the Cleveland Browns, Baltimore Colts, and San Francisco 49ers, the NFL reorganized its Eastern and Western divisional structure into the American and National conferences. The Browns were placed in the American Conference with a group of teams mostly from the old Eastern Division, while the 49ers and Colts went into the National Conference with teams from the old Western Division. Under NFL rules at the time, the teams with the best records in each conference after the 12-game regular season were to play each other in the NFL championship to determine the winner of the league.
The 1950 season ended with ties for first place in both the American and National conferences, forcing two playoff games for spots in the championship. The Browns tied with the New York Giants for the best record in the American Conference, while the Los Angeles Rams and Chicago Bears tied atop the National Conference. It was the first time in league history that both of the NFL's conferences (or divisions) ended in a tie for first place. The Browns defeated the Giants 8–3 in their playoff, and the Rams beat the Bears 24–20 to set up a Rams-Browns championship.
Cleveland Browns[]
The Browns had been the AAFC's most dominant team, winning all four of its championships between its founding in 1946 and 1949 under head coach Paul Brown. The team, however, was seen by some NFL owners and sportswriters as merely the best squad in an inferior league. NFL commissioner Bert Bell scheduled a matchup between the Browns and the two-time defending champion Philadelphia Eagles in the first game of the season, played a day before the league's other games. A crowd of 71,237 people saw the game, an attendance record in Philadelphia and the ninth-largest in professional football history at the time. After Cleveland won the game, NFL commissioner Bert Bell named Browns quarterback Otto Graham the game's most valuable player and gave him a trophy, calling the Browns "the greatest team to ever play the game".
Cleveland lost for the first time in the third week of the season against the Giants. That was followed by victories over the Chicago Cardinals and Pittsburgh Steelers, but Cleveland lost again to the Giants in the sixth week of the season. The team proceeded to win all of its remaining games, however, thanks in large part to an offense led by Graham, fullback Marion Motley, ends Mac Speedie and Dante Lavelli, and tackle/placekicker Lou Groza. Cleveland's offense was fourth in the NFL in scoring, with 310 points. The defense, meanwhile, finished second in points allowed, with 144. Cleveland played all of its games against American Conference opponents, aside from two matchups against the other former AAFC teams, the Colts and the 49ers.
Cleveland's record was 10–2 at the end of the regular season, leaving the team tied with the Giants and forcing a playoff to determine the conference winner. The Browns won a coin toss to determine home-field advantage. The game, played in cold weather at Cleveland Stadium, was a low-scoring affair that the Browns won 8–3 on a pair of Groza field goals and a safety.
Los Angeles Rams[]
The Rams began the season with a loss to the Chicago Bears. Victories over the New York Yanks and 49ers followed, but the team fell to 2–2 with a loss to the Eagles in the fourth week of the season. Los Angeles then went on a six-game winning streak that included a 70–27 blowout of the Colts and a 65–24 win over the Detroit Lions. The Rams lost the second-to-last game of the season, again against the Bears, and finished with a 9–3 record. That tied the Rams with the Bears atop the National Conference, forcing a playoff that Los Angeles won, 24-14, setting up a championship matchup with the Browns in Cleveland.
The Rams, who left Cleveland after the 1945 season for Los Angeles, were making their second straight appearance in an NFL title game. The Rams had one of the most potent offenses in NFL history in 1950 under head coach Joe Stydahar. It featured Bob Waterfield and Norm Van Brocklin at quarterback, Tom Fears and Bob Boyd at end, and Elroy Hirsch at halfback.
The Rams averaged 309 passing yards per game, a record that stood until 1984. The team's running unit, led by Dick Hoerner, Vitamin Smith, and Dan Towler, averaged more than 140 yards a game. Los Angeles averaged 38.8 points per game in 1950, an NFL record that still stood as of 2018. Los Angeles ended the regular season first in the NFL in points scored, with 466. The team was ninth of 13 teams in points allowed, however, with 309.