As training camp kicks off, my greatest concern is always injury. Talent, coaching, chemistry and all that do matter, but unfortunately it’s those tough breaks that constitute the single biggest variable affecting a team’s fortunes in any given year.
Partially related to this is the following list, which I’ll wager is as illustrious as any other team’s. All of these gentlemen were under contract with the Browns at one point or another, but they never played a single down for them in a regular season game.
- Y.A. Tittle — The LSU quarterback signed his first pro contract, $12,000 in all, with the Browns in 1947. But with Otto Graham firmly entrenched at the position, Paul Brown included him with tackle Ernie Blandin and halfback Mickey Mayne in the All America Conference’s “help the weak” effort to bolster the troubled Baltimore Colts. Thus began a stellar 17-year career that landed him in the Hall of Fame.
- “Cookie” Gilchrist — Conflicting accounts exist about how this talented high school fullback ended up in the Browns’ 1954 training camp, before he was eligible to join the league. Paul Brown implied in his autobiography that Gilchrist was never signed. Other sources say he was, but that the deal was invalidated. The colorful iconoclast furthered his legend with a tremendous career in Canada and with the Buffalo Bills of the American Football League.
- Dick LeBeau — Paul Brown drafted this OSU defensive back in the fifth round in 1959, but he didn’t make the Opening Day roster. He latched on in Detroit, where he spent his entire 14-year career. His 62 career interceptions are 37% more than Thom Darden’s Browns career record. LeBeau, now the Steelers’ defensive coordinator, was among several greats Brown cast off in his later Browns years, including Jim Marshall, Bobby Mitchell, Len Dawson, Doug Atkins, and Willie Davis.
- Ernie Davis — The Browns retired jersey #45 in honor of the Heisman winner whom Paul Brown traded Hall of Famer Bobby Mitchell to acquire. He was soon diagnosed with leukemia and passed away in 1963. Davis’ amazing life story will soon hit the silver screen.
- John Havlicek — A seventh-round pick in 1962, this Buckeye basketball star may never have gone on to his Hall of Fame career with the Boston Celtics had he make the final cut as a wide receiver.
- Sam Mills — The diminutive linebacker was an undrafted free agent in 1981, back when former linebacker Marty Schottenheimer ran the Browns defense. He just missed the cut, as the Browns kept another undersized rookie, Eddie Johnson, instead. Mills went on to enjoy a long and great career in the USFL and with the Saints and Panthers. Sadly, both he and Johnson became victims of colorectal cancer.
- Chris Spielman — The former Ohio State star made four Pro Bowls as a Lions linebacker. Following neck fusion surgery, he tried to resurrect his career just as the Browns returned from their three-year hiatus. Along with top draftee Tim Couch, Spielman was marketed as the face of the new franchise. But a blindside block by the Bears’ Casey Wiegmann in an exhibition game left him momentarily paralyzed, and his playing career ended then and there.
- LeCharles Bentley — Time will tell if this Pro Bowl center will ever return from a devastating patellar tendon injury later complicated by staph. But we do know that sometime after his hometown team inked him to a huge free agent contract in 2006, his relationship with the Browns became another casualty, so any comeback will have to take place in a different uniform. Though the Browns eventually settled on capable Hank Fraley to play center, the loss of Bentley was a primary reason that they regressed from 6-10 to 4-12 in Romeo Crennel’s second season.
For our team’s sake, let’s hope that none of the 35 players in Berea today who have yet to suit up in a Browns game will ever prove worthy of this list.
