CANTON, Ohio (92.3 The Fan) – The Browns didn’t spend much time on the field of Tom Benson Hall of Fame Stadium Wednesday.
That was the point.
Wednesday’s trip to Canton for Day 2 of minicamp wasn’t so much about preparing for the upcoming season as it was a history lesson for the current group of Browns.
“[It’s] such an amazing venue with the history of football in our backyard,” Stefanski said following the 30-minute workout session.
“I think it is important honestly for all of us in any walk of life to know the people who walked that path before you. My job as the head coach of the Cleveland Browns is finite. I will not have this role forever. I know people have come before me. I know there will be people who come after me. Just trying to learn about the past, and respect the past, I think is just so important.”
On the way down I-77 the team watched the NFL Films production ‘A Football Life: Jim Brown’ which chronicled the spectacular career of arguably the greatest to ever play the game.
“I didn’t know he scored 43 points by himself,” rookie receiver David Bell said. “So that was pretty impressive. That was something I didn’t know before I got here. To see that and understand where this organization came from and what we want to be in the future is eye opening.”
Following their short workout, the team toured the Hall of Fame, gathered for lunch and viewed a presentation from former NFL receiver Keyshawn Johnson and writer Bob Glauber, authors of the book: ‘The Forgotten First,’ which chronicles the lives of four players – Browns Hall of Famers Bill Willis and Marion Motley as well as Kenny Washington and Woody Strode – who helped break football’s color barrier.
Players learned the ugly history that came with the four players integrating the NFL from vicious late hits during games to death threats.
Members of Willis’ and Motley’s families watched the current Browns work out and took pictures with players before joining them for the presentation by Johnson and Glauber.
“We have been spending some time as a team learning about that, what it means to be a Cleveland Brown and really the ethos of that,” Stefanski said. “I just think it is such an important franchise.”
The team bears the namesake of Hall of Fame coach Paul Brown, who helped to found the franchise in 1946.
Stefanski, some 60 years later, now walks in Brown’s footsteps.
“It is hard to think like that,” Stefanski said. “It is hard to let your mind go there because you have a job to do. You kind of would slow down if you thought about somebody like that who has come before you. Certainly, I am very respectful of the people who have been before me.”
Left guard Joel Bitonio, the longest tenured member of the team, appreciates Stefanski taking vital minicamp time to give his teammates a history lesson.
“You come here, and you've seen from '99 till now and the history is there, but it's not the same,” Bitonio said. “Then you kind of look back and it was like before the Super Bowl era, I mean 17 Hall of Famers, multiple championships, some of the best players to ever play the game, innovators, some of the best coaches to ever [coach] the game have come through here.”
When the Browns joined the NFL in 1950, they were a powerhouse under Brown having won four consecutive AAFC championships. They took the league by storm and won NFL titles in 1950, 1954, 1955 and 1964 and played in the NFL championship game nine times over a 16-year span.
“Understanding the history is always the most important thing because if you understand the history, you can strive for the future,” Bell said. “That’s what we’re trying to do right now. We always respect the people that played before us and give those people those flowers and those roses. We definitely want to play for them and continue to win for them on Sundays.”
Robbed of their original franchise in 1996, which has gone on to produce six Hall of Famers and win two Super Bowls in Baltimore as the Ravens, the post 1999 expansion Browns have been a spectacular flop and failure with just two playoff appearances in 23 seasons.
The Browns are one of four teams – the Texans, Jaguars and Lions are the others – to have never played in a Super Bowl and they are the only franchise to have never played in or at least hosted on Super Sunday.
No team has won fewer games since 1999 than the Browns have with just 120 regular season victories, but 32 of those have come over the last four years.
It’s an upward trend Bitonio hopes will continue and return them to prominence.
“There's such a history, and they kind of want to get back to that point,” Bitonio said. “It's pretty spectacular, the history of the team and Coach Stefanski has done a good job telling a lot of younger guys, and that's I think the reason we're here today – to see that and be a part of it. It's pretty amazing some of the stuff the organization has done over the years.”
Browns fans are some of the most loyal in professional sports. They fought to get their team back by taking the NFL to court before the league relented and agreed to return football to Cleveland. They’re also some of the most demanding, yet long suffering fans in sports.
“As soon as I came one of the guys in Indy told me. ‘Cleveland, there is no other fan base like Cleveland,’ and you’re thinking like, why or I’ll see when I get there and you realize it,” linebacker Anthony Walker said. “This is what this team stands for. The whole community is behind this team. They want greatness.”
Wednesday afternoon, Walker and his teammates got a glimpse of the greatness that once was the Browns and has been absent for recent generations of Clevelanders.
It was a lesson, and hopefully an inspiration too.
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