Jim Brown piled up yards, but didn’t budge an inch

A few days before Super Bowl X in 1976, some of the NFL’s biggest stars mingled at a private party at a Miami nightclub. Chuck Foreman, then a formidable running back with the Minnesota Vikings, recalled standing shoulder to shoulder with some of the biggest stars at the position at the time, including Walter Payton and OJ Simpson.

Then he sat down with Jim Brown, the best running back of them all, who had left the Cleveland Browns a decade earlier. Foreman, who rolled over linebackers and cornerbacks for a living, remembered being intimidated. He grew up idolizing Brown, not just for his prowess on the field, but for his willingness to fight for civil rights and to walk away from the game at the peak of his abilities.

“Growing up, there was Jim Brown, Jim Brown, and Jim Brown,” says Foreman, now 72. “He was taller than most linemen and faster than most wide receivers. But he also left on his own terms, especially in that time, as an outspoken black man.

Foreman, like many others, called him Mr. Brown. But as they talked, the youngster’s fears vanished running. Brown complimented Foreman’s style of play and his success with the Vikings. Then he gave Foreman some advice that has stuck ever since.

“Know when to get down,” Foreman told Brown. “‘Don’t jeopardize your career more than two inches.'”

Brown, Foreman said, not only told him to run smart, he told him to think about his future and not sacrifice his body unnecessarily.

While he didn’t say it, Brown, who died on Friday aged 87, could also have talked about life outside of football. In a game with a 100 percent injury rate, few NFL players leave because they want to. Most end up with injuries that never heal and are taken out of the game once their usefulness to coaches is gone. Those who quit when they want to often do so because teams are no longer interested.

Brown was the opposite. He left the NFL after the 1965 season, his ninth in the league and one of his best. He ran for 1,544 yards and 17 rushing touchdowns, and caught 34 passes, four of them for scores. He was voted the league’s Most Valuable Player for the first time since his second season.

His rushing records – most notably his 12,312 yards on the ground – were eventually broken by Payton, Barry Sanders, Emmitt Smith and others. But Brown’s career only lasted nine years, and he played in the era of 14-game seasons, not 16 or 17, and when chop blocks and other dangerous tackles were allowed. Are 104.3 rushing yards per game average still stands as a league record.

Then he ran away and chose to pursue a Hollywood career making movies and earning more money than he did in Cleveland. His breaking point came when he was filming ‘The Dirty Dozen’. Brown told Art Modell, the team’s owner, that he would be late for training camp. Modell said he would fine Brown for every day he missed camp. Offended, Brown called a press conference to announce he was leaving the NFL

At that point, Brown had accomplished more in football than many in much longer careers, including winning a league title in 1964, three MVP awards, and holding the NFL’s record. But only a handful topped it. John Elway and Peyton Manning won the Super Bowls in their final seasons, but both were past their prime. Sanders retired from the Detroit Lions when he was only 30, but only won one playoff game.

Brown, on the other hand, was something of a Mount Rushmore figure, a running back man of stature who helped redefine the power an athlete could have on and off the field by requiring owners and coaches to show players—particularly black players – treat them with respect.

“You can argue that Wilt Chamberlain was his own man in basketball, but Jim Brown would have been the first pro football player in modern times to have that kind of presence and influence,” said Michael MacCambridge, the author of “America’s Game: The Epic Story”. of how professional football conquered a nation.” “It was clear that Jim Brown was a different generation of players with a different mindset.”

Players who came after him knew about that difference.

“There isn’t a man who played running back in the NFL that didn’t see Jim Brown as an iconic legend on and off the field,” said Tony Dorsett, one of 10 running backs to have surpassed Brown’s total rushing yards. wrote on Twitter.

“You can’t underestimate #JimBrown’s impact on the @NFL,” Sanders also wrote on Twitter.

As exceptional as he was on the field, Brown was far from a perfect human being. He was arrested more than six times, including on multiple charges of violence against women. He has never been convicted of a major crime.

But when it came to the sport that made him famous, Brown had few peers. Ernie Accorsi, the Browns general manager from 1985 to 1992, was in high school when he saw Brown play in person against the Baltimore Colts in 1959. five touchdowns and 178 yards to beat the defending champion and for Accorsi it felt like watching Babe Ruth in his prime.

Years later, Accorsi worked in the Colts’ front office alongside Dick Szymanski, who had been Baltimore’s middle linebacker in that game in 1959. Szymanski told Accorsi that Weeb Ewbank, the Colts’ head coach at the time, advised that Brown his plays: When Brown got into the mud with his right hand, he ran to the right, and vice versa.

Brown was still running over Szymanski, and in the locker room after the game, Ewbank told Szymanski not to think what Brown’s hasty totals would have been if he hadn’t tipped Szymanski.

“Coach, I knew exactly where he was going, but I couldn’t grab or grab him,” Szymanski replied.

In Brown’s illustrious career, few could.