Detroit Lions

Vs.

Buffalo Bills

August 30, 1968

Browns Score 22-12 Victory Over Buffalo

BUFFALO (AP)- Leroy Kelly and Charley Harraway ripped apart the Buffalo Bills' line in the fourth period Friday night and propelled the Cleveland Browns to a 22-12 exhibition victory.
 

With the Browns trailing, 12-10, in the fourth period, Kelly and Harraway teamed to move the ball 80 yards in 14 plays to put Cleveland ahead as Harraway bulled the last yard for the touchdown.
 

Kelly ground out 147 yards in 20 carries against 103 yards in 23 carries for Anderson.

Extra: Reminiscing from the Professional Football Research Association:

Browns met first AFL foe in 1968
By Steve King, Associate Editor
December 10, 2004

And something dramatic did indeed happen in the Browns' preseason game on Aug. 30, 1968, which will forever make it memorable. For the first time ever, the Browns played a team from the American Football League, in this case Buffalo at War Memorial Stadium, the Bills' former home.

It was the Browns' first contest of any kind outside the NFL since they joined the league in 1950. Their last game against a non-NFL opponent had been 19 years before, on Dec. 11, 1949 when they beat the San Francisco 49ers 21-7 in the fourth - and final - championship game of the All-America Conference. The league disbanded after that game and the Browns, 49ers and Baltimore Colts moved to the NFL.

Ironically, the Browns' next-to-last game in the AAFC was against the original Buffalo Bills franchise. The Browns beat the Bills 31-21 in a 1949 playoff game at old Cleveland Stadium to advance to the title game.

The Bills would fold after that season and a new Bills franchise would emerge in 1960 with the creation of the AFL. It is the same franchise the Browns will face Sunday at Ralph Wilson Stadium in Orchard Park.

These first NFL-AFL preseason games were part of the merger of the two leagues that began in 1966 with the first Super Bowl. Regular-season play between the two leagues would start in 1970 as the AFL ceased to exist and all clubs became members of the NFL in either the National or American conferences.

In the interim, teams from the AFL and NFL began playing each other as more or less of a get-acquainted experience. In that regard, the Bills got a head start on the Browns, facing the Detroit Lions twice, splitting contests in 1967 and '68, before meeting Cleveland.

But because of preseason contractual obligations with NFL teams, the Browns weren't freed up to play anybody from the AFL until they went to Buffalo for the next-to-last preseason game in 1968.

Why the Bills? Because geographical rivalries were encouraged for these games, and Buffalo was the nearest AFL club to Cleveland. The Pittsburgh Steelers, for instance, played the AFL's Cincinnati Bengals in 1968 and '69.

These games were a big deal - a very big deal - at the time. League pride was at stake for both the AFL and NFL. The AFL was trying to shed its image as an inferior league, an effort that was made more difficult by the results of the first two Super Bowls, or NFL-AFL Championship Games, as they were officially called then. The Green Bay Packers had throttled the AFL representatives in those contests, beating the Kansas City Chiefs 35-10 and then the Oakland Raiders 33-14.

That all would change, of course - and the rivalry would really heat up - after the New York Jets stunned the Colts 16-7 in Super Bowl III in January 1969.

"That Super Bowl really opened things up between the two leagues," recalled Ernie Kellermann, a defensive back with the Browns at the time.

"But I never thought the AFL teams were inferior in the first place. They had good players over there. They were in the same mold that the players in the NFL were cast out of. Plus the people owning the teams had the monetary backing that was needed. So it was a good league."

Kellermann found out first hand several years just how good some of the former AFL teams really were. When he was cut by the Browns right before the start of the 1972 season, he eventually signed with the Browns' AFC Central rivals then, the Cincinnati Bengals. He went on to play the final 11 games of 1973 with the Bills. This was the same season when offensive guard Joe DeLamielleure, later a Brown, was a rookie and O.J. Simpson broke the NFL single-year rushing mark. Both players, of course, are in the Pro Football Hall of Fame now.

But that was the early 1970s. In the meantime, in the late '60s when many NFL people didn't have Kellermann's favorable view of the other league, these preseason games were the only thing available for the AFL clubs to prove themselves.

That was definitely the intent of the Bills - and the Browns as well, for that matter - when they met on a warm late summer Friday evening at the stadium where the baseball movie "The Natural" would be filmed years later.

And the fans realized the significance of the event. The game was televised back to Cleveland and, as has always been the case for Browns TV contests, drew a big audience. It was a huge hit in Buffalo as well. A crowd of 45,448 crammed its way into cozy War Memorial Stadium. It was the sixth-biggest home crowd in Bills history at the time - preseason or regular season - would be larger than any regular-season home gathering Buffalo would have in 1968.

Adding to the attractiveness of the game was the fact the Browns and Bills were among the top the teams in their respective leagues at the time. The Browns had won the 1964 NFL crown, returned to the title game in '65 and made the playoffs in '67.

Although the Bills had missed the postseason in 1967, they had gone to the AFL title game in each of the previous three seasons, winning back-to-back championships in 1964 an '65. So in 1964, both the Bills and Browns were kings of the pro football world. If there had been a Super Bowl then, they would have met.

There were some interesting names in the game. The Browns had three eventual Hall of Famers in running back Leroy Kelly, wide receiver Paul Warfield, who was also drafted by the Bills, and place kicker Lou Groza. Groza would retire in a couple of weeks and give way to Don Cockroft.

Other remnants of the Browns' 1964 title team included right guard Gene Hickerson, left tackle Dick Schafrath, running back Ernie Green (who did not play), wide receiver Gary Collins, defensive tackle Jim Kanicki and quarterback Frank Ryan, who would lose his job to Bill Nelsen early in the season.

In addition, backup quarterback Gary Lane, now deceased, would go on to became an NFL referee. He was also drafted by the Bills but opted to go to Cleveland.

For Buffalo, the left guard was Billy Shaw, who would go on to be the second Bill (behind O.J. Simpson) in the HOF. The right guard was Bob Kalsu, who would be killed two years later while fighting in Vietnam, a tragedy so important that it would make the cover of Sports Illustrated.

Coming off the bench in the game for Buffalo were two linebackers you may have heard of. Marty Schottenheimer later coached the Browns, of course, and will lead the San Diegio Chargers into Cleveland next Sunday. Interestingly enough, his coach in Buffalo in 1968, Joe Collier, was the assistant head coach in charge of the defense for the 1986 and '87 Denver teams that squeaked past Cleveland in the AFC title game.

The other Bills linebacker? Youngstown native Paul Maguire. Also the team's punter, he is now one of the analysts on ESPN's telecasts of Sunday night NFL games. He worked the Browns-Baltimore contest a month ago and will do the Browns-Miami Dolphins game the day after Christmas. He has also done preseason TV work for the Browns in the past.

The Browns ended up winning 22-12, but they had to come from behind to do it. Kelly's six-yard touchdown run gave the Browns a 7-0 first-quarter lead, but the Bills went up 12-7 by midway through the third quarter on two Mike Mercer field goals of 23 and 42 yards and a one-yard TD run by Ben Gregory.

The Browns, though, then got three unanswered scores to secure the victory. Cockroft kicked a 40-yard field goal in the third quarter, and there were two fourth-quarter TDs on a one-yard run by Charlie Harraway and an eight-yard pass from Ryan to Warfield.

Yes, this game was so important - even though it was just in the preseason - that starters from both teams pretty much played throughout.

Another, maybe even more interesting aspect to the contest was that no extra-point kicks were allowed. To get a single conversion point, teams had to run or pass the ball into the end zone. Ryan's scramble after the first TD represented the only successful extra-point try by either team in the game. Ryan threw incomplete on the next two attempts.

With the defeat, the Bills finished their preseason a so-so 2-2-1. The regular season was a whole lot worse, however. They were 1-12-1 - one of only two one-win seasons in team history - and came in last (fifth) place in the AFL East. Collier never got to see the end of the season. He was fired part of the way through it and replaced by Harvey Johnson on an interim basis.

The win evened the Browns' preseason record at 2-2, but they would then lose their finale 31-9 to the Packers in the annual double-header game at Cleveland. But that didn't keep the Browns from having a successful regular season.

After a 2-3 start, they won eight in a row en route to capturing the Century Division title with a 10-4 record. They then beat Dallas 31-20 in the Eastern Conference title game and went on to lose to the Colts 34-0 in the NFL Championship Game.

In two more years, the Browns would begin getting used to a steady diet of former AFL clubs when they joined with the Steelers and Colts to move from the NFL to the AFC to balance the number of teams in each conference at 13.

But in 1968, it was downright weird watching the Browns and Bills - or any team from the AFL - on the same field.

Scoring Summary

First Quarter

CLE-Kelly 6 run (Ryan run)

Second Quarter

BUF- FG Mercer 23

BUF- FG Mercer 42

Third Quarter

BUF- Gregory 1 run (run failed)

CLE- FG Cockroft 40

Fourth Quarter

CLE- Haraway 1 run (pass failed)

CLE- Warfield 8 yard pass from Ryan (pass failed)

Att- 45,448

RETURN