Paul Brown’s place in NFL history keeps getting bigger, and the latest reminder comes from CBS Sports, which slotted the Bengals founder at No. 4 on its list of the top 20 head coaches the league has ever seen.
That puts Brown ahead of names like Don Shula and Chuck Noll, with only Bill Walsh, Vince Lombardi and Bill Belichick ranked above him.
Brown’s legacy stretches far beyond his years in Cincinnati. After building a legendary résumé at the high school level and at Ohio State, where he guided the Buckeyes to their first national title in 1942, he went on to produce one of the most dominant coaching runs the sport has ever seen with the Browns.
Bryan DeArdo noted that Brown’s Cleveland teams won seven championships over a 10-year span, powered by his partnership with quarterback Otto Graham. Graham helped lead the Browns to a championship game appearance in each of his 10 seasons in Cleveland.
Founded in 1946, the Browns won four straight championships in the All-American Football Conference before moving to the NFL in 1950, and the winning didn’t stop there. Cleveland captured NFL titles in 1950, 1954 and 1955, while also reaching the championship game in 1951, 1952 and 1953.
Brown’s influence wasn’t limited to the scoreboard. He’s widely credited as one of the game’s great innovators, with DeArdo pointing to his role in creating practice squads, the draw play and the modern facemask.
He was also the first coach to hire a staff of full-time assistants and the first to use game film to scout opponents. Brown is also credited with helping break pro football’s color barrier.
Not every part of his coaching style was universally embraced. His hands-on approach, including not allowing quarterbacks to audible at the line of scrimmage, didn’t sit well with everyone, especially Art Modell, who removed Brown from his job less than two years after taking over the Browns.
Even so, Brown’s football footprint is secure. He’s in the Bengals Ring of Honor and the Pro Football Hall of Fame, and now he’s been placed among the very best coaches the NFL has ever produced.
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Bengals Fans Have New Proof Who Dey Belongs Among The NFL's Best
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Who Dey has been around since 1981, with roots in local commercials and the old Riverfront Stadium scene, where beer vendor calls helped shape the sound that eventually stuck. The chant has also long been part of a back-and-forth with Saints fans over how similar it is to Who Dat and which one came first, which only makes any fresh ranking feel a little more like another round in a debate that never really goes away. [Read more 🡒]