The 1950 NFL Championship Game was the 18th National Football League (NFL) title game, played on Sunday, December 24 at Cleveland Stadium in Cleveland, Ohio.
In their first NFL season after four years in the rival All-America Football Conference, the Cleveland Browns defeated the Los Angeles Rams, 30–28. The championship was the first of three won by Cleveland in the 1950s under head coach Paul Brown behind an offense that featured quarterback Otto Graham, fullback Marion Motley, and ends Dante Lavelli and Mac Speedie.
Cleveland began the season with a win against the Philadelphia Eagles, who had won the previous two NFL championships. The Browns won all but two of their regular-season games, both losses coming against the New York Giants. Cleveland ended the season with a 10–2 win–loss record, tied with the Giants for first place in the American Conference, forcing a playoff that the Browns won, 8–3.
Los Angeles, meanwhile, finished the season 9–3, tied with the Chicago Bears for first place in the National Conference, forcing a playoff that the Rams won 24-14.
Thus, the Championship Game would see the Browns play host to the Rams with the Browns being four-point favorites.
The game began with a long touchdown pass from Rams quarterback Bob Waterfield to halfback Glenn Davis on the first play from scrimmage, giving Los Angeles an early lead. Cleveland tied the game later in the first quarter with a touchdown from Graham to Dub Jones, but the Rams quickly went ahead again on a Dick Hoerner touchdown run. Cleveland scored two unanswered touchdowns in the second and third quarters, retaking a 20–14 lead. A pair of Rams touchdowns in the third quarter, however, gave Los Angeles a two-possession advantage going into the final period. Cleveland responded with a diving touchdown catch by Rex Bumgardner in the final minutes of the game, followed by a field goal by placekicker Lou Groza with 28 seconds left to win, 30–28.
Lavelli set a then championship-game record with 11 receptions, and Waterfield's 82-yard pass to Davis on the first play of the game was then the longest scoring play in championship history. Los Angeles had 407 total yards to Cleveland's 373, but Cleveland had five interceptions, compared to just one for the Rams. The Browns' Warren Lahr had two interceptions in the game.
After the game, NFL Commissioner Bert Bell called the Cleveland Browns "the greatest team ever to play football".
Background
Before the season, the NFL added three teams from the All-America Football Conference (AAFC), a competing league that went out of business as part of a peace deal negotiated in 1949. After the addition of the Cleveland Browns, Baltimore Colts, and San Francisco 49ers, the NFL reorganized its Eastern and Western divisional structure into the American and National conferences. The Browns were placed in the American Conference with a group of teams mostly from the old Eastern Division, while the 49ers and Colts went into the National Conference with teams from the old Western Division. Under NFL rules at the time, the teams with the best records in each conference after the 12-game regular season were to play each other in the NFL championship to determine the winner of the league.
The 1950 season ended with ties for first place in both the American and National conferences, forcing two playoff games for spots in the championship. The Browns tied with the New York Giants for the best record in the American Conference, while the Los Angeles Rams and Chicago Bears tied atop the National Conference. It was the first time in league history that both of the NFL's conferences (or divisions) ended in a tie for first place. The Browns defeated the Giants 8–3 in their playoff, and the Rams beat the Bears 24–20 to set up a Rams-Browns championship.
Cleveland Browns
The Browns had been the AAFC's most dominant team, winning all four of its championships between its founding in 1946 and 1949 under head coach Paul Brown. The team, however, was seen by some NFL owners and sportswriters as merely the best squad in an inferior league. NFL commissioner Bert Bell scheduled a matchup between the Browns and the two-time defending champion Philadelphia Eagles in the first game of the season, played a day before the league's other games. A crowd of 71,237 people saw the game, an attendance record in Philadelphia and the ninth-largest in professional football history at the time. After Cleveland won the game, NFL commissioner Bert Bell named Browns quarterback Otto Graham the game's most valuable player and gave him a trophy, calling the Browns "the greatest team to ever play the game".