Best NFL Players of All Time: Otto Graham. Ranking the Top Players in History. Place a bet on an NFL football game now.

Best NFL Players of All Time: Otto Graham

The unbarred leather helmet. Photographers had arranged the jumping-pass postures. Otto Graham couldn’t have participated in the same game as Peyton Manning, Johnny Unitas, and Joe Montana, could he?

In the 1940s and 1950s, pro football did not have the same trappings that it does now. Going to a Sunday afternoon game wasn’t a big deal. The fact that players could play for money did not make them heroes. No, they were merely carrying out their duties.

Graham performed admirably in his role as the Cleveland Browns‘ quarterback. Graham led the Browns to the title game each year for the ten years he played quarterback. Of those championship games, they won seven.

The Browns would prevail when Graham took the field as quarterback. The Waukegan, Illinois, native and Northwestern University alumnus found a way to win football games, whether they were blowouts or close contests. Sort the best quarterbacks in the game according to their victory % by stacking them. On top of them all is Graham, who recorded a record of 105–17–4 during his ten years in Cleveland.

Today’s game differs from Graham’s time in terms of statistics. Nowadays, it’s considered normal for quarterbacks to complete 62–67 percent of their passes. That wasn’t always the case, though. Until the late 1970s, a quarterback was considered to be among the best in the league if he completed fifty percent or more of his passes. Graham was much superior to that. His lowest stats came in 1952 when he finished with the Browns, of which four were in the All-America Football Conference.

49.7% of the passes he made. For Graham, though, it wasn’t exactly a bad year. With 20 touchdowns and 24 interceptions, he completed 181 of 364 passes for a career-high 2,816 yards and the NFL championship, which the Browns lost to the Detroit Lions.

For Graham, the following year was genuinely extraordinary. His completion percentage was 64.7, having completed 167 out of 258 passes for 2,722 yards. In the past, such precision was unheard of—think Bob Beamon’s 29-foot-2½-inch broad leap at the 1968 Mexico City Olympics. (Beamon’s record remained intact for 23 years until Mike Powell eventually beat it in 1991.)

In 1953, no other starting quarterback completed more than 54% of his passes. The Browns won 11-0 thanks to 11 touchdowns from Graham’s passing and 6 more from his running. The following year, they made Detroit pay by defeating Detroit 56–10 in the championship game, despite losing to the Lions 17–16 once more in that game.

Graham’s teammates were aware of their exceptional play. Bill Willis, a Hall of Fame defensive lineman who played with Graham for the Browns from 1946 to 1953, said of Graham, “I remember Otto as a truly great quarterback and a truly great leader.” “On the football field, he was a real general. Every guy looked up to him. No one spoke in the huddle without his approval.

In addition to being a superb footballer, he was an exceptional human being. Even though he had such great qualities, he never really boasted about them. In the dressing area, he struck up a conversation. He had no fun on the field. When the game was close, he was the player you wanted in the huddle.

Paul Brown, Graham’s coach, was the one who valued him the most. Tough and exacting, Brown received more from Graham than he could have ever imagined. “A quarterback’s true test is how well his team performs,” Brown stated. “Otto was the best of them all by that standard.”

Together, Brown and Graham created one of the most fruitful coach-player partnerships in sports history. After winning four straight titles, going undefeated in 1948, and shattering all attendance records in the league, the Browns’ dominance over the AAFC made it impossible for the NFL to ignore them. Before the 1950 season began, the Browns and two other AAFC teams—the Baltimore Colts and San Francisco 49ers—joined the NFL. Knowing a good promotion when he saw one, NFL Commissioner Bert Bell scheduled the Browns’ opening game of the season against the Philadelphia Eagles, the two-time defending NFL champions.

Football fans around the nation were looking forward to it, believing that the formidable Eagles would dominate the allegedly weaker Browns. Rather, Graham and the Browns humiliated the NFL and the Eagles with a 35-10 blowout by using their superior abilities.

Graham remarked, “That was the game I remember the most.” “We would have played them for a keg of beer or a chocolate milkshake, we were so red up.”

It was an incredible victory that gave the Browns and the other two AAFC teams that entered the NFL legitimacy. At the end of the season, Graham and the Browns would also serve as the performance’s bookends. They tied the New York Giants for the American Conference title with a 10-2 regular season record. They went on to defeat the Giants 8-3 in a single-game playoff, and then defeated the Los Angeles Rams 30–28 in the NFL championship game. The victory over the Rams featured four touchdown throws from Graham.

Graham only averaged 10 yards or more per attempt in three seasons, but his remarkable ability to lead his club into the title game ten consecutive years will always be his legacy. However, quarterback Sid Luckman made it twice; greats Benny Friedman, Bob Watereld, and Y.A. Tittle never did; Norm Van Brocklin made it twice; and Sammy Baugh never did. Graham is one of those quarterbacks who is in the Hall of Fame.

Throughout his career, Graham never missed a game due to injury, but a hit to the face during a 1953 game left him with a terrible cut inside his mouth that needed

15 stitches to finish. He then made history by being the first player to don a facemask on their helmet. As creative off the field as he was brilliant on it, Graham will go down as the greatest winner in the history of the game.

Best NFL Players of All Time: Otto Graham Stats

Regular Season

Year	Age	Tm	Pos	No.	G	GS	QBrec	Cmp	Att	Cmp%	Yds	TD	TD%	Int	Int%	Lng	Y/A	AY/A	Y/C	Y/G	Rate	Sk	Yds	Sk%	NY/A	ANY/A	4QC	GWD
1946	25	CLE	QB	60	14	9		95	174	54.6	1834	17	9.8	5	2.9	79	10.5	11.2	19.3	131	112.1
1947+	26	CLE	QB	60	14	9		163	269	60.6	2753	25	9.3	11	4.1	99	10.2	10.3	16.9	196.6	109.2	19	195	6.6	8.88	8.9	1	0
1948+	27	CLE	QB	60	14	14		173	333	52	2713	25	7.5	15	4.5	78	8.1	7.6	15.7	193.8	85.6	25	212	7	6.99	6.5
1949+	28	CLE	QB	60	12	11		161	285	56.5	2785	19	6.7	10	3.5	74	9.8	9.5	17.3	232.1	97.5	31	251	9.8	8.02	7.8	2	2
1950*	29	CLE	QB	60	12	12	36801	137	253	54.2	1943	14	5.5	20	7.9	80	7.7	5.2	14.2	161.9	64.7		291				2	2
1951*+	30	CLE	QB	60	12	12	36831	147	265	55.5	2205	17	6.4	16	6	81	8.3	6.9	15	183.8	79.2		371				1	1
1952*	31	CLE	QB	14	12	12	36742	181	364	49.7	2816	20	5.5	24	6.6	68	7.7	5.9	15.6	234.7	66.6		242				1	1
1953*+	32	CLE	QB	14	12	11	36800	167	258	64.7	2722	11	4.3	9	3.5	70	10.6	9.8	16.3	226.8	99.7		245				2	2
1954*+	33	CLE	QB	14	12	12	36772	142	240	59.2	2092	11	4.6	17	7.1	64	8.7	6.4	14.7	174.3	73.5		197
1955+	34	CLE	QB	14	12	12	37136	98	185	53	1721	15	8.1	8	4.3	61	9.3	9	17.6	143.4	94		241				3	2
Career					126	114	57-13-1	1464	2626	55.8	23584	174	6.6	135	5.1	99	9	8	16.1	187.2	86.6	75	2245	2.8	7.9	6.94	12	10

Playoffs

Year	Age	Tm	Pos	G	GS	QBrec	Cmp	Att	Cmp%	Yds	TD	TD%	Int	Int%	Lng	Y/A	AY/A	Y/C	Y/G	Rate	Sk	Yds	Sk%	NY/A	ANY/A	4QC	GWD
1946	25	CLE	QB	1	1	36526	16	27	59.3	213	1	3.7	1	3.7	23	7.9	7	13.3	213	81.2	2	23	6.9	6.55	5.69	1	1
1947+	26	CLE	QB	1	1	36526	14	21	66.7	112	0	0	0	0	35	5.3	5.3	8	112	79.9	2	25	8.7	3.78	3.78
1948+	27	CLE	QB	1	1	36526	11	24	45.8	118	1	4.2	1	4.2	19	4.9	3.9	10.7	118	57.3	1	9	4	4.36	3.36
1949+	28	CLE	QB	2	2	36557	29	60	48.3	454	2	3.3	2	3.3	37	7.6	6.7	15.7	227	71.1	7	43	10.4	6.13	5.39
1950*	29	CLE	QB	2	2	36557	25	41	61	341	4	9.8	2	4.9	39	8.3	8.1	13.6	170.5	99.7		55				1	2
1951*+	30	CLE	QB	1	1	0-1	19	40	47.5	280	1	2.5	3	7.5	26	7	4.1	14.7	280	47.9		47
1952*	31	CLE	QB	1	1	0-1	20	35	57.1	191	0	0	1	2.9	32	5.5	4.2	9.6	191	60.5		34
1953*+	32	CLE	QB	1	1	0-1	2	15	13.3	20	0	0	2	13	13	1.3	-4.7	10	20	0		16
1954*+	33	CLE	QB	1	1	36526	9	12	75	163	3	25	2	17	45	13.6	11.1	18.1	163	116.7		0
1955+	34	CLE	QB	1	1	36526	14	25	56	209	2	8	3	12	50	8.4	4.6	14.9	209	70.7		7
Career				12	12	45538	159	300	53	2101	14	4.7	17	5.7	50	7	5.4	13.2	175.1	67.4	12	259	8.3	5.53	4.84	2	3

 

 

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