12. Blanton Collier
Regular-season record: 76-34-2
Postseason record: 3-4
Cleveland Browns, 1963-1970
Collier didn’t face too much pressure when he replaced Paul Brown as Cleveland’s head coach in 1963. All he had to do was to replace the man who founded the team and perhaps the greatest coaching mind in NFL history after Brown had been forced out in a power struggle with owner Art Modell. No big deal, right? Not to Collier, who had served as Brown’s backfield coach from 1946 through 1953, and returned to the Browns in 1962 after an eight-year stint as the University of Kentucky’s head coach. Collier was less autocratic than Brown had been — he loosened the leash on everything from quarterback audibles to blocking schemes. That’s not to say he wasn’t an exacting football man; he designed the player-grading system Brown used for years.
Collier won the 1964 NFL championship with a 27-0 shellacking of the Baltimore Colts, but the biggest game eluded him once the Super Bowl came into existence. The Browns were the only team to beat the 1968 Colts in the regular season, but the Colts got their revenge with a 34-0 beatdown in the NFL Championship Game before losing to the Jets in Super Bowl III. Collier’s Browns made it back to the NFL title game the following season but were beaten by the Vikings. That was his last playoff game, as the 1970 Browns went 7-7, and Collier retired, citing hearing loss issues.