{"id":1166618,"date":"2020-05-12T18:36:59","date_gmt":"2020-05-12T22:36:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sports7.us\/?p=1166618"},"modified":"2020-05-12T18:37:00","modified_gmt":"2020-05-12T22:37:00","slug":"why-did-jim-brown-shock-the-nfl-and-retire-so-early","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sports7.us\/news\/why-did-jim-brown-shock-the-nfl-and-retire-so-early\/","title":{"rendered":"Why Did Jim Brown Shock the NFL and Retire so Early?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/sports7.us\/art-modells-toilet-andre-agassis-ponytail-head-list-of-wacky-sports-auction-items\/\">Art Modell<\/a> did what just about no NFL defense was able to do in 118 games over nine seasons: He shut down <a href=\"https:\/\/sports7.us\/what-is-jim-browns-net-worth\/\">Jim Brown<\/a>. The Cleveland Browns owner tried pressuring the superstar running back into putting his movie career on hold and ended up pushing Brown into retirement.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Jim Brown was the best in the business<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed-youtube wp-block-embed is-type-video is-provider-youtube wp-embed-aspect-16-9 wp-has-aspect-ratio\"><div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Jim Brown: More racism now than ever\" width=\"640\" height=\"360\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/cPj5M-QVmnk?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe>\n<\/div><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>Jim\nBrown retired after the 1965 season as the NFL\u2019s career leader in rushing yards\nand would probably still be No. 1 today had he not abandoned his career at the\nage of 29. He started in the NFL in the era of 12-game regular seasons and averaged\n1,617 yards a year over the last three seasons back when NFL teams played 14\ngames.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Still, Brown rolled up 12,312 yards \u2013 at an average of 5.2 yards a carry &#8212; and 106 touchdowns on the ground to go with 262 catches and 20 scores on receptions. Dallas Cowboys great <a href=\"https:\/\/sports7.us\/what-happened-to-cowboys-star-emmitt-smith-after-retiring-from-the-nfl\/\">Emmitt Smith<\/a> played nearly twice as many games as Brown en route to setting the current NFL record of 18,355 yards on the ground.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Brown\u2019s\npro accomplishments came after a scholastic career on Long Island as a\nmulti-sport star and then double duty at Syracuse University, where his feats\non the field earned him induction into the College Football Hall of Fame and\nthe U.S. Lacrosse Hall of Fame. He was inducted into the Pro Football Hall of\nFame in Canton, Ohio, in 1971.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>He\nwas selected the greatest football player by The Sporting News in 2002 and the\ngreatest college football player ever by ESPN earlier this year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Jim Brown was a two-career man<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed-youtube wp-block-embed is-type-video is-provider-youtube wp-embed-aspect-16-9 wp-has-aspect-ratio\"><div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Jim Brown criticizes Colin Kaepernick - Shannon on why he&#039;s &#039;terribly  disappointed&#039; | UNDISPUTED\" width=\"640\" height=\"360\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/JTIUIBhNIbM?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe>\n<\/div><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>The\nacting bug bit Jim Brown near the end of his football career and led to his retirement.\nBrown\u2019s first Hollywood role came in 1964 when he played a cavalry soldier in a\nWestern called <em>Rio Conchos<\/em>. The running back was working on his second\nmovie in 1966 when his difficulties with Cleveland Browns owner Art Modell\nbegan. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Brown had been signed for a role as one of the 12 convicts recruited to go to France in World War II to assassinate Nazi officers ahead of the allied forces\u2019 landing at Normandy. However, bad weather in England put filming for <em>The Dirty Dozen<\/em> behind schedule and <a href=\"https:\/\/dawgpounddaily.com\/2015\/07\/13\/cleveland-browns-jim-brown\/\">kept him from arriving home<\/a> at the start of football training camp. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Brown\u2019s\nabsence frustrated Modell, whose Browns were coming off an 11-3 season and a\nloss in the NFL championship game one year after winning the title. He threatened\nto fine Brown for each week the star player missed, prompting the running back\nto announce his retirement.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow\"><p>&#8220;I may have acted hastily (with Brown) in 1966. If I had told him to just forget training camp and show up when he could, I think he would have returned. But it wasn't fair to the coaches and players.&#8221;<\/p><cite> Cleveland Browns owner Art Modell <\/cite><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n<p>Fortunately for Modell, Leroy Kelly\nstepped in at running back and rattled off three consecutive 1,00-yard seasons,\naveraging 14 touchdowns a year. However, the Browns have not been back to a\nleague championship game since Brown\u2019s final season.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">The movie career blossomed<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed-youtube wp-block-embed is-type-video is-provider-youtube wp-embed-aspect-16-9 wp-has-aspect-ratio\"><div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Classic Tailback - Jim Brown Syracuse Highlights\" width=\"640\" height=\"360\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/CqG2I310Yjc?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe>\n<\/div><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p><em>The\nDirty Dozen<\/em>\nwas a commercial success and helped Brown land the lead in <em>The Split<\/em>, a\n1969 movie that earned him a $125,000 paycheck \u2013 twice what he was making each\nseason toward the end of his Cleveland Browns career. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>More\nstarring roles followed, including <em>100 Rifles<\/em> with Burt Reynolds and\nRaquel Welch in 1969. He had nearly 20 more roles to his credit within a decade,\nfollowed by a steady stream of television roles. His most recent movie\nappearance came in <em>Draft Day<\/em> with Kevin Costner in 2014.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Jim Brown was just 29 years old when he retired from the Cleveland Browns as the NFL's career rushing leader.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":140,"featured_media":1166625,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[4930],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v22.3 (Yoast SEO v22.9) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Why Did Jim Brown Shock the NFL and Retire so Early? - Sports7<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Jim Brown was just 29 years old when he retired from the Cleveland Browns as the NFL&#039;s career rushing leader.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/sports7.us\/news\/why-did-jim-brown-shock-the-nfl-and-retire-so-early\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Why Did Jim Brown Shock the NFL and Retire so Early?\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Jim Brown was just 29 years old when he retired from the Cleveland Browns as the NFL&#039;s career rushing leader.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/sports7.us\/news\/why-did-jim-brown-shock-the-nfl-and-retire-so-early\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Sports7\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2020-05-12T22:36:59+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2020-05-12T22:37:00+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/sports7.us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/05\/Jim-Brown-Cleveland-Browns.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"1024\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"683\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"John Moriello\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:creator\" content=\"@Sports7J\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"John Moriello\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"3 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/sports7.us\/news\/why-did-jim-brown-shock-the-nfl-and-retire-so-early\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/sports7.us\/news\/why-did-jim-brown-shock-the-nfl-and-retire-so-early\/\",\"name\":\"Why Did Jim Brown Shock the NFL and Retire so Early? 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A graduate of St. John Fisher University, he finds inspiration in the underdogs and the fascinating stories sports can tell (both the thrill of victory and the agony of defeat). John expertly covers all aspects of NASCAR. Beginning with his 2014 coverage at Fox Sports of the aftermath of the dirt-race tragedy in which Kevin Ward Jr. died after being struck by a car driven by NASCAR Hall of Famer Tony Stewart, John has excelled as a journalist who specializes in the motorsports world. He previously spent more than three decades covering high school sports and worked as a beat writer covering Big East football and basketball, but NASCAR is now where the true expertise falls. John is a member of the New York State Basketball Hall of Fame (2013), the President of the New York State Sportswriters Association, and a two-time Best of Gannett winner for print and online collaborations whose work has appeared on FoxSports.com and MaxPreps.com.\",\"sameAs\":[\"\",\"Sports7J\",\"john-moriello-1a11743\",\"\",\"\"],\"jobTitle\":\"John Moriello | Sports7 Staff Writer, Producer - Motorsports\",\"email\":\"\"}]}<\/script>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO Premium plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Why Did Jim Brown Shock the NFL and Retire so Early? - Sports7","description":"Jim Brown was just 29 years old when he retired from the Cleveland Browns as the NFL's career rushing leader.","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/sports7.us\/news\/why-did-jim-brown-shock-the-nfl-and-retire-so-early\/","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Why Did Jim Brown Shock the NFL and Retire so Early?","og_description":"Jim Brown was just 29 years old when he retired from the Cleveland Browns as the NFL's career rushing leader.","og_url":"https:\/\/sports7.us\/news\/why-did-jim-brown-shock-the-nfl-and-retire-so-early\/","og_site_name":"Sports7","article_published_time":"2020-05-12T22:36:59+00:00","article_modified_time":"2020-05-12T22:37:00+00:00","og_image":[{"width":1024,"height":683,"url":"https:\/\/sports7.us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/05\/Jim-Brown-Cleveland-Browns.jpg","type":"image\/jpeg"}],"author":"John Moriello","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","twitter_creator":"@Sports7J","twitter_misc":{"Written by":"John Moriello","Est. reading time":"3 minutes"},"schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/sports7.us\/news\/why-did-jim-brown-shock-the-nfl-and-retire-so-early\/","url":"https:\/\/sports7.us\/news\/why-did-jim-brown-shock-the-nfl-and-retire-so-early\/","name":"Why Did Jim Brown Shock the NFL and Retire so Early? - Sports7","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/sports7.us\/#website"},"primaryImageOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/sports7.us\/news\/why-did-jim-brown-shock-the-nfl-and-retire-so-early\/#primaryimage"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/sports7.us\/news\/why-did-jim-brown-shock-the-nfl-and-retire-so-early\/#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"https:\/\/sports7.us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/05\/Jim-Brown-Cleveland-Browns.jpg","datePublished":"2020-05-12T22:36:59+00:00","dateModified":"2020-05-12T22:37:00+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/sports7.us\/#\/schema\/person\/625c659832a23452683545602e055cac"},"description":"Jim Brown was just 29 years old when he retired from the Cleveland Browns as the NFL's career rushing leader.","breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/sports7.us\/news\/why-did-jim-brown-shock-the-nfl-and-retire-so-early\/#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/sports7.us\/news\/why-did-jim-brown-shock-the-nfl-and-retire-so-early\/"]}]},{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/sports7.us\/news\/why-did-jim-brown-shock-the-nfl-and-retire-so-early\/#primaryimage","url":"https:\/\/sports7.us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/05\/Jim-Brown-Cleveland-Browns.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/sports7.us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/05\/Jim-Brown-Cleveland-Browns.jpg","width":1024,"height":683,"caption":"Jim Brown retired from the NFL before his 30th birthday. | Focus on Sport via Getty Images"},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/sports7.us\/news\/why-did-jim-brown-shock-the-nfl-and-retire-so-early\/#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/sports7.us\/"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Why Did Jim Brown Shock the NFL and Retire so Early?"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/sports7.us\/#website","url":"https:\/\/sports7.us\/","name":"Sports7","description":"","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/sports7.us\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":"required name=search_term_string"}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/sports7.us\/#\/schema\/person\/625c659832a23452683545602e055cac","url":"https:\/\/sports7.us\/author\/john-moriello\/","name":"John Moriello","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/sports7.us\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/sports7.us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/06\/John-Moriello-96x96.jpeg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/sports7.us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/06\/John-Moriello-96x96.jpeg","caption":"John Moriello"},"description":"John Moriello started covering sports in 1982, began digital publishing in 1995, and joined Sports7 in 2020. A graduate of St. John Fisher University, he finds inspiration in the underdogs and the fascinating stories sports can tell (both the thrill of victory and the agony of defeat). John expertly covers all aspects of NASCAR. Beginning with his 2014 coverage at Fox Sports of the aftermath of the dirt-race tragedy in which Kevin Ward Jr. died after being struck by a car driven by NASCAR Hall of Famer Tony Stewart, John has excelled as a journalist who specializes in the motorsports world. He previously spent more than three decades covering high school sports and worked as a beat writer covering Big East football and basketball, but NASCAR is now where the true expertise falls. 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