Cleveland Browns beat Baltimore Colts to win NFL championship on Dec. 27, 1964

Forty-eight years ago today the Cleveland Browns beat the Baltimore Colts, 27-0, to claim the NFL Championship, the last time a Cleveland team has won a championship in any of the major sports.

Charles Heaton was covering the game for The Plain Dealer, and wrote of the team's performance:

"The Browns are the National Football League champions after what well may be the best performance ever in the sparkling history of this football club.

"They stifled the Baltimore Colts, highest scoring team in the league this season, 27-0, before 79,544 on a windy, chilly afternoon at the stadium yesterday."

According to Pro-Football-Reference.com, the Browns finished the 1964 season with a record of 10-3-1 while Baltimore went 12-2. The Colts and Browns were ranked 1st and 2nd respectively in total points and were the only two teams in the league to tally 400 or more points.

Baltimore was led by Johnny Unitas, the AP and UPI Most Valuable Player and the Bert Bell Award winner for the Player of the Year, and Lenny Moore, the Newspaper Ent. Assoc. MVP.

The Browns were paced that season by Jim Brown's 1,446 rushing yards and Frank Ryan's 2,404 passing yards.

But, according to Heaton, it was the defense that won the day for the Browns:

"Despite the fact that he had a hand heavily encased in a cast, Galen Fiss played what must be the finest game of his career. The captain and linebacker from Kansas made tackles that rattled the teeth of fans in Row Z.

"And if there was any doubt about this defensive showing being a team effort it was dispelled in the jam-packed Cleveland dressing room. You'd congratulate Larry Benz and he'd mention Jim Houston. Houston would mention Ross Fichtner and Ross would mention Vince Costello.

"So it went right down the line."

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