Review of "Paul Brown's Ghost"

Having heard of jinxes and curses for sports teams, this book sounded interesting in two ways.  Not only does this affect two teams instead of one, there is a ghost behind the suffering of the Cleveland Browns and Cincinnati Bengals.  Here is my review of "Paul Brown's Ghost."

Title/Author:

“Paul Brown’s Ghost: How the Cleveland Browns and Cincinnati Bengals Are Haunted by the Man Who Created Them” by Jonathan Knight 

Tags:

Football (American), history, Browns, Bengals

Publish date:

October 2, 2018

Length:
208 pages

Rating: 

5 of 5 stars (outstanding)

 

Review:
Paul Brown is one of the most revered figures in professional football history.  He was responsible for creating two professional teams. First came the Cleveland Browns, who were named after Brown, in 1944, playing in the All-American Football Conference and later joining the National Football League (NFL).  Brown also was the man who got the Cincinnati Bengals up and running in the American Football League (AFL) in 1968.  They too joined the NFL when they and the AFL merged in 1970. As part of the merger, the Browns and Bengals were placed in the same division and that started an intrastate rivalry that has had its share of unusual moments and history.

 

So it is only fitting that when Brown died in 1991, his spirit would haunt both franchises, never allowing them to see much success. That is the premise of this book by author Jonathan Knight, who has written ten books on Cleveland sports and makes a solid case that both teams have been haunted (or cursed, jinxed, whatever the reader wants to call it) by Brown with events both on and off the field.  Knight makes a connection between Brown with most events that have occurred since them with the two teams – mostly negative.

While Knight’s experience may be with Cleveland teams, he doesn’t shortchange the Bengals in this book, giving both teams an equal amount of space and doesn’t show favoritism toward one or the other throughout the book.  Indeed, Knight writes about the Bengals with equally good knowledge and detail that he does about the Browns.  He adds plenty of humor in the book throughout as well, especially with his similes of something that happened between the two franchises. One of the examples that is laugh-out-loud material is when the Bengals hired Forest Gregg as its coach after he was fired by the Browns. Given the rivalry between the teams, Knight compared the hiring to dating the girl your brother had dumped. 

 

The book’s structure starts with Brown’s death, then follows the teams from that time through the 2017 season as well as providing historical information and descriptions of their seasons as well as their matchups.  These games were often played with one of the teams trying to get into the playoffs whereas the other one was out of the running and wanted to spoil the hopes of their cross-state rival.  Of note, the last time both teams made the playoffs was 1988, the year that Knight states the rivalry was at his best. His writing about that season was excellent, but the best story was when the first Browns team left after the 1995 season - not only for the description of Art Modell’s sneaking behind Cleveland’s back to negotiate with Baltimore, but also the Bengals’ role in the move as well too. 

 

While certainly fans of the two teams will want to read this book, they will probably be familiar with a lot of the material presented.  What makes this book an excellent one is that readers who are not fans of the teams will learn much about their history and rivalry without getting bogged down with too much detail – instead the most entertaining aspects of their histories and rivalry is highlighted and for that reason, any professional football fan will want to read this.

 

I wish to thank Sports Publishing for providing a copy of the book in exchange for an honest review.

 

Book Format Read:
Hardcover

Buying Links:

https://www.amazon.com/Paul-Browns-Ghost-Cleveland-Cincinnati/dp/1683582446/ref=tmm_hrd_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=&sr=