Some would call Patriots coach Bill Belichick the greatest coach in NFL history, but Belichick does not believe he deserves that honor.
As part of the NFL’s unveiling of its 100th anniversary All-Time Team, Belichick said on an NFL Network that Paul Brown is the greatest coach in the history of the sport.
“He’s the greatest coach in the history of professional football, clear and simple. Everything I do today, Paul Brown did. It all started with Paul Brown. He took football from being a sport to a profession,” Belichick said.
Jim Brown, who was the first player named to the All-Time Team, was also part of the NFL Network program and recalled playing for Paul Brown.
“He was a genius. Every aspect of the game,” Jim Brown said. “I like great thinkers and he was as great as anyone I’ve run into.”
Paul Brown won a national championship at Ohio State and then took over the Cleveland Browns, a new franchise in the All-America Football Conference, in 1946. His Browns won the AAFC championship in each of the four years of that league’s existence, and after the AAFC folded the Browns joined the NFL and won the championship in their first year there as well. Brown would win two more NFL championships before leaving the Browns. He later founded the Cincinnati Bengals franchise and coached them for eight seasons.