A lot has happened, a lot has changed, in the 61 years since the Browns beat the Colts, 27-0, on Dec. 27, 1964, for their most recent NFL championship. For example: • The population of the United States five days after the Browns were crowned champions was approximately 194,068,000. Now the popula tion is 348 million. • The first Super Bowl was played after the 1966 season. The Packers of the NFL beat the Chiefs of the AFL, 35-10. Only 14 teams were in the NFL — seven in the Eastern Conference and seven in the Western Conference — when the Browns upset the Colts. • Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated April 4, 1968. Robert F. Kennedy was assassinated June 6, 1968. • Blanton Collier was the second head coach in franchise history when the Browns won the 1964 championship. He retired after the 1970 season. The Browns have had 16 full-time coaches (interims not included) since then. Kevin Stefanski is the Browns’ 10th head coach since their return to the NFL as an expansion team in 1999. • The tuition for in-state residents at Ohio State University in the 1964-65 school year was approximately $450. Tuition at OSU for 2025-26 is approximately $13,600. • Collier had five assistant coaches in 1964.The Browns finished 10-3-1. They led the NFL with 415 points scored in a 14-game season. Stefanski has 18 assistant coaches. • Neil Armstrong became the first human to walk on the moon when Apollo 11 landed on June 11, 1969. The U.S. made five other moon landings between 1969-72. • Major League Baseball had 10 teams in the American League and 10 in the National League in 1964. There were no playoffs leading up to the World Series. The Cardinals beat the Yankees in seven games. All seven games were played in the afternoon. Nighttime World Series games began in 1971. • The 1964 NFL championship was played in the days before television networks controlled telecasts. The game was televised nationally by CBS, but fans in Cleveland old enough to remember recall bitterly that Browns owner Art Modell made the decision it would be blacked out on television within a 70-mile radius of Cleveland, even though the game was declared a sellout two days before kickoff. Modell was concerned fans would stay home if they could watch it on TV even if they had tickets. Fans had to drive to Toledo or Erie, Pa. to watch the game, or get up on their roof to point their TV antenna toward one of those cities. A crowd of 79,544 packed old Cleveland Stadium to watch history. • Mobile phones have replaced rotary phones that were in virtually every home in 1964. … Flat screen TVs have replaced bulky televisions with picture tubes. … Laptops and tablets have made manual typewriters obsolete. • There was no Ring of Honor in old Cleveland Stadium. Every player in the Ring of Honor at Huntington Bank Field is in the Pro Football Hall of Fame with the exception of Clay Matthews, who played linebacker for the Browns from 1978-1993. Collier, who passed away in 1983 at age 76, should be in the Ring of Honor. He was an assistant under Paul Brown from 1946-53 and helped the Browns win five championships in that span. He was 76-34-2 as Browns’ head coach from 1963-70. He never was part of a losing season with the Browns, either as an assistant or as a head coach. Gary Collins should be in the Ring of Honor, too. He caught three touchdown passes from Frank Ryan in the 1964 championship game, but he was much more than a one-game wonder. He caught 331 passes for 5,299 yards and 70 touchdowns playing for the Browns from 1962-71. His 70 touchdown catches is a franchise record that has stood for 54 years and likely will never be broken. Only Don Cockroft (188) punted in more games than the 127 in which Collins punted. Jim Brown hurdles in for a touchdown from the one-yard line in the first quarter against the Cardinals on Sept. 20, 1964. Among the Cardinal defenders are Jimmy Hill (41), Sam Silas (72) and Ken Gray (64). On the bottom of the heap is Gene Hickerson (66). (Associated Press file) • The smell of leaves burning was common, and comforting, in Ohio in the 1960s and before that, but the autumn ritual was banned in most Ohio communities by 1973 for environmental reasons. • NFL rosters increased from 37 to 40 in 1964 and 47 in 1974. Teams have carried 53-man rosters since 1993. • The Cleveland Barons were AHL champions nine times. They celebrated their last Calder Cup championship in the spring of 1964, about eight months before the Browns won their most recent championship. • Have you ever waited at a train crossing and as it passed wondered, “Why isn’t a caboose at the end anymore?” You might have to be 50 years old or so to even contemplate that question. Cabooses on freight trains became obsolete in the mid-1980s because technology replaced the jobs the conductor and brakeman performed from the caboose. This comes from the website trains.com: “Advances in technology meant that the jobs of the conductor and brakeman in the caboose were obsolete. Roller-bearing trucks started replacing solid-bearing trucks at the end of World War II, drastically reducing the threat of hotboxes. Wayside detectors, such as hotbox and dragging equipment detectors, were placed throughout the system, eliminating the need for eyes in the back of the train.” • Cleveland had two major sports teams — the Indians and Browns — when the Browns won their last championship. The Cavaliers were an NBA expansion team in the 1970-71 season. Cleveland Browns left end Paul Warfield (42) makes a ten yard gain after receiving pass from quarterback Frank Ryan before surrounded and downed by Dallas Cowboys Dave Edwards (52), Jerry Tubbs (50) and Jim Ridlon (42), in first quarter of their game in Dallas on Oct. 18, 1964. (AP Photo/Fred Kaufman) ...read more read less