The 1974 Cleveland Browns season was the team's 29th season, and 25th season with the National Football League.
The 1974 Browns were only the second Browns team to post a losing record in the 29-year history of the franchise to that point.
The Browns finished 4âÂÂ10. All the players who had led the Browns success through the 1960s and the early part of the 1970s either had retired or were ready to do so. Since the Browns had been picking at the tail end of the draft for so long, they had little in the way of reinforcements to step into those stars' shoes.
With the exception of the Denver Broncos, who had a modest 7âÂÂ6âÂÂ1 record, none of the teams the Browns defeated in 1974 finished above .500. The Browns topped the Broncos 23âÂÂ21 by scoring two unanswered touchdowns at the end of the game behind a backup third year quarterback by the name of Brian Sipe, out of San Diego State, who the Browns drafted in the thirteenth round of the 1972 draft, and had been on the team's taxi squad during his first two seasons with the team. That would be Cleveland's last win vs. Denver until 1990.
They beat the 7âÂÂ7 Houston Oilers 20âÂÂ7, the 7âÂÂ7 New England Patriots 21âÂÂ14 and the 6âÂÂ8 San Francisco 49ers 7âÂÂ0 in a tundra-like setting after one of the worst snowstorms in Northeast Ohio history.
Otherwise, it was not good. The Browns offense could not score enough points behind the direction of quarterback Mike Phipps, taken with the No. 3 overall pick in the 1970 NFL Draft that was acquired when the club dealt HOF wide receiver Paul Warfield to the Miami Dolphins. And the defense had trouble stopping people. The Browns got off to a 1âÂÂ5 start, getting humbled 33âÂÂ7 by the Cincinnati Bengals inâÂÂby farâÂÂthe most lopsided opening-day loss in franchise history to that pointâÂÂand losing by 22 points (29âÂÂ7) to the St. Louis Cardinals and by 16 (40âÂÂ24) to the Oakland Raiders. They also were thumped by 24 (41âÂÂ17) by the Dallas Cowboys in the next-to-last game of the season.
But pride is a hard thing to totally extinguish. The Browns players left from those great teams still had it, and despite the lack of overall talent on the club, it helped them to stay close in some other games.
They gave the eventual Super Bowl champion Steelers all they could handle in both meetings, losing 20âÂÂ16 and 26âÂÂ16, lost by 10 points (34âÂÂ24) in the rematch with the Bengals, fell by five (15âÂÂ10) to the 9âÂÂ5 Buffalo Bills, lost 36âÂÂ35 to the San Diego Chargers when Sipe fumbled the snap as the club was positioning the ball in the middle of the field for Don Cockroft to kick a game-winning field goal on the final play, and were beaten by four (28âÂÂ24) in the rematch with the Oilers in the season finale.
On the season as a whole, the Browns started games well and ended them well, being outscored just 62âÂÂ61 in the first quarter and outscoring their foes 73âÂÂ63 in the fourth. But in the middle two quarters combined, they were out-done by a whopping 219âÂÂ117 count, and therein lies most of the reason why they gave up 344 points, the most in team history to that time.
The following were selected in the 1974 NFL draft.