In 1960, Cleveland’s Milt Plum was the most efficient passer in the NFL. He arguably outshined teammate and running back Jim Brown, who was in his prime and finished as the leader in rushing yards while averaging 5.8 yards per carry. Cleveland led the NFL in points scored, and Plum finished with a passer rating of 110, more than 10 points higher than any player achieved in the decade of the ’50s. In three games against the Steelers, Eagles, and Cardinals, he went 37-for-51 for 791 yards with 5 TDs and 0 interceptions! Cleveland was probably the best team in the NFL in 1960 due to the presence of Plum, Jim Brown, Bobby Mitchell, and Ray Renfro on offense, but the Browns had a 1-3-1 record in one-score games. As a result, the team’s 8-3-1 record left them as the runner up to the Philadelphia Eagles for the 1960 NFL East division crown. Philadelphia was a great team, of course, too, but the team’s 10-2 record was boosted by a 5-1 mark in games decided by a touchdown or less, including a last-second win over Cleveland that changed the season:

With time running down, the Eagles took over at their 10 yard line. Van Brocklin passed to Retzlaff for 27 yards and then McDonald for 12 to just short of midfield. However, it appeared that Cleveland would win when safety Bobby Franklin came up with an interception, but LB Vince Costello was flagged for pass interference and the Eagles, instead of losing the ball, now had a first down at the Browns 30.

With 15 seconds remaining, Walston kicked a 38-yard field goal and the Eagles came away with a big 31-29 win.

In retrospect, that pass interference call and game-winning field goal kick in week 5 tipped the division from the Browns to the Eagles. Had the Browns won the division and gone on to defeat the Green Bay Packers in the NFL title game, they would have looked like many other championship teams: instead, the Eagles won the NFL East division, defeated the Lombardi Packers in the NFL title game, and became one of the most unusual champions in NFL history.

The Eagles could not run the ball, particularly once star back Clarence Peaks broke his leg in mid-season: the team’s top two rushers by carries were Billy Ray Barnes and Ted Dean, and each averaged just 2.7 yards per carry. Over the last 6 games of the season, the Eagles rushed for just 330 yards and averaged 2.14 yards per carry! For context, the other 12 teams in the NFL averaged 843 rushing yards and 4.20 yards per carry in the second half of the season.

Making matters worse, the Eagles rush defense was a disaster: Philadelphia ranked 2nd-to-last in both rushing yards allowed and yards per carry allowed… and in both cases coming just marginally ahead of the expansion, winless, Dallas Cowboys. In the season opener at home against the Browns, the Eagles allowed both Jim Brown and Bobby Mitchell to top 150 rushing yards. In the rematch, Brown rushed for 167 yards in a losing effort. In Philadelphia’s other loss of the season, the Eagles allowed 275 rushing yards, including an 87-yard touchdown run to John Henry Johnson. In the 1960 title game, the Eagles defeated the Packers with a memorable tackle by Chuck Bednarik on the final play to prevent the game-winning touchdown. But lost in that story is that Jim Taylor and crew rushed for 223 yards, the 4th-most by a team in a playoff loss in NFL history. ^[1]Helping Philadelphia’s cause was a special teams edge: Paul Hornung missed a 13-yard field goal, and Dean returned a kickoff 58 yards to set up the game-winning touchdown.

So the 1960 Eagles couldn’t run the ball and couldn’t stop the run… and somehow won the NFL championship! That might seem like the sort of thing that could only happen in the NFL in 2020. So how did Philadelphia do it? It starts with quarterback Norm Van Brocklin, who was the consensus MVP from all major organizations. His top three weapons were Pete Retzlaff, Tommy McDonald (who caught 14 touchdowns in 13 games), and Bobby Walston, and all had big years. Remember that 1960 featured a historic year from Plum, along with Johnny Unitas and Bart Starr playing in their primes, and another great year from Bobby Layne…. it was a great year for quarterback play, and yet it was Van Brocklin who was recognized as the best in the game. The 34-year-old, who would retire after the season, led six 4th quarter comebacks in 1960, including in the NFL title game against Green Bay. As he often did, he had a great sack rate and yards per attempt average (8.7), and Van Brocklin also posted the best TD rate (8.5%) of his career. It was a worthy MVP season.  By comparison, when the Eagles won the Super Bowl in 2017, Carson Wentz — the MVP favorite until his season-ending injury — averaged 7.5 yards per attempt and produced a 7.5% touchdown rate.

The other boost to the team’s fortunes came from the Philadelphia pass defense, which under head coach Buck Shaw, was in the discussion for the best in the league. Philadelphia intercepted a pass on every 9.4 attempts, the best rate in the NFL, with safety Don Burroughs (9 interceptions) and middle linebacker Chuck Weber (6) leading the way. The Eagles forced 45 turnovers, and while they didn’t record any in the two games against Cleveland, they averaged 4.5 takeaways in the other ten games.

Philadelphia won the NFL Championship in 1960 with an outstanding passing offense, a ball-hawking defense, and an excellent record in close games, all while being terrible in the running game on both sides of the ball.  From 1945 to 1964 — the first 20 years of NFL football in the post-World War II era — only two NFL champions were outrushed.  One was the ’47 Cardinals, who were middle of the pack on rushing offense and rushing defense and were outrushed by 2 yards per game.  The other was the ’60 Eagles, who were outrushed by a whopping 88 yards per game, which remains the largest negative margin in history among NFL champions.

The graph below shows the offensive rushing yards per game, in blue, for each NFL champion since 1945.  It also shows how many rushing yards each champion allowed to opponents, in red. As you can see, the ’60 Eagles were severe outliers.

In fact, among all NFL champions since 1945, the 1960 Eagles allowed the 2nd most rushing yards per game (narrowly ahead of the 1951 Rams) and gained the 2nd fewer rushing yards per game (ahead of the 2011 Giants).