Ex-Brown Frank Stams on Myles Garrett: Cut the drama and move on

CANTON TWP.  Everyone in Monday's large Hall of Fame Luncheon Club crowd wanted to hear what this guest speaker had to say about Myles Garrett.

Frank Stams was qualified to go politically correct (he handily won the election for a Cuyahoga Falls Ward 8 city council seat this month; he is president of Cleveland's chapter of the NFL Alumni Association) or brutally honest, locker-room style (he started for the last Browns team to win a playoff game and seems to speak his mind).

Stams entered the topic by noting next week's Luncheon Club speaker, Sam Bourquin, happened to have him on his WAKR talk show the day before the Browns-Steelers game that ended with Garrett's ruckus with Mason Rudolph.

"At one point, Sam said, 'Frank, what's it going to take to get this rivalry back to where it was in the 1970s?' Stams said. "Honest to God, my reply was, 'I hate to tell you this, Sam, but it'll probably take one of those Turkey Jones, Terry Brashsaw moments.'"

The Browns were in a multiyear 9-24 slump when defending Super Bowl champion Pittsburgh arrived for a game on Oct. 10, 1976. The lasting memory from an 18-16 Cleveland win became defensive end Joe "Turkey" Jones' spiking Bradshaw at the end, sacking the Pittsburgh quarterback.

The Browns went on an 8-1 hot streak. The extent of Jones' punishment was a $3,000 fine. Garrett has been suspended indefinitely for a sequence that began with Garrett tackling Rudolph as the current Pittsburgh QB completed a pass with barely any time left in a 21-7 game.

As Garrett rose to get off Rudolph, Rudolph twisted Garrett's helmet and raised a knee toward Garrett's groin. Garrett dislodged Rudolph's head from his head. The two separated before Rudolph charged Garrett, who reached around an intervening Pittsburgh player and struck Rudolph on the head with the helmet.

"Listen," Stams went on at Tozzi's on 12th, "Garrett was wrong. It has no place in football. He's wrong, he's wrong, he's wrong. But I'll tell you what. I was telling some people here. The NFL, and Ron (Blackledge, a former Steelers assistant coach in the audience) will attest to this ... the NFL is a whole different world.

"I've said this about Mike Tyson. They called Mike an animal, an animal, an animal. For 20 years. And then when he acted like one, everybody was surprised."

Stams was a football, basketball and baseball standout at Akron St. Vincent-St. Mary who became a linebacker on Notre Dame's 1988 national championship team. He spent the bulk of his NFL career with the Rams and Browns, highlighted by the 1994 season when he started for a team that beat the Patriots in a first-round playoff game.

Stams' opinion was in response to an audience question, delivered stream-of-consciousness style.

"I got in fights where people got hit in the face and ... when you've got that aggression for so many years and all of a sudden somebody tries to knee you where they shouldn't knee you, I mean, all bets are off," Stams said. "Again, it's not what (Garrett) should have done. He crossed a line. He apologized. Let's move on."

Stams, 54, seemed fit, energetic and relaxed. He and ex-Brown Gregg Pruitt operate Game Plan, a business designed to help incarcerated people get on productive paths.

He entertained the crowd with stories about an old game at Massillon ending with a shady field goal ruling, playing for Gerry Faust and then Lou Holtz at Notre Dame, and the Major League Baseball career he wishes he had had.

His story about getting traded to the Browns went over well.

"It was the Rams' 1992 preseason," he said. "My mom and dad came out to the game in Los Angeles. I didn't play. I was hurt. My parents were going to Las Vegas, and I told my dad to drive my truck there. A buddy would take me to the Rams game.

"A reporter came down after the game and started interviewing me. This interview was lasting a long time. Finally, I said, 'Buddy, you got the right guy? I'm not even playing right now.'

"At our next practice, the Rams' coach, Chuck Knox, said, 'We're doing you a favor, Stams. We're sending you to Cleveland.' I think I skipped back to the locker room.

"This was before cell phones. I didn't know where my parents were, other than Las Vegas. I finally tracked down my dad at one of the hotels and said, 'The good news is they traded me to Cleveland.' Dad said, 'What possibly could be the bad news?' I said, 'Take my truck and keep going.

"I think they were in St. Louis before he let my mom stop to pee. He was so excited."

Stams flew to Ohio to join Bill Belichick's Browns.

"Coach Belichick said, 'Glad to have you here,'" Stams said. "I said, 'Coach, are you kidding? Family. Friends. I'm back home.'

"He says, 'Yeah, yeah, yeah.' Then he says, 'You recognize that guy over there?' The guy comes over and starts asking the same questions 'the reporter' did. And I say, 'Son of a B. It's the same guy.'

"He snuck a scout to the Rams game and worked him down to the locker room."

Reach Steve at 330-580-8347 or

steve.doerschuk@cantonrep.com

On Twitter: @sdoerschukREP