Jim Brown Featured on ‘NFL Icons’ Season 3 Premiere

Ryan Berenz October 20, 2023, 2:58 pm

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Four more Pro Football Hall of Famers get the Icons treatment in Season 3 of this NFL Films documentary series airing Saturdays at 10/9c on MGM+.

The October 21 premiere features Jim Brown, the Cleveland Browns running back, movie star and civil rights champion who passed away in May. “Very few people accomplish quietly in any one realm what he did very visibly in three,” says NFL Films producer Paul Camarata. “By combining his talents, interests, intelligence, passion and drive, Brown wrote his own remarkable script. All we had to do was stick to it.”

Following a stellar football and lacrosse career at Syracuse, Brown was chosen by the Cleveland Browns in the 1957 NFL Draft. He played nine remarkable seasons for the Browns, retiring at age 30 as an NFL champion (1964), three-time MVP (1957, ’58, ’65), Rookie of the Year (1957) and the league’s all-time career rushing leader with 12,312 yards.

Leaving football, he embarked on an acting career, eventually becoming a leading man and one of the first Black action-movie stars. Brown was a prominent figure of the civil rights movement, and supported Muhammad Ali in his refusal to enter the Army draft in protest of the Vietnam War. He was enshrined in the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 1971.

Future NFL Icons Season 3 episodes are:

Saturday, October 28
This episode looks at Bill Cowher, a Pittsburgh native who rose to become the head coach of his cherished hometown team and led the Steelers on one of history’s greatest playoff runs to capture their fifth Lombardi Trophy.

Saturday, November 4
A profile of legendary Chicago Bears middle linebacker Mike Singletary, leader of the famed 1985 Bears defense that demolished the New England Patriots in Super Bowl XX and is arguably the best defensive team in NFL history.

Saturday, November 11
The Season 3 finale looks at Charles Woodson, the Michigan Wolverines, Oakland Raiders and Green Bay Packers defensive back who is one of the 10 Heisman Trophy winners in the Hall of Fame.