Jim Brown back with Browns

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Associated Press

CLEVELAND

Jim Brown has come back to the team he helped lead to its last NFL championship.

Brown will return in an unspecified role with the Cleveland Browns, who will formally reunite with the Hall of Fame standout at a news conference today. Browns owner Jimmy Haslam is expected to announce Brown’s new position with the team he starred with from 1957-65 before retiring to pursue acting.

“We’re excited to have him back a part of us,” Browns CEO Joe Banner said. “It’s important to me because he’s clearly in the top couple, if not the single most important part of the history of the franchise, and it’s the right thing to do.”

Brown previously worked as a senior adviser with the Browns. However, his role was eliminated by former team president Mike Holmgren and Brown had been estranged from the team for a few years. He returned to play in an alumni golf outing and was introduced on the field at halftime at a game in September, when he met with Haslam, who had just bought the team.

At the time, the outspoken Brown talked about his desire to work again with the team.

“I would love to have a role with the Browns,” he said. “I think that’s what every ex-player would like to do most of all, to be a contributor to the success of an organization. I’m stuck with being No. 32 of the Cleveland Browns and I can’t do anything about it. I don’t want to do anything about it. If you didn’t like the ball, that’s one thing. You’re not going to always like my politics, but we are married because of that history. If I can be a part of the development of a new winning attitude and help get some victories, man that would be fantastic.

“Imagine us having a championship team here again?”

The Browns last won a title in 1964.