At home no less, the Browns fell 42–10 to the Minnesota Vikings, 42–6 to the Pittsburgh Steelers and 40–10 to the Houston Oilers, the worst three-game stretch they have ever had.
The Steelers and Vikings both finished 12–2, the Oilers just missed the playoffs at 10–4 and the 11–3 Raiders lost to Pittsburgh in the AFC Championship Game, but none of that was of any consolation to a franchise as proud as the Browns.
[citation needed] After 1974, the Browns were hoping that 1975, for which the team went to orange pants and altered its basic uniform design for the first time since that inaugural season of 1946, would usher in a new era of success.
With Pro Football Hall of Famer Leroy Kelly having retired after the 1973 season, Pruitt, the first of the team's two second-round draft picks that year, had taken a quantum leap[2] in 1975 into settling into his job as the go-to running back.
He raced for 214 yards, still the seventh-best performance in team history, en-route to putting together the first of his three-straight 1,000-yard seasons by getting 1,067.