He was part of a defensive line that featured Len Ford, Don Colo and Bob Gain, who helped the Browns win NFL championships in 1950, 1954, and 1955.

Kissell spent two years away from football after leaving the Browns, returning to play for the Kitchener-Waterloo Dutchmen in Canada for the 1959 season.

[3] He was on a Boston College Eagles football team that finished the 1942 season with an 8–2 win–loss record under head coach Denny Myers and lost to Alabama in the Orange Bowl.

[2] He spent time at the Ecole Spéciale Militaire de Saint-Cyr in Fontainebleau outside of Paris in 1945, and also served in Africa and the Middle East.

[10] The AAFC disbanded at the end of 1949 because of financial struggles stemming from poor attendance and competition over player salaries, and three of its teams – the Browns, Colts and San Francisco 49ers – were absorbed by the NFL.

[12] Kissell, however, was sold along with halfback Rex Bumgardner and guard (American football) Abe Gibron to the Browns in a deal that gave Bills owner James Breuil a 25% share in the team.

[13][14] In the Browns, Kissell joined a team that had won all of the AAFC's four championships behind an offense that featured quarterback Otto Graham, fullback Marion Motley and ends Mac Speedie and Dante Lavelli.

[18] He was "a little bit rowdy", teammate John Sandusky later recalled, and once hit a blocking sled in practice so hard that he broke it.

[22] After that season, Kissell decided to jump to the Canadian Football League, signing with the Ottawa Rough Riders for $9,500 a year plus bonuses – $2,000 more than he was making with the Browns.

[29] Bob Jauron, a coach from Nashua, had been hired to lead the team, which played in the Ontario Rugby Football Union.

[30] After his professional career, Kissell went back to New Hampshire and was the recreation director at Spring Street Junior High School in Nashua, later serving as a teacher there until 1985.