Cleveland Browns received rights to Bob Gain and 1952 fourth…
Cleveland Browns received rights to Bob Gain and 1952 fourth round pick (#39-Elmer Costa). Cleveland received the rights to Bob Gain plus the 1952 fourth-round No. 39 choice used on Elmer Costa. Gain became the centerpiece, playing 126 Browns games with 122 starts and earning multiple Pro Bowl selections. The pick added a second identifiable asset, making Cleveland's realized return both deep and long-lived.
Cleveland Browns Received
- other rights to Bob Gain
- pick 1952 fourth round pick (#39-Elmer Costa)
Green Bay Packers Received
- player Dan Orlich
- player Charlie Schroll / Bill Schroll
- player Ace Loomis
- player Dom Moselle
Trade Analysis
The Exchange
On 1951-09-20, Cleveland Browns and Green Bay Packers completed a trade in which Cleveland Browns received rights to Bob Gain and 1952 fourth round pick (#39-Elmer Costa), while Green Bay Packers received Dan Orlich, Charlie Schroll / Bill Schroll, Ace Loomis, and Dom Moselle. This review credits only value the acquiring team actually realized and traces later assets only when the downstream connection is supportable.
Cleveland Browns Return
Cleveland received the rights to Bob Gain plus the 1952 fourth-round No. 39 choice used on Elmer Costa. Gain became the centerpiece, playing 126 Browns games with 122 starts and earning multiple Pro Bowl selections. The pick added a second identifiable asset, making Cleveland's realized return both deep and long-lived.
Green Bay Packers Return
Green Bay received Dan Orlich, Charlie/Bill Schroll, Ace Loomis, and Dom Moselle. The package supplied multiple names and some short-term roster value, but none produced a Packers outcome comparable to Gain's long-term Cleveland career. The quantity of incoming players did not translate into equivalent sustained value.
Value in Hindsight
Gain's 126-game Browns career and Pro Bowl recognition overwhelm the shorter, more fragmented Packers return, with the additional fourth-round pick giving Cleveland still more traceable value. Unidentified picks, cash amounts, or future consideration remain explicit rather than being converted into a guessed player or value. That keeps the comparison tied to documented outcomes instead of the apparent value of the names at the time of the trade.
Where the surviving record is incomplete, the evaluation stays deliberately conservative: documented games, starts, production, and traceable asset outcomes receive credit, while unsupported assumptions about hidden consideration or later careers do not.
Final Verdict
Cleveland Browns Win. Cleveland Browns earns a A, while Green Bay Packers earns a C-. The grades reflect the actual post-trade service, production, and traceable downstream value described above.