Editing All-America Football Conference (section)

==Aftermath==

==="The World Series of Pro Football"===
After winning each of their titles, the Browns challenged the NFL champion to an interleague championship. Each year the NFL refused.<ref name="Show147">Piascik, pg. 147</ref> (Of course, by playing such a game the NFL would legitimize the AAFC and risk more prestige.)

In December 1949, with both leagues financially exhausted but now at peace, a profitable interleague playoff was now both possible and desirable. Although Pittsburgh's [[Art Rooney]], whose Steelers were among the shakiest NFL franchises, publicly advocated such a game, most of the NFL was unwilling to risk defeat at the hands of their vanquished, supposedly inferior rival.<ref name="Show146">Piascik, pgs. 146–47</ref> Officially, however, commissioner Bert Bell maintained that the NFL constitution barred such a game.<ref name="Coffin2"/> The football world would have to wait to see how the Browns matched up against the NFL's best.

All would not be lost for fans, however. Bell appreciated that the Browns were now an important asset to the NFL, and scheduled a special Saturday night game between them and the NFL's two-time champion Philadelphia Eagles to open the 1950 season. While not quite an unofficial interleague playoff, what took place on September 16, 1950, was no ordinary regular season game.

The defending champions of two leagues that had never met on the field were about to play, foreshadowing tensions present in the early Super Bowls of the 1960s. At last the Browns would have the chance to prove themselves, and by extension the AAFC, against the NFL. There was tremendous anticipation from fans and the press, which called the game "The World Series of Pro Football".<ref name="MacCambridge64">MacCambridge, pg. 64</ref> Although the game was played in Philadelphia, it was not played on the Eagles usual home field: because of the huge crowd expected, the game was moved from [[Shibe Park]] to [[Philadelphia Municipal Stadium]],<ref name="JFK">Later renamed John F. Kennedy Stadium, it is perhaps best remembered for the 1985 Live Aid concert.</ref> site of the [[Army–Navy Game]]. Attendance was a whopping 71,237, the third-largest pro football crowd to that date (next to two crowds for Rams games at the [[Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum]] the year before), and the largest-ever on the east coast. (This figure also surpassed every previous NFL or AAFC title game, as well as [[Super Bowl I]].) There was even a most valuable player award, unheard of for a regular-season game.

The Eagles were widely considered one of the NFL's strongest-ever champions, while many discounted the Browns’ success in their "inferior" league. The result was therefore shocking: the Eagles underestimated the highly motivated Browns (coach [[Greasy Neale]] did not even scout the Browns’ preseason games),<ref name="Show162">Piascik, pg. 162</ref> while [[Paul Brown]] found some previously unknown weaknesses in the widely imitated "Eagle Defense" that allowed the Browns to run up 487 yards of total offense. The Browns led 14–3 at halftime and dominated the rest of the game to win decisively, 35–10. Quarterback [[Otto Graham]] was named the game's MVP.

===The Browns, 49ers, and Colts in the NFL===
The Browns went 10–2 to finish in a first-place tie with the [[New York Giants]], then won a playoff 8–3 to qualify for the 1950 NFL championship game. Their opponent was a formidable [[Los Angeles Rams]] team that averaged nearly 39 points per game, a record that still stands. (Ironically, this was the Rams’ first game in Cleveland since winning the 1945 title as the Cleveland Rams.) In a classic seesaw game, the Browns prevailed on a last-minute field goal, 30–28, to win their fifth consecutive league title.

The Browns’ 1950 season confirmed the quality of their AAFC achievements as nothing else could. After the title game, Commissioner Bell called the Browns "the greatest team to ever play football."<ref name="Show182">Piascik, pg. 182</ref>

Cleveland remained near the top of the NFL for years, although in 1951 they were finally denied a league title (by the Rams). The Browns played in every NFL title game from 1950 to 1955, winning three of them, for a grand total of seven league titles in ten years.

The other ex-AAFC teams did not fare nearly as well.

The 49ers, the AAFC's second-best team, struggled in 1950 and finished 3–9. However, starting the next year they emerged as one of the better teams in the NFL's Western Conference, reaching the postseason in 1957 after some near-misses.

The Colts' prospects were not promising: they had finished 1–11 and last in the AAFC in 1949 and also faced the handicap of playing near the [[Washington Redskins]]. In 1950, the Colts went 1–11 again and disbanded. Their legacy lived on, however: three years later, a [[Indianapolis Colts|new Baltimore Colts franchise]] team was established after the Dallas Texans folded and the Colts became one of the NFL's storied teams. Although the Colts would [[Indianapolis Colts#Relocation to Indianapolis|controversially move]] to [[Indianapolis]], on March 29, 1984, the NFL would return to Baltimore for the [[1996 NFL season]] in the form of the [[Baltimore Ravens]]. From an organizational perspective, the Ravens are a continuation of the pre-1996 Browns, who played in Cleveland until they [[Cleveland Browns relocation controversy|controversially agreed to move to Baltimore]] for the [[1996 NFL season]]. Officially, the NFL considers the "[[Expansion team|expansion]]" Browns ([[1999 NFL season|1999]] on) to be one continuous franchise from the original 1946 AAFC team, with it having ''suspended operations from [[1996 NFL season|1996]] to [[1998 NFL season|1998]]'', while the Ravens are considered to have been established in 1996. While the pre-[[1984 NFL season|1984]] history of the Colts officially remains with the Indianapolis franchise, the Ravens have also recognized it in a number of ways. {{citation needed|date=June 2021}}

''See [[Cleveland Browns]], [[San Francisco 49ers]], [[Baltimore Colts (1947–50)|Baltimore Colts]] (1947–50), and [[Indianapolis Colts]] for further details of these teams' subsequent histories.''

===The AAFC and the NFL record book===
One notable difference between the All-America Football Conference and the [[American Football League]] (AFL), which merged with the NFL two decades later, is that the records and statistics of AAFC players and teams were not included in the NFL record book for many years, while those of their AFL counterparts were.<ref name="Official-Introduction"/> For example, [[Joe Namath]]'s pre-1970 statistics with the AFL [[New York Jets]] have long been considered official NFL statistics, while [[Y. A. Tittle]]'s pre-1950 statistics with the AAFC Baltimore Colts were not.

According to the NFL, this was because official scoresheets of AAFC games were not made available to the NFL after the merger. Without these, the NFL could not verify the authenticity of any AAFC statistics or records, and so it chose to ignore them.<ref>{{cite journal|last=Pavlick|first=Ed|url=http://www.profootballresearchers.org/coffin-corner80s/02-07-036.pdf|title=Opinion: pro football records should include the AAFC|journal=Coffin Corner|volume=2|issue=7|year=1980|access-date=December 24, 2019|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150907215637/http://www.profootballresearchers.org/coffin-corner80s/02-07-036.pdf|archive-date=September 7, 2015|url-status=live}}</ref> However, in the case of the [[AFL–NFL merger]], which was completed in 1970, the AFL gave all of its official scoresheets to the NFL, making it possible for the NFL to accept the AFL's statistics and records. 

Another explanation{{whom|date=April 2025|reason=These are general differences. How does this _directly_ explain which statistics the were recognized by the NFL?}} is that unlike the NFL–AFL agreement, the NFL–AAFC agreement was not a merger between equals: only three of the seven AAFC teams were admitted to the NFL, there was no interleague playoff in December 1949, and "American" swiftly disappeared from the enlarged league's name. In contrast, the AFL was able to force the NFL to admit all of its teams, to play an interleague championship game on a neutral field (retroactively known as [[Super Bowl I]]), and to maintain the "American" name in the form of the [[American Football Conference]].<ref>{{Cite web|title=NFL and AFL announce merger|url=https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/nfl-and-afl-announce-merger|access-date=October 8, 2021|website=HISTORY|language=en}}</ref>

A push to have AAFC statistics officially recognized by the NFL started in 2019, but stalled for a number of years.<ref>{{cite news |url=https://www.nfl.com/news/nfl-s-official-records-to-finally-incorporate-all-america-football-conference-statistics |title=NFL's official records to finally incorporate All-America Football Conference statistics |first=Judy |last=Battista |website=NFL.com |date=April 1, 2025 |accessdate=April 2, 2025}}</ref> On April 1, 2025, NFL owners approved a proposal from the Competition Committee to officially recognize AAFC records, spanning player, coach, and team statistics.<ref>{{cite news |url=https://www.nbcsports.com/nfl/profootballtalk/rumor-mill/news/nfl-will-include-stats-from-1946-49-all-america-football-conference-in-official-records |title=NFL will include stats from 1946-49 All-America Football Conference in official records |first=Michael David |last=Smith |website=[[NBC Sports]] |date=April 1, 2025 |accessdate=April 2, 2025}}</ref> Incorporating AAFC records credited longtime [[Cleveland Browns]] head coach [[Paul Brown]] with an additional 52 regular-season and playoff wins, as recognized by the NFL.<ref>{{cite news |url=https://www.bostonglobe.com/2025/04/01/sports/nfl-aafc-paul-brown/ |title=Paul Brown gets a career win total boost after NFL officially incorporates old AAFC stats |first=Josh |last=Dubow |agency=[[Associated Press|AP]] |website=[[The Boston Globe]] |url-access=limited |date=April 1, 2025 |accessdate=April 2, 2025}}</ref>

Historically, the [[Pro Football Hall of Fame]] did not recognize AAFC statistics.<ref name="Official-Introduction">{{cite book|title=The NFL's Official Encyclopedic History of Professional Football|chapter=Introduction|pages=[https://archive.org/details/nflsofficialency00nati/page/7 7-8]|year=1977|publisher=National Football League Properties|isbn=0-02-589010-7|chapter-url=https://archive.org/details/nflsofficialency00nati/page/7}}</ref>