Editing All-America Football Conference (section)

==="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.