Editing All-America Football Conference (section)

==Legacy==
Although the AAFC played only four years, it had a major, lasting impact on pro football. Of all the leagues that challenged the NFL, only the American Football League of the 1960s influenced the NFL more than the AAFC. The AAFC put the first pro football teams in Baltimore, Los Angeles, San Francisco, and Miami. Indeed, the AAFC was a coast-to-coast league more than a decade before Major League Baseball. This brought about another innovation: AAFC teams traveled by air while NFL teams still traveled by train. The Cleveland Browns, San Francisco 49ers, and original Baltimore Colts began in the AAFC, while sixteen AAFC alumni are enshrined in the Pro Football Hall of Fame.

The AAFC played a 14-game schedule more than a decade before the NFL, and played a major role in popularizing zone defenses in pro football.<ref name="Officialhl-AAFC" />

[[Black players in American professional football|Black players]] were excluded from the NFL from 1934 to 1945. The AAFC helped reintegrate professional [[American football]] in 1946 when Cleveland signed [[Marion Motley]] and [[Bill Willis]]. The NFL Rams, having been driven out of Cleveland by the AAFC Browns, signed [[Kenny Washington (American football)|Kenny Washington]] and [[Woody Strode]] only after the venue they sought to play in, the [[Los Angeles Coliseum]], enforced its policy of integration. Through its poaching of NFL official (and former player-coaching star) [[Tommy Hughitt]], the AAFC took an explicitly [[anti-racism|anti-racist]] stance toward rough play, aggressively penalizing racist [[unsportsmanlike conduct]]. Motley credited this, along with the AAFC fans' embrace of black talent in the league, with helping to establish the legitimacy of integrated professional football.<ref>[[Jeffrey J. Miller|Miller, Jeffrey]]. [https://www.profootballresearchers.org/biography/Hughitt_Tommy.pdf Tommy Hughitt] profile at the [[Professional Football Researchers Association]]</ref>

The AAFC's Paul Brown produced numerous innovations to the game on and off the field. Among them were year-round coaching staffs, precision pass patterns, the face mask, and the practice of coaches’ calling plays via "messenger guards". He also was the first coach to have his staff film the opposition and have his team break down those game films in a classroom setting. In fact, the classroom setting and chalkboard analysis can also be attributed to him. His success with the Browns forced the rest of both leagues to adopt his methods. Many of his players and assistants eventually coached champions. Brown declined efforts to draft him to succeed Bert Bell as NFL commissioner,<ref name="MacCambridge137">MacCambridge, pg. 137</ref> later founded the [[American Football League]]'s [[Cincinnati Bengals]], and later served on the NFL's key Competition Committee until his death in 1991.

These and other AAFC innovations and personalities helped lay the groundwork for professional football's great success.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Piascik |first=Andy |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=UXKX316bzU4C&pg=PA5 |title=The Best Show in Football: The 1946–1955 Cleveland Browns—Pro Football's Greatest Dynasty |date=2010-10-16 |publisher=Taylor Trade Publications |isbn=978-1-58979-616-4 |language=en}}</ref>{{rp|5–30}}

The merger would also benefit the Pittsburgh Steelers. One of the NFL's shakiest franchises financially prior to the merger, the addition of the Browns would help [[Browns–Steelers rivalry|form a rivalry]] due to the close proximity of [[Cleveland]] and [[Pittsburgh]] that would be cut to two hours driving time by the time the [[Ohio Turnpike]] and the western extension of the [[Pennsylvania Turnpike]] were completed by the mid-1950s, allowing fans of both teams to attend each other's away games. While the Steelers would largely remain non-competitive until their 1970s dominance, the rivalry with the Browns along with their [[Eagles–Steelers rivalry|existing rivalry with the Eagles]] would help stabilize the team's finances.{{citation needed|date=August 2023}}

Finally, the Browns' NFL Championship in their first year in the NFL and their domination of the league for the next decade, in retrospect, seem to have been harbingers of another upstart league that like the AAFC was ridiculed and reviled by the NFL and its supporters, but would eventually be recognized as the genesis of modern professional football: the [[American Football League]] of 1960–1969.<ref>Piascik, A., ''The Best Show in Football: The 1946–1955 Cleveland Browns—Pro Football's Greatest Dynasty'' ([[Lanham, Maryland|Lanham, MD]]: [[Rowman & Littlefield|Taylor Trade Publishing]], 2007), [https://books.google.com/books?id=UXKX316bzU4C&pg=PA5].</ref>