The "Other" Leagues: The All America Football Conference

The All America Football Conference, or AAFC, was a national professional American football league that began play in 1946. Although it folded only 3 years later, its legacy would be of great importance to the future of the NFL.

The AAFC began in 1944 when Arch Ward, the sports editor of the Chicago Tribune, brought together a group of millionaire football enthusiasts to put together a competitive post-war football league. The orginal eight teams consisted of the New York Yankees, Brooklyn Dodgers, Buffalo Bisons, Miami Seahawks, Cleveland Browns, Chicago Rockets, Los Angeles Dons, and San Francisco 49ers. The NFL took a hard stand against the new rival league, primarily Washington Redskins owner George Preston Marshall, who declared that the "worst team in the NFL could beat the best team in their league". The NFL was already the older and more experienced league, even though professional football was not the most popular sport at the time (baseball and college football already had that locked up). Several teams even shared names with the local baseball team. It would become a question of whether there was enough interest in such a sport around the country. Although the NFL clearly had its advantages when competing against the AAFC for an audience, the AAFC certainly had its advantages as well. Many owners were richer than their NFL counterparts, and a general sense of well-being and post war gaiety prevailed throughout the country. More college players were willing to turn pro, and many former pros had returned from war service. The AAFC also brought in at least one prestigious coach in Paul Brown, who would coach the Cleveland Browns.

The AAFC got off to a strong start, showcasing a matchup between the Cleveland Browns and Miami Seahawks to open the 1946 season (in front of a record crowd). The score was a 44-0 Cleveland win, beginning the legacy of Paul Brown. The score did, however, prove to be a coincidental, yet ominous, sign of things to come, as there was a clear cut between the elite teams and the average/poor teams in the league. The competing salaries with NFL players also proved to be a hassle for the new league, with only the champion Cleveland Browns (who won the title against the Yankees, 14-9) making a profit.

The league enjoyed a moderately successful second season in 1947, but the gap between mediocre and elite teams continued to be a problem. For the second straight year, the Browns won the title, beating the Yankees 14-3. The 1948 season featured the two strongest teams in the league, Cleveland and San Francisco, facing off in a game of the unbeatens on November 14. The Browns won, 14-7, and again beat the 49ers later in the year to clinch first place in the division. The unbeaten Browns, now 14-0 on the season, faced the winner of the subpar Eastern Division, the 8-7 Buffalo Bills. The Bills were predictably annihilated in the title game, 49-7. The Cleveland Browns thus completed the first perfect season in the history of pro football (aside from the 1937 Los Angeles Bulldogs). However, with both the AAFC and NFL struggling, a merger was in sight, but was not quite set in stone just yet.

The 1949 season began with a major realignment of the AAFC. With teams folding and merging, the league came down to only 7 teams to start the 1949 season. With only 7 teams and one division, the league struggled to find an audience. The gap between good and bad teams didn't disappear, as the Browns and 49ers met in the league's final championship game (Cleveland won 21-7). With that, the league folded, and the NFL readily admitted a few of the AAFC's teams. Cleveland and San Francisco were obvious choices, with the Browns being so dominant and the 49ers being powerful as well as a good West Coast rival to the NFL's relocated Los Angeles Rams. However, the NFL also admitted the Baltimore Colts (not related to the later NFL team or current team in Indianapolis), which raised a lot of questions. George Preston Marshall (remember him from earlier?) didn't want another team in the Washington DC area competing for an audience, but later reconsidered his argument and figured the two teams would make for good intrastate rivals. However, the Colts turned out to be a financially unstable team, and folded after only one NFL season. The Buffalo Bills, another AAFC team, were disappointed that they had been spurned by the NFL. The NFL feared that the weather in Buffalo wouldn't be great for audiences, but they did not explain their decision to admit an odd number of teams, which forced one division to have more teams than the other. Nonetheless, the Bills folded along with the other AAFC teams, and their players were sent to other NFL teams or released (Ralph Wilson eventually revived the Bills franchise for the 1960s American Football League).

The AAFC has had a long lasting impact on the NFL. The AAFC contributed two teams towards the NFL, the Cleveland Browns and the San Francisco 49ers, that still exist to this day. The Cleveland Browns, in particular, played a key role in the development of the NFL. The Browns had signed two black players in 1946, the first to be signed by a professional team since before the war. The Browns also forced the Cleveland Rams to relocate to Los Angeles so as not to compete for an audience. Paul Brown, the head coach of the Browns, would go on to become one of the greatest pro football coaches of all time, changing many facets of the game itself. Browns quarterback Otto Graham is revered by many old-timers to be one of the greatest quarterbacks who ever lived. The AAFC may have been short lived, but it provided a large influence on the NFL that would only be rivaled by the American Football League about a decade later.