Four years of dominance in the All-America Football Conference by the Browns are finally being recognized in the NFL record books.
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Editor's note: Tony Grossi is a Cleveland Browns analyst for TheLandOnDemand.com and 850 ESPN Cleveland. He has covered the Browns since 1984.
Most team owners were on their private jets heading home when the last news nugget from the NFL annual meeting in Palm Beach, FL, was dumped on an unsuspecting media on getaway day, April 1.
In their last act of the three-day meetings, owners rubber-stamped an un-advertised proposal by the league competition committee to recognize the records of the defunct All-America Football Conference and include them, at long last, in the annual NFL Record and Fact Book.
The news generated no conversation amid the hue and cry surrounding the legality of the “tush push” and how to cram an 18th regular-season game into the NFL calendar. Most of the owners, in fact, have little or no knowledge of the AAFC.
In fact, Mike Brown, Cincinnati Bengals owner and president, and son of Cleveland Browns founding coach and legend Paul Brown, is the only active executive in the NFL with a direct connection to – and encyclopedic memory of -- the AAFC, which was conceived in 1946 and operated with eight, and then seven teams, for four years.
Those four seasons were dominated by Paul Brown’s Cleveland Browns, who went 47-4-3, won the league championship each and every year, and forced a merger of three AAFC teams with the 10-team NFL in 1950.
These were the dynastic Browns that captured the passion of ridiculously famous Browns fans Hank Aaron, Elvis Presley, John F. Kennedy and Condoleezza Rice.
We’re talking about franchise legends Otto Graham and Lou Groza, Marion Motley and Bill Willis, Dante Lavelli and Mac Speedie, Frank Gatski and Len Ford.
“I’m not sure how large is the audience to care about this, but I do,” said Mike Brown, who, at 89, still sits in on every Bengals draft meeting and took time to speak to TheLandOnDemand about this development.
“I’m delighted. It’s deserved. I’m sorry not many of those guys are left with us to see it,” Brown said.
Making it right
When the 1960s-era American Football League merged with the NFL in 1966, the NFL automatically adopted AFL records. But that wasn’t the case with the AAFC in 1950 because records were incomplete.
Through the efforts of Joe Horrigan, retired executive director of the Pro Football Hall of Fame, and Joel Bussert, retired NFL senior VP of football operations, all AAFC game records eventually were recovered and recorded about six years ago. John Madden was a big advocate for the NFL to adopt the AAFC records. The plan was to add them in the NFL’s centennial season of 2019, but COVID hit and everything was put on hold.
When league officials finally returned to their offices in 2021, Michael Signora of the NFL communications department rediscovered a Bussert memo outlining the reasons for adopting the AAFC records. Signora re-upped the initiative and passed the torch to the league competition committee.
“As soon as they can tell us the statistics were complete and accurate, which took time to verify, then as a committee it was easy to say ‘Yes, we support that. Put those in the record book. Let’s bring them up to the modern standard,’” said Rich McKay, Atlanta Falcons CEO and chairman of the competition committee.
What does it mean?
Nine of the Browns’ 18 Hall of Famers came from those AAFC teams. The Pro Football Hall of Fame has always recognized their pre-NFL careers, but the NFL has not. That changes now.
It means the Browns’ four AAFC championships will be noted in the NFL Record and Fact Book, along with their four in the NFL.
It means the Browns’ eight professional league championships tie the New York Giants behind the Green Bay Packers’ 13 and Chicago Bears’ nine, and surpass the six won by the Pittsburgh Steelers and New England Patriots.
It means quarterback Otto Graham’s seven league championships will officially match him with Tom Brady’s seven NFL championships.
It means fullback Marion Motley’s yards-per-carry average improves from 5.0 to 5.7 (counting the four years in the AAFC) and surpasses Jim Brown’s career mark of 5.2.
It means Paul Brown’s coaching win total increases by 52 to 222 (counting postseason) and vaults him from 21st on the all-time list to seventh. His seven league championships now are acknowledged as the leader among professional coaches, surpassing Bill Belichick (six) and Curly Lambeau (six) and Vince Lombardi (five).
“I don’t think he was bothered by it,” Mike Brown said of NFL history short-changing his father’s record. “He never mentioned it.”
This correction of history affects the Cleveland Browns more than any team, of course.
The San Francisco 49ers and Baltimore Colts joined the Browns in the 1950 merger, but it was the Browns’ dominance that forced the NFL’s hands. (Those Colts disbanded shortly thereafter and another Colts franchise emerged.)
Hostilities between the two leagues intensified over time. When the merger finally happened, NFL Commissioner Bert Bell intentionally scheduled the Browns’ first-ever NFL game against the two-time NFL champion Philadelphia Eagles in an attempt to expose the “inferior” brand of football played by the Browns.
The Browns proceeded to crush the Eagles in Philadelphia, 35-10. They went on to claim the NFL championship in their first season with a 30-28 victory over the Los Angeles Rams, who had relocated from Cleveland in fear of competing against Paul Brown’s new creation after winning the NFL championship in 1945.
Some believe that the inaugural iteration of the NFL Browns was the best of Paul Brown’s teams. But not Mike Brown.
In a Cincinnati Bengals conference and library room still hangs a photograph of the 1948 Browns team that went 14-0 in the regular season and then trounced the Buffalo Bills, 49-7, in the AAFC championship to complete a perfect season.
“That was the best Browns team,” Mike Brown said, “because Marion Motley was closer to his prime. Marion is in the Hall of Fame, but I don’t believe he ever got the credit for how great a player he was because his best years were in the AAFC.”
The 1972 Miami Dolphins coached by Don Shula are the only NFL team to complete a perfect season with a 17-0 record. The surviving Dolphins can continue their tradition of toasting champagne when the last undefeated team loses its first game.
But the 2025 NFL Record and Fact Book now will forever note that the 1948 Browns were 15-0 in the AAFC.