Sunday, Aug. 30 (PM) – It’s time to take a break from watching the struggles of Johnny Football and the current Browns as they try to get their acts together.

Instead, let’s go back to a much more successful era, in fact to where it all started with Pro Football Hall of Famers Pro Otto Football, Lou Football, Dante Football, Bill Football, Marion Football, Frank Football, Paul Football and the original Browns franchise.

It was 69 years ago today, on Aug. 30, 1946, that the Browns played their first game of any kind, a preseason contest against the Brooklyn Dodgers not at Cleveland Stadium, but at the Rubber Bowl in Akron.

Before a full house of 35,964 on a Friday night, the Browns provided a preview of what was to come with a rousing 35-20 victory in the only preseason game they would play in that inaugural season.

Then, as now, the Browns’ second-biggest market was in Akron, located just 33 miles south of Cleveland down State Route 8. Owner Mickey McBride and head coach Paul Brown realized that and used the game to showcase the club to a big chunk of potential paying customers. As indicated by the final score, it couldn’t have gone any better for the Browns.

The Browns used the game as a warm-up for what turned out to be a great first season. They won the first of their four consecutive championships in the All-America Football Conference, in effect putting the league out of business because of that dominance. It’s no fun when the same team wins all the time.

The Browns then went into the NFL in 1950 and captured three titles in their first six years. When they didn’t win the championship in those three other seasons, they at least made it to the title game.

As such, in their first 10 seasons of existence (1946-55), they played in 10 league championship games, winning seven times.

It is a streak of success that had never been seen before, or since, in not just football, but any pro sport. With that, then, Brown reached his goal of making the Browns “the New York Yankees of football.” In actuality, they were more successful that the Yankees during that period, failing to get to the World Series in 1946, ’48 and ’54.

The Browns returned to Akron in 1947 for their only preseason game of that year and shut out the Baltimore Colts 28-0 before another sellout of 35,106.

The Browns fortified their allegiance to Ohio in 1948 by adding a preseason game in Toledo. They lost that one, 21-17, to the Baltimore Colts. It would turn out to be their only preseason defeat in seven tries in their first four years. They also topped the Buffalo Bisons 35-21 in Akron.

There were three preseason games, including one each in Akron and Toledo again, in that final AAFC year of 1949. Cleveland shut out the Chicago Hornets 21-0 at Toledo and turned back the New York Yankees 28-21 at Akron.

Yes, there were teams in the AAFC named the New York Yankees and Brooklyn Dodgers. They were owned by the same people who owned the baseball teams of those names, Dan Topping in New York and the O’Malley family in Brooklyn. They saw their membership in the AAFC as a great idea since it allowed them to get use out of their facilities, Yankee Stadium and Ebbets Field, respectively, after the baseball season had ended. They were also able to flip a number of their front-office people on the baseball side and turn them into football people, thus allowing them to keep working until almost the end of the calendar year.

The Browns played their first NFL preseason game of 1950 in Toledo, routing the Green Bay Packers 38-7, but that would be their last trip there. They played again in Akron in 1950, beating the Detroit Lions 35-14, and also played elsewhere in Ohio, at Cincinnati, rolling past the Colts 34-7. That would turn out to be the first of many games played in Cincinnati by Brown. He returned there in 1968 to start the Cincinnati Bengals.

As for Akron, the Browns played there in the preseason almost yearly through 1973, when they completed the preseason by losing 21-10 to the Giants. Even though the Rubber Bowl was almost full with a crowd of 30,751, pro football had grown so much by that time that facilities the size of the Rubber Bowl just weren’t big enough for the two competing teams to make much money once they split the gate receipts.

But it had nonetheless been a great run in Akron, and it – and, in essence, the Browns – all started almost 70 years ago today.