How should anyone expect the early Browns – those from the All-America Football Conference days — to get the love and respect they deserve when their former team doesn’t give it to them?
A look at the 2016 Browns media guide – the 2017 version will be ready when training camp opens in about six weeks – lists complete statistics for the team’s 68 seasons of play in the NFL dating back to 1950. But there is nothing like that for the club’s four seasons in the AAFC from 1946-49. Instead, only scores are listed.
But don’t throw all the blame onto those running the current team. They’re simply following the trends that started about 45 years ago in the early 1970s.
The media guides from the Browns’ formation had all kinds of AAFC stats, even after the move to the NFL in 1950. If the best individual and team performances in the overall team history were from the AAFC era, then they were listed with those from the NFL years, with no distinction between the two leagues.
For instance, the 1946 club was recognized as having the team record for fewest points allowed in a season (137). It was the same for the Browns’ 66-14 victory over the Brooklyn Dodgers in the 1946 regular-season finale, with that being the record for the most points scored in a game.
All that began to change, though, after the NFL-AFL merger was finalized in 1970. The NFL wanted all teams, including those from the former AFL, to streamline their statistics so league records could be maintained in a variety of categories. With that, then, in the Browns case, the AAFC stats disappeared from the media guides and haven’t been seen since.
That was just fine with former Browns owner Art Modell, whose feud with, and dislike for, Paul Brown, the head coach and general manager for the team’s first 17 seasons until being fired by Modell in January 1963, caused him to disregard those early years.
More on this subject in our next post.
