Paul Brown

In their first season as a team, the Cleveland Browns won their first five games by a combined score of 142-20. They ended up at 12-2 on the year, winning the franchise's first AAFC Championship over New York at Cleveland Municipal Stadium. Brown coached Cleveland to championships the next three seasons, as well.

In 1949, the NFL took the Browns into the league (along with the Baltimore Colts and the San Francisco 49ers). It was the end of AAFC, but the beginning of more success for Coach Brown. The Commissioner of the National Football League (NFL), Bert Bell, always aware of marketing strategies, wanted to pit the best teams from both leagues against one another. So in the first game of the season, the Browns played the defending champion Philadelphia Eagles. The Cleveland Browns dominated the contest, emerging with 35-10 rout. The Browns' precision passing game was awesome, and the Eagles' coach didn't know how to defense it.

Paul Brown would coach in Cleveland until 1963. In 1968, he became the first coach of a new team in Ohio, the Cinncinnati Bengals. But his success in Cincinnati didn't come close to his prior successes. He finished his tenure as coach of the Bengals with a 55-59-1 record. He retired from coaching in 1975.

Paul Brown ended his career with a 222-112-9 record in professional football. He won four All-American Football Conference titles and three NFL titles. With the Cleveland Browns, he compiled a record of forty-seven wins, four losses and three ties in the AAFC, and the move to the NFL would garner almost as much success.