Regular season | |
---|---|
Duration | September 16 – December 10, 1950 |
American Conf. Champions | Cleveland Browns |
National Conf. Champions | Los Angeles Rams |
Championship Game | |
Champions | Cleveland Browns |
The 1950 NFL season was the 31st regular season of the National Football League. The merger with the All-America Football Conference (AAFC) expanded the league to 13 teams. Meanwhile, television brought a new era to the game. The Los Angeles Rams became the first NFL team to have all of its games – both home and away – televised. The Washington Redskins became the second team to put their games on TV. Other teams arranged to have selected games televised.
The NFL and the AAFC merged prior to the season, announced on December 9, 1949. Three AAFC teams — Cleveland Browns, San Francisco 49ers, and Baltimore Colts — joined the NFL intact. The players of the former AAFC New York Yankees team were divided up between the New York Giants and the New York Bulldogs (who changed their name to New York Yanks), the Los Angeles Dons and Los Angeles Rams merged, and a portion of the AAFC Buffalo Bills was absorbed into the Browns organization. A special draft was then held by the league's 13 teams to allocate the rest of the AAFC players.
The 13 teams were realigned into the American and National conferences, which lasted for three seasons. The merged league briefly flirted with the name "National-American Football League", but restored the name "National Football League" a few months later. Under the alignment, both conferences had a team in New York and Chicago. The "American Conference" (formerly the Eastern Division) had six teams including the Giants and the Cardinals, and the "National Conference" (the old Western Division) had seven teams including the Yanks and the Bears, as well as the Baltimore Colts.