                  1949 A.A.F.C. Season for Action Pc Football
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created by James Marshall

Version 1.0a 12/1/98

   No updates yet



Historical Background
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  The 1949 season was the fourth of what would be the last year for the
All America Football Confrence.  Although they got off to a good start
in 1946 over time they slowly were losing out to the NFL.  They were
able to out draw some rival NFL teams in competing markets.  The New York
Yanks often out drew Bull Dogs in 1949 and sometimes the Giants.  The
Los Angeles Dons shared the Coliseum with Rams and sometimes had larger
crowds, especially early in the AAFC existance.  The Browns often had
over 70,000 come out to see them play.   Three proved a crowd in Chicago
however, as the Chicago Hornets had trouble filling seats againsts the
rival Bears and Cards.  They were kept a float by the other AAFC owners
for 1949.  The Baltimore Colts also had finacial trouble and had to be helped
out by the Dons owner.   The league cut their schedule back to 12 games
for the 1949 season, and the New York Yankees and Brooklyn Dodgers merged
to form the Brooklyn-New York Yanks as the league was reduced to seven
teams.  
       No longer able to maintain the bidding war with the NFL the AAFC
finaly was able to reach a merger agreement with the NFL.  After the season
three of it's teams would join the NFL.  The Cleveland Browns, San Francisco 
49'ers, and the Baltimore Colts.  The acceptance of the Colts was puzzling
especially since the Colts lost 29 games in three seasons.  They were 1-11
for 1949.  Fans in Buffalo, whose Bills were the only other AAFC team not
in a NFL city not to be accepted.  The Bills were well supported and had
a much better team then Baltimore.  Washington Redskins owner George Preston
Marshall had a lot of influence in the league.  He wanted Baltimore in
the League so his Redskins would have a local rival.   Despite claims that
the league would expand to 16 teams in a few years , the fans in Buffalo
would have to wait 10 more years for pro football.   As for the Colts,
they played as bad as they had in the AAFC and were sold to the leauge
and then dismantled after one year.   The Browns went on to prove the
quality that AAFC had by going to the NFL Championship game year after year.
Of course 45 years later they ended up in Baltimore, as the 49'ers remain the
sole surviver of the AAFC to this day.

    The Browns continued to prove their supremency over the rest of the
league.  Following a perfect season in 1948 the Browns ran their unbeaten
streak to 27 game before losing to the 49'ers.  The loss prove nothing
more then a bump in the road for the star packed Browns.  Behind Otto Graham,
Marion Motley and Dante Lavelli the Browns made it to the post season for
the fourth straight year.  Since there were no divisions in 1949 the league
played two playoff games (4 played 1, 2 played 3).  The 49'ers who finished
second beat the Yanks and finaly had a chance to play the Browns for
Championship after 3 years of finishing second in the division.  
San Francisco had the best offence in the league.  They average 34 points
a game coming from 27 TD passes by Frankie Albert and Joe "the Jet" Perry
led the league in rushing.  The Browns were able to prevail for the fourth
year in a row and were AAFC champions.   Some other players of note, Mac
Speedie caught 62 passes for 1062 yards for the Browns.  George Ratterman
had another good year calling the shots in Buffalo.  Fellow Bill Chet Mutryn
rushed and recieved for over 1000 yards combined.  Y.A. Tittle had a good
second year for the Colts leading the league in pass attempts.   Spec 
Sanders was absent this year due to injury.


Season Creation Notes
----------------------
    Every effort was made to make this season play as accurately and close
to the actual season.  I think you will find that it does so.   Although
APCFB does a good job handling seasons from this era it does run into a
few snags.  Teams that were still running a version of the single wing
offence can give the pc coach troube and the stats might differ some. 
Although not much.  The second problem is that teams of this era often
used more then one player as the kicker.  Causing more trouble some teams
used one player for FG's and another for PATs.  The game will not sub in
the best kicker for the job.  So I put the player with the majority of the
PATs as the starter.   In this era of football teams kicked as few as 5 to
15 FG a year.  So in most cases this not a major problem.  One solution for
the computer teams is to create a generic kicker, and give him the total
team kicking stats and make him the starter.   

    The starting lineups used are based on old boxscores from the New York
Times and Washington Post.  Back then boxscore listed who started and who
the subs were (although no stats?).  In cases where two players split time
at a position the player who started the most games was place as the starter.
For players who played for two or more teams their total stats are listed
on the team the played for the most.  If they played for NFL team, only
their AAFC stats are included.

  