The American Football League (AFL) was a major professional American football league that operated for ten seasons from 1960 until 1970, when it merged with the older National Football League (NFL), and became the American Football Conference. The upstart AFL operated in direct competition with the more established NFL throughout its existence. It was more successful than earlier rivals to the NFL with the same name, the 1926, 1936 and 1940 leagues, and the later All-America Football Conference.
The Cleveland Browns are a professional American football team based in Cleveland. The Browns compete in the National Football League (NFL) as a member club of the American Football Conference (AFC) North division. The team is named after original coach and co-founder Paul Brown. They play their home games at Huntington Bank Field, which opened in 1999, with administrative offices and training facilities in Berea, Ohio. The franchise's official club colors are brown, orange, and white. They are unique among the 32 member clubs of the NFL in that they do not have a logo on their helmets.
The All-America Football Conference (AAFC) was a major professional American football league that challenged the established National Football League (NFL) from 1946 to 1949. One of the NFL's most formidable challengers, the AAFC attracted many of the nation's best players, and introduced many lasting innovations to the game. However, the AAFC was ultimately unable to sustain itself in competition with the NFL. After it folded, three of its teams were admitted to the NFL: the San Francisco 49ers, the Cleveland Browns and the original Baltimore Colts.
Kurtis Eugene Warner is an American former professional football quarterback who played in the National Football League (NFL) for 12 seasons, primarily with the St. Louis Rams and Arizona Cardinals. His career, which saw him ascend from an undrafted free agent to a two-time Most Valuable Player and Super Bowl MVP, is widely regarded as one of the greatest Cinderella stories in NFL history.
The AFL–NFL merger was the merger of the two major professional American football leagues in the United States at the time: the National Football League (NFL) and the American Football League (AFL). It paved the way for the combined league, which retained the "National Football League" name and logo, to become the most popular sports league in the United States. The merger was announced on the evening of June 8, 1966. Under the merger agreement, the leagues maintained separate regular-season schedules for the next four seasons—from 1966 through 1969 with a final championship game which would become known as the Super Bowl—and then officially merged before the 1970 season to form one league with two conferences.
An expansion draft, in professional sports, occurs when a sports league decides to create one or more new expansion teams or franchises. This occurs mainly in North American sports and closed leagues. One of the ways of stocking the new team or teams is an expansion draft. Although how each league conducts them varies, and they vary from occasion to occasion, the system is usually something similar to the following:
Vincent Frank Testaverde Sr. is an American former professional football player who was a quarterback in the National Football League (NFL) for 21 seasons. He played college football for the Miami Hurricanes, earning consensus All-American honors and winning the Heisman Trophy in 1986.
The American Football Conference – Northern Division or AFC North is one of the four divisions of the American Football Conference (AFC) in the National Football League (NFL). The division was created after the restructuring of the 2002 NFL season when the league realigned divisions after expanding to 32 teams. The division consists of the Baltimore Ravens, Cincinnati Bengals, Cleveland Browns, and Pittsburgh Steelers. This is the only division in the NFL in which no member team has hosted a Super Bowl in their stadiums. The division, however, has won eight Super Bowl titles in total.
The 2001 NFL season was the 82nd regular season of the National Football League (NFL), and the first season of the 21st century. The league permanently moved the first week of the regular season to the weekend following Labor Day. In the wake of the September 11 attacks, the NFL's week 2 games were postponed and rescheduled to the weekend of January 6 and 7, 2002. To retain the full playoff format, all playoff games, including Super Bowl XXXVI, were rescheduled one week later. The New England Patriots won the Super Bowl, defeating the St. Louis Rams 20–17 at the Louisiana Superdome.
The 1999 NFL season was the 80th regular season of the National Football League (NFL). The Cleveland Browns returned to the field for the first time since the 1995 season, while the Tennessee Oilers changed their name to "Tennessee Titans", with the league retiring the name "Oilers".
The 1966 NFL season was the 47th regular season of the National Football League, and the first season in which the Super Bowl was played, though it was called the AFL-NFL World Championship Game. The league expanded to 15 teams with the addition of the Atlanta Falcons, making a bye necessary one week for each team.
The St. Louis Rams were a professional American football team of the National Football League (NFL). They played in St. Louis, Missouri from 1995 through the 2015 season, before moving back to Los Angeles, California, where the team had played from 1946 to 1994.
Carl N. "Gaucho" Taseff was an American professional football player and coach in the National Football League (NFL) and American Football League (AFL). Taseff had an 11-year playing career, primarily with the Baltimore Colts, where he was a member of the 1958 and 1959 NFL Championship winning teams. Taseff then coached for 27 seasons, winning Super Bowl VII and Super Bowl VIII as part of the Miami Dolphins coaching staff.
The History of the Cleveland Browns American football team began in 1944 when taxi-cab magnate Arthur B. "Mickey" McBride secured a Cleveland, Ohio, franchise in the newly formed All-America Football Conference (AAFC). Paul Brown, who coach Bill Walsh once called the "father of modern football", was the team's namesake and first coach. From the beginning of play in 1946 at Cleveland Municipal Stadium, the Cleveland Browns were a great success. Cleveland won each of the AAFC's four championship games before the league dissolved in 1949. The team then moved to the more established National Football League (NFL), where it continued to dominate. Between 1950 and 1955, Cleveland reached the NFL championship game every year, winning three times.
The 1995 Cleveland Browns season was the team's 50th season overall and 46th in the National Football League. It ultimately became their final NFL season until 1999, their final season at Cleveland Stadium, and Bill Belichick's final year as Browns head coach. The team finished 5–11, fourth in the AFC Central, though most of the season was overshadowed by the Cleveland Browns relocation controversy. The team was documented in NFL Network's A Football Life.
The Cleveland sports curse was a sports superstition involving the city of Cleveland, Ohio, and its major league professional sports teams, centered on the failure to win a championship in any major league sport for 52 years, from 1964 to 2016. Three major league teams based in Cleveland contributed to belief in the curse: the Browns of the National Football League (NFL); the Cavaliers of the National Basketball Association (NBA); and the then-Indians of Major League Baseball (MLB).
The 1996 season was the Baltimore Ravens' inaugural season in the National Football League. They played their home games at Memorial Stadium in Baltimore, Maryland. The Ravens were officially a new franchise, but they retained a large portion of the roster of the 1995 Cleveland Browns team, as well as front office staff and some members of the coaching staff. Due to technically, but not officially, being the previous season's Browns team under a new name, they did not receive the number 1 overall draft selection or have an expansion draft as a true expansion franchise would.
The 1960 NFL expansion draft was the first National Football League (NFL) draft in which a new expansion team, which eventually became known as the Dallas Cowboys, selected its initial players. The NFL awarded Dallas, Texas a franchise to compete for revenue with Lamar Hunt's Dallas Texans of the upstart American Football League. However, the Dallas expansion franchise was approved too late for it to participate in the 1960 NFL draft which had been held on November 30, 1959. Thus, Dallas is the only NFL expansion team to not have had the benefit of a college draft in its first year.
The 2002 National Football League expansion draft is the most recent National Football League (NFL) draft in which a new expansion team, named the Houston Texans, selected its first players. On October 6, 1999, in Atlanta, NFL owners had unanimously voted to award the 32nd NFL franchise and Super Bowl XXXVIII to the city of Houston, Texas. In order for the Texans to become competitive with existing teams, the league awarded them the first pick in the 2002 NFL draft and gave them the opportunity to select current players from existing teams. That selection was provided by the expansion draft, held on February 18, 2002.
The Cleveland Browns relocation controversy—colloquially called "The Move" by fans—followed the announcement by Cleveland Browns owner Art Modell that his National Football League (NFL) team would move from its longtime home of Cleveland to Baltimore for the 1996 NFL season.
