1946 AAFC season

The season is significant for its shattering of the color line in the ranks of professional American football, when black athletes Marion Motley and Bill Willis took to the field for the AAFC's Cleveland Browns on September 9, 1946.

[4] Seven coaches and about 30 players were signed before league owners decided that wartime manpower shortages and the inability of several teams to expeditiously obtain stadium leases would force a postponement until the fall of 1946.

With two franchises in California, the AAFC broke new ground as the leading purveyor of professional sports on the Pacific coast, being joined for the 1946 season by the NFL champion Cleveland Rams, which were then relocating to Los Angeles.

[8] The two games taking place in the Eastern time zone were held at neutral locations, apparently as a means of broadening potential fan interest, with the Cleveland Browns stopping Brooklyn by a score of 35-20 in Akron, Ohio, and the Buffalo Bisons edging the Miami Seahawks, 23-21, in Baltimore.

[9] The week continued with two games on Sunday, September 9, with the San Francisco 49ers giving up an early lead and falling to the visiting New York Yankees, 21-7, in front of about 35,000 people at Kezar Stadium.

[10] In the second Sunday game, Frankie Albert and the San Francisco 49ers made the Miami Seahawks the league's first 0-2 team with a 21-14 victory in front of a reported 25,000 people at Kezar Stadium.

[10] The league once again split its action between Friday and Sunday in week 3, with the Chicago Rockets salvaging a 17-17 tie with the Yankees thanks to a 36-yard touchdown pass from QB Walt Williams to halfback Bill Boedeker with just 55 seconds remaining.

The AAFC held its first Wednesday night contest to kick off week 4, drawing 20,768 fans to Soldier Field to witness an offensive shootout, won by the home team Chicago Rockets over the visiting Buffalo Bisons, 38-35.

[12] A fourth quarter rally with 17 unanswered point was needed for the Rockets to escape with the narrow win, won with a walk-off chip-shot field goal by Steve Nemeth.

The previously 0-4 Bisons managed a tie with the visiting Los Angeles Dons, 21-21, while the Rockets played another home game, winning twice in a single week with a 24-7 dispatching of the 49ers.

[12] In the final game of the week, the New York Yankees more than doubled the season points allowed total of the Cleveland Browns, scoring a first quarter touchdown en route to a 24-7 loss.

[13] Yankee rookie Spec Sanders, league leader in total offense, led the team to victory with a pair of fourth quarter scores — a touchdown pass and a 76-yard punt return to the house.

[13] The league's first foray into football in the Deep South, a Tuesday tilt between the Seahawks and the visiting San Francisco 49ers was a debacle, with only 7,621 fans passing through the turnstiles to watch the dismantling of the home team by a score of 34–7.