Late-'40s Yankees of the AAFL

[74_75_78_79_]

How do you all think they hold up against some the NFL elite of that immediate post-WWII era (Bears, Eagles, Cards, Rams)? Or were the Browns (maybe Niners) the only team that would have had a chance if not actually be ready already?

[Reaser]

Well you can pretty much see how they would do in the NFL since the 1950 NY Yanks were for all intents and purposes the AAFC NY Yankees (who had merged with Brooklyn in '49) - minus six players (including some of their best players, though they gained a couple AAFC players from other teams, like all NFL teams did). So a depleted - in a way - AAFC NY Yankees (as the NFL's NY Yanks) team went 7-5 in the NFL in 1950. In 1949 while in the AAFC they went 8-4.

I always tend to think of these type of questions the same way, like when someone asks how the Bills would have done in the NFL in 1950, I answer they would have been around a .500 team, because they were a .500 team the last two years of the AAFC.

It makes sense because the AAFC and NFL were essentially equal. If they weren't exactly equal there was minimal difference with one or the other being just slightly better.

The Browns were the best team in the AAFC, then they were the best team in the NFL.
The Colts were 1-11 in the AAFC, then they were 1-11 in the NFL.
The Yankees were 8-4 in the AAFC, the (with some players gone) NY Yanks were 7-5 in the NFL.

The only one that doesn't transfer year-to-year is the 49ers, but I think it's fair to call 1950 an anomaly, since the following year the 49ers were back in their accustomed 2nd place, which is where they always finished in the AAFC, too.

[Mark L. Ford]

I agree with Reaser on this one-- officially, the New York Yanks were a continuation of the 1949 New York Bulldogs, but the Yanks had the same coach, stadium and nearly all of the players as the AAFC New York Yankees, and only a few Bulldogs. It's possible that the Yankees might have done a little better than the Yanks, because some of their best players (Hall of Famer Arnie Weinmeister, Otto Schnellbacher, and Tom Landry) were assigned to the Giants by Commissioner Bell, along with three others. Still, I think that at most, they might have beaten the Rams at home instead of losing, and then the Rams and Yanks would have finished at 8-4-0, with the Bears winning the National Conference title outright at 9-3-0, and going straight to the Championship game against the Browns. Instead, the Bears lost to the Rams in the tiebreaker playoff. Whether it was the Bears or Rams, either would still have lost to Cleveland.

[Jay Z]

I would have like to have seen the Yankees kept whole and come in as a team run by Dan Topping. Politicallly, that was never going to happen unless the AAFC came in with all of their teams.

Give the Giants the dregs of the NY Bulldogs and get rid of that team and Ted Collins. Get Rosenbloom to buy in earlier in Baltimore, keep the Bills, and go to 14 games.