page_title: 1946 AAFC season
section_title: Week One
hierarchical_section_title: 1946 AAFC season / Regular season / Week One
caption_attribution_description: English: Marion Motley, American football fullback, on a 1950 Bowman football card
context_page_description: The 1946 AAFC season was the first season of the All-America Football Conference, a new professional league established to challenge the market dominance of the established National Football League. The league included eight teams, broken up into Eastern and Western divisions, which played a 14-game official schedule, culminating in a league championship game.
  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. Both of these stars would later be voted to membership in the Professional Football Hall of Fame.
context_section_description: The 1946 regular season of the All-America Football Conference kicked off the night of Friday, September 6 at Cleveland's Municipal Stadium, where the Cleveland Browns — a team which featured two African-American players, Marion Motley and Bill Willis — hosted the visiting Miami Seahawks. The game, attended by a massive crowd of 60,135, was the largest ever to see a regularly scheduled professional football game. The result was never in doubt, as the Paul Brown-coached Browns, led by quarter back Otto Graham annihilated the hapless Seahawks by a score of 44-0.
  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. In game two, single wing half back Glenn Dobbs passed for one touchdown and lateraled for another midway through a 58-yard scoring run as the visiting Brooklyn Dodgers topped the Buffalo Bisons, 27-14, in front of Commissioner Jim Crowley and a crowd of 25,489 at Buffalo's Civic Stadium. Chicago and Los Angeles had first week byes.
caption: In addition to his role shattering the color barrier, powerful Cleveland fullback and linebacker Marion Motley was the AAFC's first black star.
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