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Since I wasn’t even alive yet when the 1946 football season began, the title of this post is a bit misleading. I don’t actually “remember” the 1946 season, but it’s worth a look back since this was an historic year for the pro game. For starters, the NFL made a change in the commisioner’s office, replacing Elmer Layden with Bert Bell. Bell presided over the league until his death in 1959, when Pete Rozelle took over. Bell’s tenure included the wild and wooly 1950s, when NFL games started to be televised and the league began to grow into the “monster” it is today.

A major rule change was made in 1946 also, as the “free substitution” rule  was withdrawn and changed to only allow 3 subs at a time. Another change made any forward pass which struck the goalposts automatically incomplete. The game changed for the city of Cleveland in a major way in 1946 also. At that time, the Rams were located in Cleveland, but the league allowed Rams’ owner Dan Reeves to move the franchise to Los Angeles. However, the All American Football Conference also began play in 1946, and Cleveland’s entry in this new league, the Browns, dominated play for the entire history of the AAFC and eventually became a dominant force in the NFL when the leagues merged.

The move of the Rams to L.A. was historic for 2 different reasons. First, it expanded the NFL to the west coast for the first time, opening up a whole new audience for the game. But that wasn’t the most important reason. For the 1946 season, the Rams signed the first 2 African American players to play in the modern NFL era, home-town UCLA stars Kenny Washington and Woody Strode. Other black players, most notably Fritz Pollard, had played in the NFL in its’ early years when the game was considered a “savage” sport, but league owners outlawed them from the league. So it was historic when Washington and Strode joined the Rams, a full year prior to Jackie Robinson, a gridiron teammate of Strode and Washington at UCLA, breaking the color line in baseball. Incidentally, that same season, Marion Motley and Bill Willis, also African Americans, played in the AAFC for coach Paul Brown’s Browns.

UCLA teammates, from left: Woody Strode, Jackie Robinson and Kenny Washington.

The Chicago Bears won the NFL title game in 1946, 24-14 over the New York Giants, but not without some controversy. Two Giants’ backs were questioned about an attempt by a New York man to fix the title game, and one was suspended.

The 2010 NFL season begins tonight, with the Super Bowl champion New Orleans Saints meeting the Minnesota Vikings in a rematch of the NFC title game last season. Who would have guessed that a city where the fans used to wear bags over their heads and call their team the “Ain’ts” would win a Super Bowl? Will any history be made this season?