For the second year in a row, the Detroit Lions beat the Cleveland Browns for the NFL Championship, despite the fact that the Browns were undefeated until the last game of the regular season.  Baltimore, who was headed by Carroll Rosembloom, was granted an NFL team, and was awarded the holdings of the defunct Dallas Texans organization.  The new team was named the Colts after the previous team that folded after the 1950 NFL season.  The twelve teams that made up the NFL this season would continue to do so for the rest of the 1950's.  The names of the American and National Conferences were changed to the Eastern and Western Conferences.  The league changed in 1953 when a large influx of great defensive players entered the NFL, and defense dominated the league for years to come.  On a sad note, it was also the year that the great Jim Thorpe passed away.  Jim Thorpe, besides being considered the greatest athlete of the 20th Century, was also a player on the Canton Bulldogs in the inaugural season of the American Professional Football Asscociation, way back in 1920.