The NFL and the AAFC merged prior to the season, announced on December 9, 1949. Three AAFC teams — Cleveland Browns, San Francisco 49ers, and Baltimore Colts — joined the NFL intact. The players of the former AAFC New York Yankees team were divided up between the New York Giants and the New York Bulldogs (who changed their name to New York Yanks), the Los Angeles Dons and Los Angeles Rams merged, and a portion of the AAFC Buffalo Bills was absorbed into the Browns organization. A special draft was then held by the league's 13 teams to allocate the rest of the AAFC players. The 13 teams were realigned into the American and National conferences, which lasted for three seasons. The merged league briefly flirted with the name "National-American Football League", but restored the name "National
Football League" a few months later. Under the alignment, both conferences had a team in New York and Chicago. The "American Conference" (formerly the Eastern Division) had six teams including the Giants and the Cardinals, and the "National Conference" (the old Western Division) had seven teams including the Yanks and the Bears, as well as the Baltimore Colts. The league also established the Pro Bowl in the 1950 season. Though the league had attempted an all-star game annually between 1938 and 1942, it had cancelled the game because of World War II and did not revive it when the war ended. Unlike the previous all-star game format, which pitted the league's most recent champion against the league's best all-stars, the Pro Bowl would pit two all-star teams, one from each conference, against each other. The 1950 NFL championship game was played on December 24, 1950 at Cleveland Stadium in Cleveland, Ohio. Playing their first season in the NFL after four years in the rival All-America Football Conference, the Cleveland Browns defeated the
Los Angeles Rams, 30–28. The championship was the first of three won by Cleveland in the 1950s under head coach Paul Brown behind an offense that featured quarterback Otto Graham, fullback Marion Motley and ends Dante Lavelli and Mac Speedie.