The Cleveland Browns joined the NFL from the AAFC in 1950 and would become a league power under head coach Paul Brown and such players as running back Jim Brown and quarterback Otto Graham.
The Browns won eight Eastern Conference titles and four NFL Championships in the 20 seasons before they left for the AFC along with the Pittsburgh Steelers and Baltimore Colts during the 1970 AFL-NFL merger.
They would remain in Cleveland until 1994 when owner Art Modell sought greener pastures in Baltimore — a city which had lost the Colts a decade before.
The move shattered the Cleveland faithful, especially when the new Baltimore team, the Ravens, won a Super Bowl six years later. It was a kick in the gut.
That championship was a kick in the gut for New York Giants fans as well, as they were the team the Ravens vanquished in a 34-7 whitewash in Super Bowl XXXV in Tampa.
The Browns would be re-established an expansion team in 2000 and have logged in just three winning seasons since. The Ravens went on to become one off the NFL’s best-run franchises and added another Lombardi Trophy in 2012.
The Giants and Ravens don’t have much of a history other than the Super Bowl meeting. This week will be only the seventh regular season meeting between the two clubs. The Ravens hold a 4-2 edge.
But long-time Giant fans will remember the days of the old NFL when the Browns were a main rival of the Giants. The Giants and Browns met 41 times between 1950 and the merger, with two of those meetings coming in the postseason.
The Giants won 15 lost 22 with two ties in the regular season contests. They split the two playoff games. The Browns won the 1950 game by an unusual 8-3 score and won the 1958 game, 10-0.
After the merger in 1970, the Giants and Browns would only face one another five more times until 1994, the final season in Cleveland.
The teams almost met in Super Bowl XXI after the 1986 season. The Giants ran the table in the NFC that year and the Browns made it to the AFC Championship Game but lost to Denver.
That was the game where the Browns let John Elway and the Broncos drive 98 yards to tie the game at 20 with 0:37 seconds left in regulation. Denver kicked the game-winning 33-yard field goal 5:38 in overtime and the Broncos advanced.
