There was no interleague playoff in December 1949. "American" swiftly disappeared from the enlarged league's name. The AFL, on the other hand, was able to force the NFL to admit all of its teams, to play an interleague championship game on a neutral field, and to maintain the "American" name in the form of the American Football Conference. The Pro Football Hall of Fame does recognize AAFC statistics. Legacy Although the AAFC played only four years, it had a major, lasting impact on pro football. Of all the leagues that challenged the NFL, only the American Football League of the 1960s influenced the NFL more than the AAFC. The Cleveland Browns, San Francisco 49ers, and original Baltimore Colts began in the AAFC. Sixteen AAFC alumni are enshrined in the Pro Football Hall of Fame. The AAFC played a 14-game schedule more than a decade before the NFL, and played a major role in popularizing zone defenses in pro football. The AAFC put the first pro football teams in Baltimore, Los Angeles, San Francisco, and Miami. Indeed, the AAFC was a coast-to-coast league more than a decade before Major League Baseball. This brought about another innovation: AAFC teams traveled by air while NFL teams still traveled by train. Black players were excluded from the NFL from 1934 to 1945. The AAFC helped reintegrate professional American football in 1946 when Cleveland signed Marion Motley and Bill Willis. The NFL Rams, having been driven out of Cleveland by the AAFC Browns, signed Kenny Washington and Woody Strode only after the venue they sought to play in, the Los Angeles Coliseum, enforced its policy of integration. Through its poaching of NFL official (and former player-coaching star) Tommy Hughitt, the AAFC took an explicitly anti-racist stance toward rough play, aggressively penalizing racist unsportsmanlike conduct. Motley credited this, along with the AAFC fans' embrace of black talent in the league, with helping to establish the legitimacy of integrated professional football. The AAFC's Paul Brown produced numerous innovations to the game on and off the field. Among them were year-round coaching staffs, precision pass patterns, the face mask, and the practice of coaches’ calling plays via "messenger guards". He also was the first coach to have his staff film the opposition and have his team break down those game films in a classroom setting. In fact, the classroom setting and chalkboard analysis can also be attributed to