1. Paul Brown
Regular-season record: 213-104-9
Postseason record: 9-8
Cleveland Browns, 1946-1962
Cincinnati Bengals, 1968-1975
After years in Ohio high school and college football, Brown was hired to coach the Cleveland team of the new All-America Football Conference in 1946. The team that bore his last name won all four of the league’s championships, leading in part to the AAFC’s demise because the other teams couldn’t make it competitive enough. The Browns joined the San Francisco 49ers and Baltimore Colts as entrants in the NFL in 1950, and all Brown did in that first season was to beat the two-time defending champion Eagles both in the opening game of the season, and the “point-a minute” Rams in the NFL championship game. Brown won three NFL titles as Cleveland’s head coach, and he also developed the first face mask, hired the first complete coaching staff, integrated game film into team preparation, and helped break pro football’s color ban.
What he could not do was to win a power struggle with Art Modell, who bought the Browns in 1961 and wanted more say than Brown wanted to give him. Fired in January, 1963, Brown waited until another opportunity presented itself where he could have the control he wanted. The American Football League gave him that with the expansion Cincinnati Bengals, and Brown returned to the sidelines in 1968. The Bengals made the playoffs three times in Brown’s tenure, losing every time. He retired from coaching after the 1975 season, naming offensive line coach Bill “Tiger” Johnson as his replacement over his offensive coordinator — some guy named Bill Walsh.
Whoops. Brown stayed on as team president, and the Bengals lost two Super Bowls to Walsh’s 49ers.