PALM BEACH, Fla. \_ Bengals founder Paul Brown once mused that records bored him.
But on Tuesday, he no doubt would have been quite interested to hear that the NFL owners agreed to put the statistics of the All-America Football Conference into the pro football record book.
Not that his seven championships break a tie with George Halas, Bill Belichick, and Curly Lambeau and put him at the top of Pro Football Reference Wednesday morning 33 years after his death, 58 years after the birth of the Bengals, and nearly 70 years after that first win over the Miami Seahawks to open the Cleveland Browns' 1946 AAFC season.
What would have caught Paul Brown's eye is that his granddaughter, Bengals executive vice president Katie Blackburn, is a member of the competition committee that recommended the addition to the owners at their annual league meeting that came to an end Tuesday.
"It's nice to have all the records together," said Blackburn, who attended a few of these meetings with her grandfather.
Back at Paycor Stadium, her father, Bengals president Mike Brown, who made certain the Bengals were born in Cincinnati as his father's confidant, is thinking as much about Paul's players as the man himself.
"Not only my dad's records, but all the great players who are getting a fair shake," said Mike Brown, 89 years young clicking off statistics he first learned as a junior high schooler in Cleveland. "Look at Marion Motley. He had more yards per carry in his career than Jim Brown."
Brown, who tore off 5.2 yards per carry for the Browns of the '50 and '60s, became regarded as the greatest player of all-time. Motley, who was the Browns running back in the four seasons they won all four AAFC championships and then three NFL titles in the '40s and '50s, had 5.7.
Both played for Paul Brown. On Wednesday morning for the first time, Motley is ahead of Jim Brown on the yards per career list. Both are behind quarterbacks Michael Vick, Randall Cunningham, and Lamar Jackson. But Motley now leads all running backs who ever played.
"There were great players in that league," Mike Brown said. "Three of the teams, Cleveland, San Francisco, and Baltimore, joined the National Football League and in that first year, 41 percent of the players were former All-American players. That would indicate just how good those players when they came into the league and really helped teams like the Giants."