Ed Ranks Reasons Why Ivan the Terrible Was So Terrible

It's called FASHION.

Ivan IV Vasilyevich, Czar of Russia from 1547 to 1584, is known to history as "Ivan the Terrible." If you get a royal cognomen of "the terrible," obviously you've done some messed up things, right? So why exactly was he so terrible? At first glance, he might appear to have been an effective and capable leader. His early reign was marked by peaceful reforms and modernization (such as revised law codes), he was known as an able diplomat, a patron of arts and trade, and he helped to found Russia's first publishing house (bringing the printing press to Russia). You know St. Basil's Cathedral in Moscow? The onion-dome one from Tetris? Yeah, that was his! He had that built to celebrate his victory over Kazan. He was also widely beloved by the common people of Russia, and remains a popular figure in Russian folklore.

Sounds like a swell guy! So, why so terrible? Let's rank seven reasons why!

7.  The Nickname Really Wasn't "Terrible," the Title is Just Mistranslated

Translation is more of an art than a science, and arguably the Russian "Ива́н Гро́зный"​ (Ivan Grozny) can also be interpreted to mean "Ivan the Fearsome" or "Ivan the Formidable."  If those were the terms we used in English for Ivan, then he'd sound more like a badass conqueror. I already said that he built St. Basil's to celebrate his victory over Kazan (a powerful Tartar/Turkik Khanate that was a successor empire to the famous Mongolian Golden Horde since 1438). He also conquered the Astrakhan Khanate, another powerful Tartar Turkic state in the Volga Delta. So really are we thinking about this whole "terrible" thing wrong? Is he really only terrible because he's feared by  his enemies? To a degree, but then again, "he wasn't really terrible" is a pretty bad answer to the question "Why was Ivan so terrible?," so I'll rank this one last (especially because he actually was terrible).

6. Mass Repression of the Boyars through the Oprichnina

The Boyars were Russian aristocrats. Repressing aristocrats doesn't sound that bad, does it? One could even say that Ivan was fighting against the noble elites and for the common man by repressing aristocrats. Except he sort of really wasn't. He was really just trying to find a way to weasel himself into exercising greater autocratic control over Russia's nobility to make himself more powerful. And what better way to repress and establish control than with violent purges! Ivan the Terrible set up six thousand Oprichniki, the first political police in Russian history. They engaged in a lot of executing, exiling, and torturing. The Massacre of Novgorod was the cherry on top of the Oprichnina, but I'll rank that separately below because it involved more than just the Boyars. 

5. Allowing his People to Suffer Vicious Crimean Raids

Those Tartars, always invading Russia!

In the later years of Ivan's reign, his southern borders were increasingly attacked by Crimean Tatars, who wished to quickly capture people to make slaves.  Shit really hit the fan in 1571 when a the 40,000-strong Crimean/Turkish army launched a large-scale raid which allowed a bunch of Russians to be kidnapped into slavery. Oh, they also devastated unprotected towns and villages around Moscow and caused the 1571 Fire of Moscow. The 40,000 Crimean essentially faced no opposition, as Ivan really only left an army of 6,000 behind to defend his territory during the ongoing Livonian War (that war being another reason he's terrible, as you'll see below). The number of casualties of the fire alone vary from 10,000 to as many 80,000. Ivan's armies would eventually get off their sorry asses and counterattack in 1572, leading to a decisive Russian victory over the Crimeans. But the damage was already done because dipshit Ivan allowed his people to be murdered and enslaved and half his countryside to be burnt to a crisp. 

4. Engaging in the Stupid, Needless Livonian War

America isn't the only country that enters stupid wars that it can't win for no reason. In 1558 Ivan launched the Livonian War in an attempt to gain access to the Baltic Sea and its major trade routes. The war ultimately proved unsuccessful, stretching on for nearly a quarter of a century and getting Russia into punching matches with Sweden, Lithuania, Poland, and the Teutonic Knights of Livonia. The Swedes, Poles and the Hanseatic League then began a sea-trading blockade which cut off Russia's supplies. The prolonged war combined with the blockage basically destroyed the economy of Russia and diverted Ivan's attention away from other important matters like managing his state or protecting his southern borders. 

3. Periods of Near Total Neglect of His Duties as Head of State

In the intro, I gave the years of Ivan's reign as from 1547 to 1584, because that's when his reign actually was. The real story is that it's a bit more complicated, because Ivan frequently did stupid shit like pretending to abdicate the throne. The first time he did this was in 1564 at the beginning of his Oprichnina, when it was just a ploy to get more power. During this period, Ivan held exclusive power over the Oprichnina territory, and pretty much neglected the rest of the country. I'm not on "Team Aristocracy" or anything, but in a monarchical society - the aristocracy have a role to play in controlling local territories. Kings (or Czars, in this case) can't directly rule an ENTIRE country. He needs Dukes and Counts and shit for that. But when Ivan wanted direct, total control - he could only do it over certain areas. Saying "Nope, I'm not ruling the rest of the country anymore and am just focusing on these parts" is a sure fire way to be that asshole kid who takes his ball and leaves when he's losing in a game. In 1575 he did yet another bitch pretend resignation as Czar move.  Also, while speaking of neglect, his dedication to his needless Livonian War was also another sure sign of the neglect of his duties to protect the rest of the country which he let burn. So yeah, that's terrible.

2. Brutally Massacring the People of Novgorod

Just a totally normal painting of skeletons haunting Ivan.

I said that Ivan was "widely beloved by the common people of Russia, and remains a popular figure in Russian folklore." Well, not in Novgorod and its surrounding areas. In 1569 the small town Izborsk was captured by the Lithuanians due to some turncoats on the inside opening the city to them. Ivan became super paranoid about that happening again in the city of Novgorod, and so he took the reasonable next steps of having an army surround and lay siege to the city.  90% of the farmland surrounding the city was burned. Of course with the no supplies or food thing, starvation, plagues and disease spread soon after with many dying just from that before the more formal massacre began.  Later when Ivan's forces decided to enter the city, they would begin burning down monasteries, imprisoning the clergy and or/beating them to death in the streets, etc. Ivan blamed the Church for plotting against him, but instead of stopping is attacks there decided to go for the strategy of, "How about just murdering everyone - the aristocrats, the middle class, the innocent?"  A five week long massacre occured, with sources at the time claiming 60,000 dead. Of course, the city of Novgorod wasn't that big and people always inflate numbers, so modern scholars think it's somewhere between 2,500 to 12,000. Which is still horrible.

1. He was Batshit Fucking Crazy

Sometimes you just gotta kill your son and heir. For reasons.

You all hear about George III being crazy, but he had nothing on Ivan the Terrible. Ivan was prone to paranoia, rages, and episodic outbreaks of mental instability that increased as he got older. Remember how he was burning down churches and killing clergy in Novgorod? At the same time he was doing that, he also demanded to be taken to the the Saint Sophia Cathedral for a divine liturgy from the archbishop, which is not something that sane people do. Basically it was, "I am going to murder you and burn this place down, but first I need to stop and have a Eucharistic service because I'm a holy man." Why was Ivan so crazy? Who knows. Maybe it was just in the blood like with Targaryens. His first wife, Anastasia Romanovna, died in 1560 and it was thought to have greatly effected his mental health. The defection of some nobles who were supposed to be loyal to him to the Lithuanians also started to make him more and more paranoid. He is popularly believed to have killed his eldest son and heir, Ivan Ivanovich, and the latter's unborn son during one of his outbursts. This left the basically incompetent Feodor Ivanovich to inherit the throne, whose shitty  led to the end of the Rurikid dynasty and the devastating Time of Troubles for 15 years.

Ed Ranks New Orleans Cocktails

New Orleans makes a bunch of cocktails. They're sort of famous for them. These are the top 12 of them, ranked.

A Rob Roy. Same thing.

12. Arnaud’s Special Cocktail - This is one of the famous and classic drinks to get from Arnaud's French 75 Bar in New Orleans, probably one of the greatest bars in the world. This drink is pretty delicious and tastes like a Rob Roy. So why am I ranking it last? Because it's honestly just a Rob Roy. Why should I give Arnaud's that much credit for a delicious drink if they really invented nothing. An Arnaud's Special is made from Scotch, bitters, and Dubonnet Rouge (a red-colored, sweet, aromatised, wine-based aperitif). A Rob Roy is made from Scotch, bitters, and sweet vermouth (a red-colored, sweet, aromatised, wine-based aperitif). Who are you trying to fool here, Aranud's? That's like making me a rum and Coke but with an RC Cola and pretending like it's a new thing.

11. Pimm's Cup - This famous cocktail has a close association with the Napoleon House in the French Quater. But it's barely a cocktail. It's more like a shandy or soft drink with an itsy, bitsy small bit of alcohol in it. Surely refreshing on a hot summer day, but then again so is a giant 32-ounce 190 Octane Daquiri, which is what I'd go with to get tore up instead of this weak Sprite.

10. Absinthe Frappé - Invented at the Aleix Coffee House, which was later called The Absinthe Room and now known as "Old Absinthe House," which still exists on Bourbon Street. So you can get one of these at the bar it was first made. Absinthe, simple syrup, anisette, and soda water.  But I'm not really in love with Absinthe because it tastes like disgusting liquorish.

9. Roffignac - Likely the most obscure entry on my list, this one is made up of raspberry shrub (basically an old-time way of preserving fruit that might go bad soon, which mixed the fruit with sugar and vinegar), cognac, simple syrup, and soda water. If you can tolerate a bit of a vinegar taste in your drink... sure... go for this.

Why add orange juice when gin is available?

8. French 75 (kind of) - I like French 75's, but I'll rank them down here as a technicality because their origin is a little dubious and they most certainly did not start in New Orleans. An early version (though perhaps not the first) comes from the Harry's New York Bar in Paris, although as I noted above - Arnaud's has a bar in NOLA specifically called the French 75 and which makes them really good. They're basically a champagne cocktail with gin (although there are some variations), which isn't super creative... but hey! I'm just going to go ahead and give New Orleans ownership over this one even if technically they might come from Paris via London (the Savoy Hotel in that city might have been the first to include its modern ingredient makeup). Oh, it's also named after a type of French cannon that fired 75mm shells, which is cool.

7. Café Brûlot - Invented at Antoine's Restaruant in New Orleans, which still stands to this day so it's another place you can go to. It contains Cognac, Grand Marnier (or Cointreau), dark brown sugar, cinnamon sticks, whole cloves, and New Orleans chicory coffee. But getting this usually involves a whole show where they make it for you table-side. I don't want a show, man. I want a drink. Still, caffeine + alcohol is always a good idea. Or is it?

6. Hurricane - Invented by and still served at Pat O’Brien’s Bar in the French Quarter. Is this the most famous drink on the entire list? Probably. There is a legend that everyone thought rum was crap when it was invented, and therefore this drink was made just to use up a bunch of rum. I'm not sure that this rings true because this drink dates from the 1940s when prohibition had just ended and there is no way people just coming out of prohibition would have disliked rum. This one is dark rum, passion fruit syrup, fresh lemon (or lime) juice, garnished with orange slice and a cherry. Then put in a big tall glass that was specially made for it. Good, but a little too fruity and sweet for my tastes.

5. Sazerac - I love Sazeracs in principle. They are one of the oldest and most famous cocktails in existence. It is a legendary cocktail.  The Sazerac might, in fact, be the New Orleans cocktail. Okay, forget the wiggle words. This is THE New Orleans cocktail. But it's also absinthe-based and, as I stated, absinthe is sort of gross. Still, I can overlook the absinthe to order this legendary drink which also includes rye whiskey, Peychaud bitters, and simple syrup. Its invention is generally credited to apothecary Antoine Amédée Peychaud (who also invented the aforementioned bitters that go into the cocktail) waaaaaaaay back in the 1830s.

4. Vieux Carré  - This is another New Orleans classic, which means "Old Square." What does old square mean? Why, it's the original nickname for the area that we now call "The French Quarter." Invented at the bar which is now the Carousel Bar in the Hotel Monteleone. Rye, cognac, sweet vermouth, Bénédictine, and both Angostura and Peychaud’s bitters (OoOoo... two bitters? Fancy!)

3.  Brandy Crusta - The Brandy Crusta is old as hell too, going back to the 1850's. It contains Cognac, Grand Marnier, maraschino, simple syrup, lemon juice, and Angostura bitters. The addition of the lemon juice to the liquor makes it one of the first "sours" ever created. Is it the first sour? Probably not since records of who invented what cocktail first aren't exactly the best.  Besides, I'm sure long before all these fancy bars were "inventing" ways to mix alcohol with stuff like fruit juice, bored pirates on ships at sea were already doing this on their own. Hey, whatever you gotta do to prevent scurvy.

2. Brandy Milk Punch - Like with the French 75, the origin of this one is not certain (the oldest record of some version of it seems to go all the way back to Scotland in freaking 1688!) Despite this technicality, the Big Easy has taken ownership of this cocktail of Cognac, milk, simple syrup, and vanilla. It's especially associated as a holiday drink. Sort of like New Orleans eggnog, I suppose.

A gin milkshake? What a time to be alive.

1. Ramos Gin Fizz - This is the best New Orleans cocktail, invented in 1888 by Henry C. Ramos, who would make it popular at his bar called the Stag (although he was working at a bar called Imperial Cabinet Saloon when he invented it). It consists of Gin, heavy cream, lemon juice, lime juice, simple syrup, egg white, and orange flower water. It is fairly complicated to make, and only a few places really know how to make it well (the Sazerac Bar in the Roosevelt Hotel probably being the best). Trying to order this outside of New Orleans will usually get you a blank stare from a bartender unless they are really a top notch one who knows their stuff. Even in New Orleans if you order this at a bar, you might get a sigh, eye-roll or groan from a bartender because of how complicated and time-consuming they are compared to other drinks. SHUT UP AND  DEAL WITH IT, BARTENDER! I WANT THIS NOW! This drink can be described as tasting somewhat like a gin and tonic (which is delicious) mixed with a vanilla milkshake (which is delicious).

Ed Ranks Terrible Local DC Commercials From the Days of Yore

Do you need explanations of these for context? No, you do not. Enjoy these five abominations that used to play in the DC local broadcast area. 

5. Jhoon Rhee Taekwondo

4. Go Gebco! Go Gebco! 

3. Matthew Lesko's Free Money

 2. Senate Insurance (Kiss My Bumper)

 

1. Eastern Motors

 

Ed Ranks the Eight Beauties of Qinhuai

This courtesan's home is now a museum! Hooray!

Hey, I've talked about European royal courtesans before. In fact, I talked about them so much that I needed to break them into two rankings. So I'd be remiss if I didn't also mention the "Eight Beauties of Qinhuai," a group of eight famous courtesans during the Ming-Qing transition period of China (all of who resided along the Qinhuai River in Nankin), on and around 1664.

8. Bian Yujing

A courtesan and painter, she had a number of famous clients (it feels weird to call these transactional relationships "romances"), including with Qian Qianyi (poet, scholar, social historian), Wu Sangui (military general instrumental in the fall of the Ming Dynasty), and Wu Weiye (a poet who was so obsessed with her that he wrote a bunch of poems about her).  In the end, she did a 180 with her life and became a Daoist Priestess.

7. Ma Xianglan

Beginning her time as a courtesan at age 15 (yikes), she would go on to become the matriarch at a courtesan society which encouraged all of its hos to be educated in the arts. She was a high-class Elliot Spitzer type of madame who only catered to elite customers. She carried on a famous romance and exchanged love letters with Wang Zhideng, a famous calligrapher known for graceful strokes. Ma also was a somewhat notable painter, generating landscapes, orchids, and bamboo imagery combined with calligraphy. I guess that's cool.

6. Dong Xiaowan

The Christian Dior of 17th Century China.

Nicknamed "Qinglian," she was famed for not only her beauty, but also for her writing, needlework, and tea ceremonies. She lived in the brothel district of Nankin and entered the world of ho'ing because her mother died and she had no other way of making money. Nobleman Mao Bijiang eventually focused his attention on her (but only after first perusing the fellow Eight Beauty Chen Yuanyuan) after she essentially stalked him for a month, continuously asking to be his concubine. Eventually Qian Qianyi (he appears a lot in the stories of the Eight Beauties, because he loved to spend time with hos, I suppose) payed her debts off which allowed her to marry Mao Bijiang as his concubine. Mao was in big with the rulers, so when the Ming Dynasty ended in 1644, she was forced to flee. She'd go on to write a book about women's fashion and parties.

5. Kou Baimen

A "registered" teenage prostitute (hey, it's good to have your certificates in order), she had a good run at the ho thing until she was late in her teenage years and caught the attention of a high official named Zhu Guobi. He married her in a lavish ceremony but the honeymoon didn't last and they became estranged. When the Qing revolution came around in 1644, Zhu was arrested and jailed. Kou Baimen scrounged up enough money to buy her husband's freedom, but the payment was sort of a two-for-one deal, as she also bought her own freedom from him. What did she do after that? Well, she turned back into a courtesan again, and would go on to have numerous relationships with nobles and writers, including poet Fang Wen who wrote a bunch of poems about her because he's super clingy and was reading a way lot more into the courtesan thing than he should have.

4. Li Xiangjun

Oh, you flirt you.

Her origins are murky, but she seems to be the daughter of a once high-ranking Chinese official who was demoted and had his family sold or killed. Where is a young girl to go after the liquidation of her father and family? Why she was adopted, of course! By a brothel owner! Yeeeeeeah. She was taught to dance, sing, play music, paint, and write poetry. And do other things, of course. This is a brothel. Also, she was 13 but then again life was rough and came by you fast back in those days. She had a famous romance with a young scholar named Hou Fangyu, and their romance is one of the most famous and epic romances in Chinese literature. Like Romeo and Juliet but with less suicide at the end. The most famous version of their love story is probably told in the play The Peach Blossom Fan.

3. Gu Hengbo

Famous as a painter of orchids, she was the hostess of a "literary saloon" called Meilou (apparently meaning "House of Bewitchment"). She'd have a number of famous and notable clients, but also considered jumping out of the courtesan game and finding herself a steady man. She initially wanted to go with one of her patrons, Liu Fang. But then she changed her mind and decided she didn't want to marry him and that she'd go back to being a ho and sleeping with clients. This didn't sit well with Liu Fang, who reacted in a very moderate way by killing himself. Eventually Gu would settle down with Gong Dingzi, a renowned author and poet. After that, she basically ran his life and controlled him - which is a hell of a good outcome, all things considered.

2. Liu Rushi

Her family sold her as a concubine at a young age, which is a pretty horrible thing to say. However, they did sell her to the,/ Prime Minister of the Ming Dynasty at the time, Zhou Daodeng. So at least they sold her to someone super famous, huh? It's not like they sold her to Larry on the street corner. Still horrible. At age 13 when she had already been a concubine for some time (yikes, these stories don't get any easier from here, folks) she caused a "scandal" and was sold again, this time to a brothel. She'd go on to have a number of relations with famous Chinese nobles and artists, but she bagged the big one when she got Qian Qianyi (as previously mentioned with Bian Yujing). She apparently pulled a full Mulan on him by pretending to be a man when meeting him, getting into an argument, and then only later have the gender reveal. Qian Qianyi married her, in fact, and treated her as his principle wife (technically she wasn't, and was only a concubine wife). When the Ming Dynasty came to an end in 1644, Liu tried to get her husband to kill himself because she was obviously tired of his shit. He didn't though, and he tried to lead a resistance movement against the new Qing regime. He never regained his social status though, and later died heavily in debt. Liu was harassed by debt collectors (some things never change) and just decided to hang herself. The end!

1. Chen Yuanyuan

She looks like a grandma here, but okay.

The most famous of the Eight Beauties of Qinhuai, she would have many stories told about her. Alas, it's pretty hard to separate fact from fiction with her biography, as many of the stories only came later and probably aren't true. We do know that she became a courtesan after the death of her father, she was famous in the opera scene, became the lover of the scholar/poet Mao Xiang, then was then purchased (yep, of course you can purchase people) by Tian Hongyu, the father of one of the Chongzhen Emperor's (Zhu Youjian) concubines. From there, somehow she wound up with the famous general Wu Sangui, briefly mentioned above with Bian Yujing. Wu Sangui is famous because he played a key role in the birth of the Qing Dynasty (she might have been a gift to him, or sold again). Wu Sangui was firmly on the side of the Ming Dynasty's Chongzhen Emperor as he was being challenged by a rebel leader named Li Zicheng. In fact, he was the Emperor's greatest general with the most forces. But Wu Sangui couldn't rescue the emperor in time, and the Emperor committed suicide, which basically made Li Zicheng the emperor, beginning the "Shun Dynasty." Haven't heard of that dynasty, have you? Well, that's because Wu Sangui said "fuck Li Zicheng," despite the fact that Li was holding Wu's family as hostages. Wu Sangui's forces sided with a rival claimant, Dorgon, and helped defeat Li and establish the Qing Dynasty, installing the Shunzhi Emperor in Peking. What does any of this have to do with Chen Yuanyuan? In reality, probably nothing. In fiction though, the story was embellished and included tales such as Li Zicheng kidnapping and raping Chen Yuanyuan, and Wu Sangui heroically fighting against Li to gain Chen back. What actually happened to her is unknown as there are different stories such as her eventually becoming a nun or committing suicide, but those are probably made up too.

Ed Ranks AAFC Teams

The All-America Football Conference (AAFC) was a professional football league that challenged the established NFL from 1946 to 1949.  It lost that challenge and folded. But hey, valiant effort and everything.  At least it was good enough so that three of its teams would be admitted into the NFL in 1950 after its collapse, two of which still exist to this day.

These nine(ish) teams will be ranked according to a few factors, such as how cool or dumb their name is, how good their team actually was (i.e. overall winning percentage), how long the team was able to last (the league only lasted four years, and yet some of the teams didn't even last that long), and any particular enduring "legacy" the team has left.

9. Brooklyn Dodgers (1946–48) 

First off - terrible and lazy team name. You're just going to name yourselves after an already existing baseball team? They even played on the same field (Ebbets). Why not try to be a little original? It wasn't even original at being unoriginal - as there was already a failed 1930-1943 NFL team called the Brooklyn Dodgers. At least Detroit is clever enough to have teams named both "Tigers" and "Lions."  Oh yeah, and this team was also awful. I mean, like, REALLY awful.  After three years, the team folded with a record of 8 wins, 32 losses, and 2 ties (a .200 winning percentage). That mediocrity led to it being merged into an existing rival New York team (also with a terrible and lazy name, you'll see below) for the final 1949 season. At least that other terribly-named team could win games though.

8. Miami Seahawks (1946)

Caw caw! I think this is an egg.

The Miami Seahawks only lasted one single year in the league before folding, finishing at 3 wins and 11 losses (.214).  That's only a slightly better record than the Brooklyn Dodgers who lasted three years and at least had managed a whole whopping 8 wins. Shouldn't being cancelled after one single year mean you're ranked last? Perhaps, but on this occasion we can give the Seahawks a little credit as the following year the team reformed in Baltimore as a new team. The name is also pretty cool, being named after the Iowa State Pre-Flight Seahawks football team (a US Navy-commissioned cadet school which existed during World War II). Why? Because it hired the head coach from the Iowa State Pre-Flight Seahawks Team, Jack Meagher, to be their coach. I guess Meagher was just too lazy to learn a new team name.  This isn't the same Seahawks franchise which exists today, but it did inspire the name. So at least it has a lasting and memorable legacy in that regard.

7. Chicago Rockets (1946–48); Chicago Hornets (1949)

Okay, both of the team names were sort of cool, so I'm not sure why they needed to change the name. Rockets are much cooler than Hornets.  Despite the name change, the franchise existed for the entire four seasons of the AAFC. It was a bad team though. It was just fail after fail after fail for Chicago. The owner of the team didn't even want to own them. He wanted to own the MLB White Sox, but his offer got rejected. So instead he started an AAFC team in an already football-saturated city (the NFL had both the Chicago Bears AND the Chicago Cardinals at the time). That was a fail. He tried to hire away big names from the NFL Chicago teams. He failed. The final record after four seasons was 11 wins, 10 losses, and 3 ties (.216) - the worst of any team which existed for all four seasons. After the AAFC dissolved in 1950, the team left no legacy in professional football (unlike the Seahawks). I guess the NBA really liked these team names though.

6. Los Angeles Dons (1946–49)

Literally the best pic I can find.

At last - we have a team that lasted all four years of the league with no name-changes, mergers, moves or anything.  Unfortunately, this is the absolutely worst named team in the league. The Dons? I'm not sure what or who they are named after. Most likely it was after the honorific title of Don in Italia-Spanish cultures. Perhaps it was after one of their owners, actor Don Ameche. Then again, their owners were a Hollywood super group of famous LA figures, also including Bob Hope, Bing Crosby, and Louis B. Mayer (if that final name isn't that familiar to you, "Mayer" is the second "M" in MGM studios). So why the hell would they name the team after the freaking vaudeville actor from freaking That Night in Rio? Okay, it was probably the honorific thing. Their winning rate over the years (25 wins, 27 loses, 2 ties, i.e. .481) was a lot better than the teams above, but still nothing to write home about since they only had one winning season (their first in 1946) and never qualified for the AAFC playoffs. What legacy to they have? Almost none. Technically, they beat the Rams to be the first professional football team to play in Los Angeles, although they only beat the Rams by two weeks.

5. Buffalo Bisons (1946); Buffalo Bills (1947–49)

Okay, first off all the word "Bison" is already plural, so the word "Bisons" doesn't exist. I guess they figured that out after a year and renamed themselves the Bills. "OH SHIT! The Buffalo Bills?!," you're probably saying now. No. They're not. This was a different Buffalo Bills and when the league folded these were not the Buffalo Bills who would play in the NFL (that team wouldn't play until the 1960 season). The rename presumably meant they were named after western showman Buffalo Bill Cody, and the name was popular enough to leave a legacy and have an NFL team steal it. Too bad their original year they went with Buffalo Bisons instead of Buffalo Buffalo, which would have been so much cooler. Or better yet, they could have been the Buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo. What was their overall record? 23 wins, 26 losses, and 5 ties (.469). Not as good as the Dons, but a cooler name that would inspire a much better team is worth something. Oh yeah, they also went to the AAFC Championship game in 1948!

4. New York Yankees (1946–48); Brooklyn/New York Yankees (1949)

Yep, another New York team that put zero thought into naming its team and just gave it the same name as the much more famous baseball team that had already won 10 World Series titled by the time 1946 rolled along. Did naming the football team after a good baseball team rub off on it and give it good luck? Sort of! Their first two years they had great records and went to the Championship game both times. Their third year they had more losses than wins for the only time before recovering and having a solid fourth and final year and returning to the playoffs. They finished off with a total record (combining the two franchises) of 35 wins, 17 losses, and 2 ties (.675), with nearly half of those losses all from their 1948 season. For their fourth and final year, the sucky and last-on-this-ranking Brooklyn Dodgers folded and merged into the New York Yankees, meaning their last year they played as the "Brooklyn/New York Yankees," which is silly because Brooklyn is already part of New York so that name change is redundant. The New York Yankees were one of the best teams in the league, so when it folded in 1950 and the NFL was thinking of sucking up AAFC teams - did it pick the Yankees? Nope! Instead the NFL took one of its existing teams, The New York Bulldogs and renamed them the New York Yanks (although the Bulldogs had previously been known as the Yanks when they played in Boston...imagine that..."Yanks" fans in Boston!).  The AAFC version of the Yankees therefore faded into oblivion.

3. Baltimore Colts (1947–49) 

I'm digging this jumpy horse logo.

Remember how I mentioned that the Miami Seahawks folded after one season and were reborn in Baltimore. Well, this is the team they were reborn as - the Baltimore Colts. So...are these the same Baltimore Colts who played in the NFL? Well, yes and no. They did, but they're not the Baltimore Colts that you're thinking of. The Colts and the two teams below were the only three teams given life after the death of the AAFC. But they squandered it and went 1-11 in the NFL in 1950 before being cancelled. The Baltimore Colts that you're thinking of stole the name of these Colts and was established three years later in 1953 (before jumping town to Indianapolis in the middle of the night in 1984). Anyway, this version of the Colts in the AAFC had three pretty rough years where they had 10 wins, 29 losses, and 1 tie (.256). That's obviously not great, but they did have a great name, somehow made the leap to the NFL, and inspired yet another NFL team. So yeah, there is a legacy there despite their mediocrity.

2. San Francisco 49ers (1946–49)

Oh look, a .gif! Fancy.

No tricks or confusing things here. This is absolutely the same San Francisco 49ers you're thinking of and which still exists in the NFL to this day. The name is dumb though. How relevant was the California gold rush of 1849 in 1946 when this team was established? The 49ers are arguably the biggest success story out of the entire AAFC, if you look at things in the long-term after the collapse of the league. These guys were a charter member of the AAFC, the first professional sports franchise (OF ANY SPORT!) based in San Francisco, and kicked ass in all four years in the league. They wound up 38 wins, 14 losses and 2 ties (.717) when it was all said and done - more than enough for the NFL to salivate at merging them into their league in 1950, and realigning the previous Eastern and Western NFL Conferences into the American and National Conferences (the latter of which took the 49ers). In the NFL, they'd go on to win 5 Superb Owls, 6 Conference Championships, and 19 Division Championships. They're clearly the best team to come out of the AAFC. But within the AAFC, which this whole ranking is about, they never quite reached the top. They were always second best - to the team which won the AAFC Championship every single year that the league existed. To that powerhouse juggernaut of a team with an insane .922 winning percentage and which only averaged one loss per year. You know what powerhouse football franchise I'm talking about, don't you? Yeah, it's the Cleveland Browns! Hahahaha...wait...WHAT?! 

1. Cleveland Browns (1946–49)

The Browns, whose color is orange. Obviously.

As I already stated above, the Browns were the dominant force of the All-America Football Conference. They existed for every year of the AAFC and won the Championship game every single year (beating the Yankees for the championship the first two years, the Bills in year three, and the 49ers in the final year). Their final record was an incredible 47 wins, 4 losses, and 3 ties. Holy Shitcakes that's good! It was a no-brainer that when the NFL absorbed the Cleveland Browns that they would take this team and add it into the league (in this case, into the American Conference). The Browns are obviously the greatest and #1 AAFC team of all time (all time being a somewhat short four seasons, of course). Alas, their legacy after the AAFC isn't quite what the 49ers would have. What the hell happened here? Things started off pretty damn well in the NFL. In 1950, their first year in the NFL, they won the NFL Championship there too, beating the LA Rams and proving that they could simply knock the living shit out of any team in any league. They wouldn't be quite as dominant in the NFL, but they would go on to win again in 1954, 1955, and 1964 (and also make the Championship game but lose in 1951, 1952, 1953, 1957, and 1965). That means they appeared in NFL Championship 9 out of 16 times between joining the NFL, in 1950, and 1965. Then 1966 happened, which began the era of the Superbowl. It was all downhill from there. They even vanished from existence between 1996 and 1998 (well, in reality they became the Baltimore Ravens because the owner, entire staff, and team all moved to Baltimore - but the Ravens had to pretend to call themselves an "expansion team" and leave the name and rights to the Browns in Cleveland). When the new Browns began in 1999, the mediocrity of the Browns' time in the NFL continued. Ah, how these guys must wish they were back in the good ol' AAFC!