1973 Buffalo Bills Season

The 1973 Buffalo Bills season was the 14th season for the team and their fourth season in the National Football League. The Bills finished in second place in the AFC East and finished the 1973 NFL season with a record of 9 wins and 5 losses, the Bills' first winning record since 1966.

Coach Lou Saban began the second season of his second tenure with the Bills. Saban had previously led the team to the 1964 and 1965 AFL championships. It was the first season that the team played in Rich Stadium (now "Ralph Wilson Stadium") after thirteen years playing at War Memorial Stadium.

The Bills' were coming off of 1–13 and 4–9–1 records in 1971 and 1972, respectively. Incumbent starting quarterback Dennis Shaw found himself in a battle with rookie Joe Ferguson for the starting job.

The season was defined by O.J. Simpson becoming the first player in NFL history to rush for 2,000 yards in a season. Behind Simpson's record-setting season, the Bills set an NFL record for most team rushing yards in a 14-game season, with 3,088. Simpson was coming off of his best professional season, in which he earned his first All-Pro recognition and first rushing title. In addition to establishing a then-record for single-season rushing yardage, with 2,003, Simpson established the single-season record for rushing yards gained per game, which still stands. The explosive offense centered around O.J. Simpson was nicknamed the "Electric Company" for its ability to turn on "The Juice" (i.e. "O.J." Simpson)

Read more about 1973 Buffalo Bills Season:  Electric Company Era Begins, Simpson's Record-Breaking Year, Offensive Firepower, Awards, Accolades and Legacy, Offseason, Roster, Awards and Records

Famous quotes containing the words buffalo, bills and/or season:

    As I started with her out of the city warmly enveloped in buffalo furs, I could not but think how nice it would be to drive on and on, so that nobody should ever catch us.
    Anthony Trollope (1815–1882)

    It is only by not paying one’s bills that one can hope to live in the memory of the commercial classes.
    Oscar Wilde (1854–1900)

    The theater is a baffling business, and a shockingly wasteful one when you consider that people who have proven their worth, who have appeared in or been responsible for successful plays, who have given outstanding performances, can still, in the full tide of their energy, be forced, through lack of opportunity, to sit idle season after season, their enthusiasm, their morale, their very talent dwindling to slow gray death. Of finances we will not even speak; it is too sad a tale.
    Ilka Chase (1905–1978)