Prior To 1960
The Bills were not the first professional football team to play in Buffalo, nor was it the first NFL team in the region. In 1918, a franchise known as the "Buffalo Niagaras" was founded; it played under various names (most notably the Buffalo All-Americans from 1920 to 1923) from 1918 to 1929 before folding; that team joined what would become the NFL in 1920 and finished in a tie atop the league standings in 1921.
After Buffalo hosted two NFL games in 1938, the third American Football League installed the Buffalo Indians in the city; the Indians played two years before the league suspended and ultimately folded due to World War II. After the war, when the All-America Football Conference formed, Buffalo was again selected for a team; originally known as the Buffalo Bisons, the same name as a baseball team and (at the time) a hockey team in the area, the team sought a new identity and named itself the "Buffalo Bills" in 1947. When the AAFC merged with the NFL in 1950, the AAFC Bills were merged into the Cleveland Browns. Though there was no connection between the AAFC team and the current team, the Bills name proved popular enough that it was used as the namesake for the future American Football League team that would form in 1959.
Read more about this topic: History Of The Buffalo Bills
Famous quotes containing the words prior to and/or prior:
“Prior to the meeting, there was a prayer. In general, in the United States there was always praying.”
—Friedrich Dürrenmatt (1921–1990)
“I remember the thought which occurred to me when some ingenious and spiritual foreigners came to America, was, Have you been victimized in being brought hither?—or, prior to that, answer me this, “Are you victimizable?””
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)