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Buffalo (NFL)
Buffalo (NFL)
Buffalo Founded Suspended Folded Based in League 1915 1927 1929 Buffalo, New York, United States Buffalo Semi-Pro Football League (1918) New York Pro Football League (1919) National Football League (1920-1929) Buffalo All-Stars (1915-1917) Buffalo Niagaras (1918) Buffalo Prospects (1919) Buffalo All-Americans (1920-1923) Buffalo Bisons (1924-1925) Buffalo Rangers (1926) Buffalo Bisons (1927-1929) Black, Orange, White Tommy Hughitt (1920-1924) Walt Koppisch (1925) Jim Kendrick (1926) Dim Patterson (1927) Al Jolley (1929) Frank McNeil (1920-23) Hughitt/Patterson (1924) 1918 City Champs 1919 New York Pro Champs
from 1924-1925, 1927 and 1929, and the Buffalo Rangers in 1926. The franchise, experiencing financial problems in 1928, did not participate in league play.
History
Prior to the NFL
The All-Stars played from 1915 to 1917 under the leadership of Barney Lepper; in 1917, Lepper took the team on a barnstorming tour of midwestern pro football teams. In 1918, the city’s teams were not allowed to play outside the area because of the 1918 flu pandemic, and Lepper discontinued the All-Stars. Shoe salesman Warren D. Patterson, at the same time as this, formed a new team known as the Buffalo Niagaras, signing former Youngstown Patricians quarterback Ernest "Tommy" Hughitt as his quarterback. As the Niagaras, the team won a city-wide championship in 1918, going undefeated. When the New York Pro Football League opened in 1919, the team, now reorganized into a franchise known as the Prospects, defeated the Rochester Jeffersons for the league title in a two-game Thanksgiving weekend tournament. The two teams tied the Thanksgiving day game, but Buffalo handily defeated Rochester 20-0 the following Sunday. Lepper teamed up with Hughitt and Patterson in early 1920 to create the Buffalo AllAmericans, then quickly sold the team to Frank McNeil, a somewhat abrasive and aggressive owner who was able to get the team into the National Football League for its first season (though records indicate he may not have actually entered his team into the American Professional Football Association until 1921).
Team History
Team Colors Head coaches
Owner(s)
Other League Championship wins
Buffalo, New York had a turbulent, earlyera National Football League team that operated under three different names and several different owners between the 1910s and 1920s. The early NFL era franchise was variously called the Buffalo All-Stars from 1915 to 1917[1], Buffalo Niagaras in 1918[2], the Buffalo Prospects in 1919,[3] Buffalo AllAmericans from 1920-1923, Buffalo Bisons
Glory years
The Buffalo All-Americans had success during its first couple of APFA seasons, posting a 9-1-1 regular season record in 1920 where they became the first professional NFL team to win by margins of 20 or more points in each of its first four games, an asterisked
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record which was not tied until the 2007 New England Patriots’ offense duplicated the feat against other (all) professional and league teams on October 1st, 2007[4]; the asterisked record is because in the early NFL, the AllAmericans played several non-league opponents in their first four wins in 1920.[5]. Along with the Decatur Staleys and Akron Pros, Buffalo claimed a share of the 1920 league title. However, Joe Carr (then serving only as owner of his Columbus Panhandles team) moved at the league’s meeting in April 1921 to give Akron the sole title. The motion was accepted, and Buffalo finished in third place. They next posted a 9-1-2 record in 1921, coming within one game of the league’s championship that second year; the championship was awarded by a vote of the Association’s executive committee in January 1922. They split the season’s games against the Chicago Staleys, losing the second in their final game of the season. [6] In their decision, based on a generally accepted rule that if two teams play each other more than once in a season, the second game counts more than the first, the executive committee followed established tradition. Had Buffalo not played the last game (or if it had not been counted as per Buffalo’s wishes), they would have had an undefeated season and won the title. In both the 1920 and 1921 seasons, Buffalo played all of its games at home (the lone exceptions being the two 1921 matches in Chicago). Under the leadership of player-coach Tommy Hughitt, the All-Americans, though they never equaled the success of the first two seasons, continued to post winning records in 1922 and 1923. In 1924, owner Frank McNeil sold the team back to Hughitt and Warren D. Patterson, who immediately changed the team name to Bisons (a stock name for Buffalo sports teams) and signed several players (Pete Calac, Benny Boynton and Jim Ailinger being among them) to make another run at the title. After starting the season 6-2, the team lost their last three to once again end up marginally above .500. Hughitt retired at the end of the season.
Buffalo (NFL)
season to have any sort of success was Jim Kendrick’s "Buffalo Rangers" experiment, which turned the team into an exhibition from players from Texas and the Southwestern United States for the 1926 season. The one-year experiment brought a 4-4-2 (.500) season. Beyond this, however, the Bisons only won two games overall in the three other seasons without Hughitt (1925, 1927, 1929), each year with a different head coach. The team even suspended operations in 1928. With the exception of the three teams that have direct descendants still in the NFL, the Decatur Staleys, Chicago Cardinals and Dayton Triangles, Buffalo was the longestlived of the league’s original teams. The team has no official relation to future Buffalo pro football franchises: the Buffalo Indians and Tigers of the third American Football League, the Buffalo Bisons of the AAFC, or the Buffalo Bills of today which was one of the new AFL teams (formation announced in 1959) that first played in 1960.
Players of note
As of 2009, no Pro Football Hall of Famers played for the All-Americans, Bisons or Rangers. • Jim Ailinger (at the time of his death in 2001, the oldest surviving NFL alumnus) • Benny Boynton • Pete Calac • Tommy Hughitt • Elmer Oliphant • Gus Sonnenberg • Lud Wray
Season-by-season External links
• Historical Society of the Buffalo AllAmericans, Bisons & Rangers • Buffalo Bills fanclub, which tracks the Football history of Western New York State.
After Hughitt
However, after Hughitt’s retirement at the end of the 1924 season, the team struggled for the rest of its lifespan. Thereafter, the team went through several owners. The only
References
[1] Sye, Roy. Buffalo All-Stars all time results. Professional Football Researchers Association.
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Year W L T Finish Coach 1920 9 1 1 3rd AllAmericans 1921 9 1 2 2nd 1922 5 4 1 9th 1923 5 4 3 9th Bisons 1924 6 5 0 9th 1925 1 6 2 15th Rangers Bisons 1926 4 4 2 9th 1927 0 5 0 12th 1928 Suspended Operations 1929 1 7 1 10th Al Jolley Tommy Hughitt Tommy Hughitt Tommy Hughitt Tommy Hughitt Tommy Hughitt Walt Koppisch Jim Kendrick Dim Patterson Notes
Buffalo (NFL)
Lost championship to Chicago Staleys in final game of season. Team disputed title.
[2] http://www.billsbackers.com/ championship games in 1921, the 1918Season.htm championship was once again decided by [3] http://www.billsbackers.com/ a vote of the Association’s executive 1919Prospects.htm committee in January 1922. The [4] "Patriots at Bengals: Game notes". executive committee ruled that the 2007-10-01. http://www.patriots.com/ Chicago Staleys were the champions, search/ based on the generally accepted rule index.cfm?ac=searchdetail&pid=28062&pcid=47&rss=1. teams play each other more that if two Retrieved on 2007-10-02. ""According to than once in a season, the second game the ESPN broadcast of tonight’s game, counts more than the first. Buffalo and the Patriots are the first team since 1920 Chicago played on Thanksgiving Day, to win the first four games of a season by with Buffalo winning 7-6. The second 20 or more points. The Patriots have won game was held December 4. This time, by 24, 24, 31 and 21 points in their four Chicago won 10-7. Buffalo claimed that games this season. The last NFL team to the second game was just a post-season win its first four games by 20 or more "exhibition" game, and it should not points was the 1920 Buffalo Allcount in the final standings. Chicago Americans."" claimed that the Association did not have [5] (2007-10-01) ESPN Monday Night a set date for the end of the season, Football broadcast, October 1, 2007. therefore the second game could not [6] "Who really won the championship in have been held in the "post-season."" 1921? (p/o "History of Professional Football in Western New York")". http://www.billsbackers.com/ article1921.htm. Retrieved on 2007-10-02. "Since there were no Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buffalo_(NFL)" Categories: Defunct National Football League teams, Sports in Buffalo, New York, Buffalo Bills
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Buffalo (NFL)
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