Buffalo Bills

• Inaugural season: 1960
• Home field: Highmark Stadium, Orchard Park, New York
• Owners: Terrence Pegula, Kim Pegula
• Team colors: Royal blue, red, white, and navy blue

Overview

The Buffalo Bills are a National Football League (NFL) team that plays in the American Football Conference (AFC) East. The Bills were established as one of the inaugural teams in the American Football League (AFL) in 1959, and played their first season in 1960. The Bills won two AFL championships before the merger of the AFL and NFL into a single league in 1970. As a member of the NFL, they appeared in four consecutive Super Bowls between 1991 and 1994, losing on all four occasions. In the 2020s, a new generation of players placed the Bills among the elite teams of the NFL.

Buffalo is one of the smallest cities with an NFL franchise and has experienced many highs and lows associated with small markets. Like Green Bay and Tennessee teams, the Bills have a devoted fanbase. The team faces limited competition from other professional sports teams, as the only other major league franchise in the area is the Buffalo Sabres of the National Hockey League (NHL). This enabled the Bills to draw strong crowds even during on-field struggles. For instance, despite a 6–10 season record in 2018, the team still drew an average of nearly 520,000 people to its home games. This was twenty-first in overall attendance out of thirty-two teams despite being in the second-smallest NFL market. In 2023, after an 11–6 season where they won the AFC East, the Bills drew an average of almost 70,000 fans.

Even with the devotion of the city of Buffalo to the team, the Bills struggled from their glory days of the early 1990s until nearly the 2020s. The Bills failed to qualify for the NFL playoffs between 2000 and 2016, making them the last major North American sports franchise to reach their respective league's playoffs in the twenty-first century. The team's ownersTerrence and Kim Pegulacampaigned for a new stadium after purchasing the team in 2014. In 2023, workers broke ground on a new stadium scheduled for completion in 2026.

History

The Bills were established in 1959 as one of the eight original teams of the AFL. The AFL had been created to challenge the longstanding football dominance of the NFL, and Buffalo was chosen in part because of its previous success as a football market. The region had formerly hosted several professional football teams, including several teams that operated in the NFL between 1915 and 1929. The city also played host to teams in other short-lived professional football leagues. This included an earlier version of the American Football League that operated for a single season in 1940–1941 and the All-American Football Conference (AAFC), which lasted three seasons from 1946 to 1948.

The new AFL Buffalo franchise owner was Ralph Wilson Jr., who owned a small share of the NFL's Detroit Lions. Wilson was a Michigan native, but the upstart AFL did not want to place new teams in existing NFL markets. Wilson was given a choice from a list of six cities seen as potentially viable: Atlanta, Cincinnati, Louisville, Miami, St. Louis, and Buffalo. Wilson remembered the success of previous Buffalo teams and ultimately selected it mainly due to the city's willingness to give him a discount on rent to play in War Memorial Stadium. Wilson chose the nickname the Bills to honor Buffalo's previous AAFC franchise. That team, in turn, had chosen the name as a play on famed Western icon Buffalo Bill Cody. Though Cody had no connection to Buffalo, it was seen as a potentially marketable name.

The Bills found success in the AFL beginning in its fourth season. Between 1964 and 1966, the Bills won three straight division titles and league championships in 1964 and 1965 under coach Lou Saban. Saban left the team in 1966 to coach at the University of Maryland. He was replaced by Joe Collier, who led the team to the league championship game, ultimately losing to Kansas City. However, the team struggled over the next five years, winning only thirteen games under three different coaches. In 1970, the AFL merged with the NFL, and Buffalo was placed into the new AFC East division with the New England Patriots, New York Jets, and Miami Dolphins.

Buffalo's War Memorial Stadium did not meet the NFL's new requirement that every stadium must seat at least 50,000 people. The stadium had also begun to fall into disrepair, which embarrassed owner Wilson. He threatened to move the team and was actively courting other cities before Buffalo finally agreed to build a new stadium. Rich Stadium opened in 1973 in the Buffalo suburb of Orchard Park. Seating 80,000, it was among the largest stadiums in the NFL at the time of its construction. Rich Products, a food manufacturer based in Buffalo, won naming rights for the new field. This twenty-five-year, $1.5-million deal was among the first examples of naming rights for stadiums in professional sports. Following the expiration of this deal, the stadium took on the name of owner Ralph Wilson from 1998-2015. The following year, the naming rights deal was awarded to New Era Cap Company for $35 million. The facility was named Bills Stadium in 2019 before the Hallmark health insurance firm bought the naming rights beginning in 2021. The Bill's new stadium began construction in June 2023 and will also bear the Hallmark name.

Saban returned to the team in 1972 and brought them back to respectability between 1973 and 1976, though they could not equal their success of the mid-1960s. After Saban left again in the middle of the 1976 season, the team had limited success under a series of coaches between 1976 and 1987.

The hiring of Marv Levy in 1987 transformed the team. The Bills went on to win five AFC Eastern titles in six years and became the first team to play in four consecutive Super Bowls between 1991 and 1994. Although the team never won the Super Bowl, they went a combined 125–72 under Levy, good for a .635 record. In eleven seasons with the Bills, Levy only had two losing seasons: in 1994, when they went 7–9, and in 1997, when they went 6–10. Levy retired after the 1997 season and would be inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 2001.

The Bills had some success under Levy's replacement, Wade Phillips, reaching the playoffs in both the 1998 and 1999 seasons. A 1999 playoff loss to the Tennessee Titans on a miracle play in the final seconds further solidified the Bills' reputation as a hard-luck team. In 2001, Wilson announced that he was stepping down as the team president, though he remained owner. During the next two decades, the Bills, one of the most dominant teams of the 1990s, could not capture a single AFC East title. They did not return to the playoffs until 2017, a stretch of eighteen seasons. Under coach Sean McDermott, the Bills finally captured a playoff spot, losing 10–3 to the Jacksonville Jaguars. In 2018, the team stumbled again, falling to 6–10 overall.

The road back to being among the best NFL teams began in 2018. In the NFL Draft of that year, the Bills selected quarterback Josh Allen from Wyoming. After joining the team, Allen became the premier franchise player for the Bills. Known for his passing and running abilities, Allen made two Pro Bowls in his first six years in the league. He set a record in 2021 for the highest passer rating in a postseason (149.0). Allen also tied the record for most rushing touchdowns by a quarterback with fifteen rushing touchdowns in 2023.

In 2019, the team posted a 10-6 record and made the playoffs. In 2020, the Bills achieved a 13–3 season and won in the first two rounds of the playoffs before losing the AFC Championship game to the Kansas City Chiefs. The Bills had stronger regular seasons in the following years, only to lose in the divisional round in the playoffs in the 2021, 2022, and 2023 seasons.

Notable Players

The team's early success in the mid-1960s was due to the tandem of quarterback Jack Kemp (1962–1970) and running back Carlton "Cookie" Gilchrist (1962–1964). Kemp would eventually be named to the AFL all-star team seven times in the league's ten seasons and be honored as the Most Valuable Player in 1965. He retired in 1970 to run for Congress and eventually was nominated to run as vice president in the 1996 presidential election. Along the line, offensive lineman Bob Kalsu left the NFL in 1968 after one season to serve in the Vietnam War. He was killed in 1970, becoming the first professional football player to die in combat during their career.

1969, the Bills drafted Heisman Trophy winner O. J. Simpson (1969–1979). Simpson would become a four-time rushing champion and was selected for six Pro Bowls. He was honored as the 1973 MVP and 1973 AP Athlete of the Year. The leader of the Super Bowl teams was quarterback Jim Kelly (1986–1996), who was taken as the third quarterback in the 1983 NFL draft. The Bills had a 101–59 record when Kelly startedhe was perhaps most famous for leading the team to twenty-two fourth-quarter comebacks. Kelly was named to five Pro Bowls. Another key member of the Super Bowl teams was running back Thurman Thomas (1988–1999), who led the NFL in rushing yards in four seasons. Ultimately, he gained 11,938 yards and scored 80 touchdowns during his career. He was named to the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 2007. Other notable Bills players include guard Billy Shaw (1961–1969), guard Joe DeLamielleure (1973–1979), linebacker Darryl Talley (1983–1994), wide receiver Andre Reed (1985–1999), wide receiver Steve Tasker (1986–1997), linebacker Cornelius Bennett (1987–1995), defensive end Bruce Smith (1985–1999), and quarterback Doug Flutie (1998–2000).

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