After only one year, owner James Breuil held a name-the-team contest in hopes of choosing a more distinctive nickname; "Bisons" had been the traditional nickname for Buffalo teams for many years. The winning choice was "Bills," which was a play on the name of the famed Wild West showman Buffalo Bill Cody.[2] Coincidentally a barbershop quartet[3] who would achieve fame a few years later was formed with the same name that year. The team was the successor to the Buffalo Tigers/Indians team from the 1940 American Football League; that league had folded as a result of World War II.
During their existence, the Bills played at Civic Stadium, later known as War Memorial Stadium.
Though the 1946 Bisons were not a success, the next three years were modestly successful, with the charismatic George Ratterman at starting quarterback; the Bills finished with a winning record (losing in the AAFC Championship to the Browns) in 1947 and having .500 records in 1948 and 1949.
Exclusion from NFL
Program for the October 2, 1949 game against the Baltimore Colts. The Colts would be accepted into the NFL in 1950, the Bills would not.
There was some controversy over Buffalo's exclusion from the enlarged NFL. Buffalo had experienced more success on the field and at the gate than Baltimore, and was also a larger market at the time (and would not have to share their territory with an established team as Baltimore would with the Washington Redskins). Additionally, the original three-team plan would have left the league with 13 teams, not only an odd number and prime number that made making equal divisions impossible, but also one considered to be bad luck.
The move had left Buffalo as the only AAFC market without an NFL team post-merger, and one that had outdrawn the NFL average in fan attendance. With that in mind, Buffalo fans produced more than 15,000 season ticket pledges, raised $175,000 in a stock offering,[4] and filed a separate application to join. When the vote to admit Buffalo was held on January 20, 1950, a majority of league owners (including the three already-admitted AAFC teams) were willing to accept Buffalo. However, league rules required a unanimous vote, but the vote was only 9-4 in favor.
Breuil, having lost $700,000 on the team, was instead content to accept a one-fourth share of the Cleveland Browns. The team did, however, have another potential owner in Pat McGroder, then a successful liquor store owner and an advocate for the NFL's return to Buffalo. The NFL was not inclined to add a fourth team. The American Football League, a minor league formerly known as the "American Association," offered the Bills a spot in their league, but no Buffalo parties were interested in a minor league team.
Coming with Breuil to Cleveland were three Bills players; the rest were dispersed in the 1950 AAFC dispersal draft among the NFL teams, with the Colts and Green Bay Packers picking up the majority of the Bills' roster and Ratterman going to the New York Yanks. Ratterman would eventually finish his career with the Browns, as Otto Graham's backup and, briefly, successor.
As it turned out, admitting the Colts over the Bills proved to be a mistake — owing to inadequate stadium facilities, the Colts folded after only one season.
Connection with the AFL Bills
McGroder would continue to lobby for an NFL team in Buffalo for the next decade. In 1959, when the American Football League proposed establishing the franchise that would ultimately also bear the Buffalo Bills name, McGroder was the first potential owner that AFL founder Lamar Hunt approached. McGroder declined the offer, still hoping that the threat of the new AFL team would be enough to provoke the NFL to stop it with the Buffalo NFL team he had hoped to receive, but Ralph Wilson, whose bid for a Miami AFL team had fallen through, accepted the bid. When it became clear that the NFL would not expand to Buffalo as McGroder had hoped, he took a position within the modern Bills organization, remaining until his retirement in 1983.
The Bills entered the NFL with the rest of the AFL as part of 1970merger and remain in current operations.
Kenneth R. Crippen, The Original Buffalo Bills: A History of the All-America Football Conference Team, 1946–1949. Jefferson, NC: McFarland & Co., 2010.
