Buffalo Bills
The Buffalo Bills: Four-time AFC champions, four-time Super Bowl runners-up, and the heart of western New York football.
via Wikipedia: 2026 Buffalo Bills season · see source
The Buffalo Bills are a professional American football team based in the Buffalo–Niagara Falls metropolitan area. The Bills compete in the National Football League (NFL) as a member of the American Football Conference (AFC) East division. The team plays its home games at Highmark Stadium in Orchard Park, New York. Founded in 1959 as a charter member of the American Football League (AFL), the team joined the NFL in 1970 after the AFL–NFL merger.
The team's name is taken from an All-America Football Conference (AAFC) franchise from Buffalo that was named after western frontiersman Buffalo Bill. Drawing much of its fanbase from western New York and neighboring southern Ontario, the Bills are the only NFL team that plays home games in the state of New York. The franchise is owned by Terry Pegula, who purchased the Bills after the death of the original owner Ralph Wilson in 2014, and a coalition of private equity funds and investors who purchased a minority stake in the team in 2024.
The Bills advanced to the AFL Championship Game three years in a row from 1964 to 1966, winning the first two—the only major professional sports championships for a team representing Buffalo. They struggled heavily in the latter years of the AFL and for much of their first two decades in the NFL, tallying only five winning seasons and three postseason berths from 1967 to 1987. They became perennial postseason contenders in the late 1980s; from 1990 to 1993, they appeared in a record four consecutive Super Bowls and lost each one.
From the early 2000s to the mid-2010s, the Bills endured the longest playoff drought in the four major North American professional sports, a 17-year span that made them the last franchise in the four leagues to qualify for the postseason in the 21st century. They returned to consistent postseason contention by the late 2010s, but not the Super Bowl. Their four Super Bowl appearances are the most among NFL franchises that have not won the Super Bowl, a record they share with the Minnesota Vikings.
In 2024, the Bills became one of the first NFL teams to sell part of their franchise to outside private equity investors. 20.6% of the team interest was sold at a valuation of $5.6 billion, including 10% to the American investment group Arctos Partners LP.
Quick Facts
- Division
- AFC East
- Season record goal
- Improve on 12–5
Lore & Background
The Bills began competitive play in 1960 as a charter member of the American Football League led by head coach Buster Ramsey and joined the NFL as part of the AFL–NFL merger in 1970. In the first two seasons, the Bills went 5–8–1 and 6–8 under Ramsey. The Bills won two consecutive American Football League titles in 1964 and 1965 with quarterback Jack Kemp and coach Lou Saban, but the club has yet to win a league championship since. Once the AFL–NFL merger took effect, the Bills became the second NFL team to represent the city; they followed the Buffalo All-Americans, a charter member of the league.
Buffalo had been left out of the league since the All-Americans (by that point renamed the Bisons) folded in 1929; the Bills were no less than the third professional non-NFL team to compete in the city before the merger, After the Indians/Tigers of the early 1940s and an earlier team named the Bills, originally the Bisons, in the late 1940s in the All-America Football Conference (AAFC). After the AFL–NFL merger, the Bills were generally mediocre in the 1970s but featured All-Pro running back O. J. Simpson.
After being pushed to the brink of failure in the mid-1980s, the collapse of the United States Football League and a series of highly drafted players such as Jim Kelly (who initially played for the USFL instead of the Bills), Thurman Thomas, Bruce Smith and Darryl Talley allowed the Bills to rebuild into a perennial contender in the late 1980s through the mid-1990s under head coach Marv Levy, a period in which the team won four consecutive AFC Championships; the team nevertheless lost all four subsequent Super Bowls, records in both categories that still stand.
The rise of the division rival New England Patriots under Bill Belichick and Tom Brady, along with numerous failed attempts at rebuilding in the 2000s and 2010s, helped prevent the Bills from reaching the playoffs in seventeen consecutive seasons between 2000 and 2016, a 17-year drought that was the longest active playoff drought in all major professional sports at the time. Mike Mularkey coached the Bills in the 2004 and 2005 seasons. He went 9–7 but missed the postseason in 2004 and 5–11 in 2005.
He resigned from the team after the 2005 season. From 2006 to 2009, the Bills were coached by Dick Jauron. After three consecutive 7–9 seasons, Jauron was dismissed after a 3–6 start to his fourth season.
Reader's Guide
The Bills play at Highmark Stadium in Orchard Park, New York. The team's colors are Honolulu blue, silver, and white. The standing red bison logo was introduced in 1962.
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