BBBuffalo Bills

Franchise history

The Buffalo Bills were founded on October 28, 1959, as a charter member of the American Football League, joining the league after Ralph Wilson's initial bid for an NFL franchise fell through. Wilson owned the team from its founding until his death in 2014, when the franchise passed to Terry and Kim Pegula. The Bills name was carried over from an earlier, unrelated minor-league Buffalo franchise and ultimately traces to frontiersman William "Buffalo Bill" Cody, chosen via a fan naming contest.

Buffalo played its first thirteen seasons at War Memorial Stadium before moving to Rich Stadium (later renamed Ralph Wilson Stadium and then Highmark Stadium) in 1973, a home the franchise kept for over five decades before a new Highmark Stadium opened nearby. The Bills' first sustained success came in the AFL, where quarterback Jack Kemp and coach Lou Saban led the team to back-to-back league championships in 1964 and 1965.

The franchise's most famous — and most heartbreaking — era came from 1990 to 1993, when Buffalo, led by Jim Kelly, Thurman Thomas, Bruce Smith, and coach Marv Levy, became the only team in NFL history to reach four consecutive Super Bowls, losing all four, including the excruciating one-point Super Bowl XXV defeat to the Giants decided by a missed last-second field goal. A long playoff drought followed, stretching from 2000 through 2016, the longest active drought in major North American sports at the time it ended. The team's resurgence began with the 2018 drafting of quarterback Josh Allen, ushering in the franchise's most consistently competitive stretch since the Kelly era, though a Super Bowl title has remained elusive.

Sources

• Pro Football Reference
• Wikipedia
• Buffalo Bills Official Site

Runner-up finishes (4)

• Super Bowl XXV - 1990
• Super Bowl XXVI - 1991
• Super Bowl XXVII - 1992
• Super Bowl XXVIII - 1993

See the full super bowl champions list for the winner each of these years.