Buffalo All-Americans

The Buffalo All Americans were granted their APFA/NFL Franchise on August 20, 1920. Ken Crippen from the Football Learning Academy shares the history of some of the early Buffalo area Pro teams and how they made their mark in a young League.

The story of Buffalo professional football begins before the organization of the early NFL. Multiple sandlot and semi-pro teams in the Western New York City played a part in the early popularity growth of the gridiron in the region. Historian Ken Crippen, founder of the Football Learning Academy grew up in the Buffalo area and his connection and passion to the roots of football in the city are well known. From 1915 to just before World War I the paid player organization was referred to as the Buffalo All-Stars as they were made up mainly of star players from around Western New York. In 1918 the monicker of the orgainization changed to the Buffalo Niagaras in reference to the city's close proximity to the famous roaring falls that border Canada.

Ken tells us that the 1919 version of Buffalo pro ball changed their branding again and this time were called the Buffalo Prospects, and this eleven was quite the formidable team indeed. They played in the New York Pro Football League and would go on to post a 9-1-1 record, losing the opening game to rival West Buffalo 7-0 and then later tying a very good Rochester Jeffersons squad in a defensive goose-egg final score. They later avenged these two games that were not in "W" column by blanking each foe in the rematches.

The next year, well everything changed in the landscape of gridiron. The American Professional Football Association formed in those famous late summer meetings in Canton, Ohio and the Prospects were invited into the newly formed league. Ken tells us that it is not fully confirmed that the Buffalo eleven was an official member in the League but they were listed in the 1920 APFA standings. There is official documnets that prove they joined for the 1921 season though. The only thing was that they once again changed their mascot nickname and headed into the new APFA as the Buffalo All-Americans. To say that the team was competitive would not do them justice as they were a top flight franchise in the inaugural APFA season. They were led by a very good player/coach and minority owner Tommy Hughitt and had some other solid players on the roster. Some of the standout names included Heine Miller, Lud Wray, Swede Youngstrom, Barney Lepper, Lou Little, Murray Shelton and Erie, Pennsylvania's own Ockie Anderson.

The All-American team of 1920 finished that season as the highest scoring team in the APFA and with the third-best record behind the Decatur Staleys and eventual champion Akron Pros. The fly in the ointment to claiming the inaugural League title was a 3-0 loss to the powerful Canton Bulldogs on in late November. Had it not been for that setback the All-Americans would’ve gone unbeaten and probably would have claimed the league’s first championship.

A year later, they were in the title chase once more and, after knocking off the Dayton Triangles 7-0 on November 27, finished the regular season with a record of 8-0-2. If they had stopped right then and there with the regularly scheduled games they would have been champs. In reality they didn't, as the primary owner of the All-Americans at the time, Frank McNeill, decided to stage two exhibition matches afterward most likely to earn a couple extra bucks for he and his players. McNeill scheduled some stiff competiton too, no cream puff games to ice the season, no sir. Not only that, but they were to occur on consecutive days starting with December 3. That day, they would take on Akron in Buffalo only to hop on a train immediately thereafter for a matchup with the Staleys in Chicago the following day.

Some think that McNeill believed that since he branded them as "exhibition" games that they would bare no revealance to the APFA standings and considerations for choosing a League Champion. If so this thought process was quite inaccurate. Like we said the home game against Dayton went as planned with a 7-0 victory, however the narrow loss the next day in Chicago of 10-7, hurt the Buffalo title cause.

Staleys owner George Halas then concocted a plan to tray and have his team capture the crown by scheduling two more games himself after defeating Buffalo to try and gain a superirion winning percentage. We will talk more about that in about a week in our Scandals series here on Pigskin Dispatch. When the League meeting took place in the spring of 1921 it was the Chicago Staleys who proved to have the best record, after some ruthless negotiating by Halas, and thus they were crowned the APFA's second Championship franchise.

It was a crushing moment for the Buffalo franchise, as the 1921 season was the pinnacle of success for the team. They lost some players to other teams and age and even changed their identity once more. In 1924 Hughitt became a majority owner after McNeill sold his stake in the club and the old coach changed the team’s name to the Bisons in connection of relvealance to the Buffalo baseball team that once played in the Major Leagues from 1879-85. The franchise eventually folded and left the NFL in 1929 but the Buffalo Bisons pro football team was not done yet. An NFL rival league, named the All American Football Conference started playing in 1946 and the reincarnated Buffalo Bisons were a founding member of that group of pro ball clubs. One season later they changed their name to the Bills and had some success in 1948 when they lost the AAFC Title game to the eventual champion Cleveland Browns. It wouldn't be more than a decade and Ralph Wilson Jr would buy in and place another Buffalo Bills team in another rival league the AFL. The Bills of course thrived in the AFL, winning  2 championships and then were part of the teams that merged into the NFL were the frnachise resides to this day.