History
There were quite a few amateur and semi-pro football teams in and around Buffalo early in the 20th century, most of them sponsored by companies. Shortly before World War I, an all-star team known as the All-Americans was formed in Buffalo to challenge teams from around the area.
Although the All-Americans evidently didn't formally join the American Professional Football Association when it was organized in 1920, they're generally shown as the third-place team in league standings from that year.
They played four games against APFA teams from Ohio during November, losing only to the Canton Bulldogs, 3-0. Hoping to make a bid for the league championship, they challenged Canton and unbeaten Akron to games on the weekend of December 4-5.
About 15,000 fans watched the Saturday game, against Canton at the Polo Grounds. Buffalo won that rematch, 7-3. The following day, the All-Americans met the Akron Pros in Buffalo. If they'd won, they might well have been considered APFA champions, but the result was a scoreless tie. Akron was awarded the championship after another scoreless tie the following week against the Decatur Staleys in Chicago.
The same three teams were in contention in 1921. All three were undefeated through the early part of the season. The All-Americans ran into a serious problem in mid-November. Many of Buffalo's players also played for the Philadelphia Quakers on Saturdays, since Philadelphia's Blue Laws prohibited games on Sunday. The APFA, in fact, had rejected the Quakers' application for membership because of that practice and had also adopted a rule that no league player could perform for more than one team in any given week.
When new league president Joe Carr discovered that some players were still shuttling between Buffalo and Philadelphia, he ordered them to choose between the two teams, and several linemen chose Philadelphia. The All-Americans hastily signed some replacements and managed a tie against Canton on November 20, then headed for a Thanksgiving Day showdown against the Staleys, who had moved to Chicago. Tommy Hughit starred for Buffalo, throwing a touchdown pass, kicking the extra point, and intercepting two passes in a 7-6 win. That left the All-Americans as the league's only unbeaten team.
However, they lost a rematch to the Staleys, 10-7, in the final game of the season on December 4. The Staleys were 9-1-1, the All-Americans 9-1-2. Buffalo insisted that the defeat had been a post-season game, while the Staleys pointed out that no official end date for the season had been set, therefore the second game should determine the championship. The other APFA owners agreed and George Halas had his first title.
From then on, it was pretty much downhill for Buffalo. The team, which was renamed the Bisons in 1924, was just over the .500 mark for the next three seasons. After going 1-6-2 in 1925, another name change was in order. Now known as the Rangers, Buffalo got back to the .500 mark in 1926, but had another losing season in 1927 after the name was changed back to the Bisons. The franchise was inactive in 1928. The Buffalo Bisons came back in 1929, then dropped out of the NFL.