This is an automated archive made by the Lemmit Bot.
The original was posted on /r/nfl by /u/GeorgeHalasLover on 2025-06-15 03:14:04+00:00.
Before the NFL became the nationwide sensation that it is today, it was a loosely organized association of teams from the Midwest and Northeast. Unfortunately for most of these cities, their teams only lasted a few seasons and no longer have a franchise of any professional sport to call their own today.
Thankfully for the city of Buffalo this was not the case, and I will begin the deep dive into the city’s first franchise: the All-Americans, who were a charter member of the NFL and played for 10 seasons.
Founded in 1915 and originally known as the All-Stars and founded by Eugene Dooley, started off as a barnstorming team in order to showcase the talents of Barney Lepper, who was considered the best player on the team at the time. Due to the 1918 Influenza pandemic, Lepper and Dooley were forced to discontinue the All-Stars.
That same year, another team, the Buffalo Niagra’s were founded by a shoe salesman named Warren Patterson. Surprising most local teams, the Niagra’s led by quarterback Tommy Hughitt, captured a 6-0-0 record only allowing one touchdown scored against them during that time span. Some have stated that they were the best team in the nation that year, but the Pro Football Research Assocation awarded that title to the Dayton Triangles.
The Niagra’s rebranded as the Prospects for the 1919 season and joined the fledgling New York Pro Football League which boasted the likes of the Tonawanda Kardex and the Rochester Jeffersons who also became NFL franchises in the future. After winning the New York Pro Football League and finishing with a record of 9-1-1, Lepper decided to team up with Hughitt and Patterson to create the All-Americans in 1920.
This relationship was short lived, and the team was quickly sold to Frank McNeil who was able to get the franchise into the APFA in 1920 and finished with 9-1-1 and finished 3rd place. (This fact is debated whether the All-Americans were officially in the APFA in 1920 as it was recorded that an unnamed Buffalo area team attended the first owners meeting in 1920, but it may have been the Tonawanda Kardex who later joined in 1921)
The All-Americans early success was unprecedented for its time and to this day it remains the first NFL team to win the first four games of a season by a margin of 20 points or more. There is an asterisk for this record as some of these wins came against non-APFA opponents who were in most cases inferior. This record stood until 2007 when it was broken by the Patriots.
During this season the first NFL trade took place when the Akron Pros agreed to sell Bob Nash (an All-Pro that season) for $300 a game.
As if the 1920 season couldn’t have been more controversial enough, the Akron Pros, Decatur Staleys, and All-Americans all claimed the title for that season. During the owners meeting at the end of the season in which both president, Jim Thorpe, and vice president, Stan Cofall were absent, Akron’s owner, Art Ranney resided over the meeting. New president Joseph Carr ruled during the April meeting that the Pros were the champions.
Both the All-Americans and Staleys protested this ruling stating that they had both tied Akron but neither team had lost to the Pros that season. The ruling went ahead anyways, and the Pros were the first champions of the then APFA.
The 1921 was another strong outing for the All-Americans who finished with a 9-0-2 record who again were denied the league title due to a ruling that became known as the “Staley Swindle”. After they had played 11 games for the season, All-Americans owner, Frank McNeil scheduled two exhibition games against the Akron Pros and Chicago Staleys for unknown reasons. After speaking with Buffalo media, McNeil stated that these were strictly exhibition games and would have no bearing on the All-Americans claim to the title.
This two-game outing started out strongly for the All-Americans who beat the Pros but had to take an all-night train to play the Staleys in Chicago the next day. After playing the previous day and travelling all night the All-Americans arrived in Chicago tired and weary and lost 7-10 to the Staleys. Initially, McNeil was unaffected by this lost and had already purchased gold footballs to give to his players. Unfortunately for McNeil and the All-Americans the events that would follow would strip the All-Americans of their title and change the course of NFL history.
During the next owners meeting, Staley’s owner George Halas claimed that the Staleys were the rightful recipients of the championship because they had won the second game against them (there was a now obsolete rule that if a team played twice in a season the second game had more bearing). This rule swayed the committee’s decision and the Staley’s were awarded the title for the 1921 season.
McNeil argued against the committee stating that the second game had only been an exhibition game, but the committee’s decision had already been made. McNeil went to his grave arguing for the board to overturn their decision. Had the All-Americans not played the two extra exhibition games, they would have not only won the championship but would have also had a 9-0-2 undefeated season.
While the All-Americans never reached the same level of success after this point they remained a consistent franchise going over .500 in the two seasons that followed. After the 1923 season, the All-Americans changed their name to the Bisons. Unfortunately for the Bisons, Tommy Hughitt who had been their quarterback for all their season in the NFL previously decided to retire and this significantly hurt their performance following his departure.
In 1926, Jim Kendrick who had played as an end for the Bisons in 1925 was named the player-coach for the following season. One of his first moves as coach was to rename the team the Rangers and recruit players from Texas and the Southwest US to play for the team. The Rangers were not the only NFL team to play outside the traditional Midwest and Northeast, as the Los Angeles Buccaneers were founded that year to represent the west coast and the Louisville Colonels rejoined to represent the south. While none of these franchises survived past 1929, the idea to expand the NFL nationwide has come to fruition in the present day as the league has spread out to cities across the entire nation.
After finishing with a 4-4-2 record, Kendrick left the team, and the franchise changed its name back to the Bisons for the 1927 season. This was the final nail in the coffin for the franchise as they finished with a winless 1927 season, suspended operations in 1928, and won a single game in 1929. In poetic fashion the sole win of the Bisons in 1929 was against the Chicago Bears whom they beat 19-7 in the final game of the season. As with a lot of the bottom feeding teams at the time, the Great Depression forced the Bisons to fold never to come back.
Although they are now defunct, the Bisons are the longest charter franchise, playing 13 seasons, aside from the Cardinals and Bears who still play today. They are also the oldest team to not have a Hall of Famer named from their franchise. It is sad to see the unfortunate circumstances and controversies that robbed the All-Americans/Bisons of multiple championships and even I as a Bears fan am willing to concede the 1921 Championship to them if it means that the modern Bears fortunes improve.
Even though the franchise has no Hall of Famers as of this writing there is one player who might have the best single season performance of any player in 1921. Elmer Oliphant was an astounding athlete for his time, and he received varsity letters in football, basketball, baseball, and track. He was an All-American in both football and basketball. Despite being an insane athlete for his time, he worked 4 jobs in addition to being a coal miner over the summer to pay for his college education.
He graduated from Purdue with a degree in mechanical engineering before joining the Army and serving as the head of athletics in West Point and served as the director until 1920. Although his time on the Rochester Jeffersons in 1920 was rather forgetful, he took the NFL world by storm by throwing 7 touchdowns, kicking 5 field goals, and kicking another 26 extra points. While these numbers may seem rather pedestrian by modern standards these numbers led the league in all categories and his 47 points were more than what 10 teams scored the entire season.
What makes this story even more interesting is that he simply retired after 1921 to pursue coaching. He has received some flowers for his impressive career being named into the College Football Hall of Fame in 1955 and was #78 on the greatest college football players of all time.
Thank you again for taking the time to read this and feel free to comment which defunct team I should cover next!
Buffalo team (NFL) - Wikipedia
The Gridiron Uniform Database - Buffalo All-Americans Uniforms
Player Characteristics - Google Sheets - Spreadsheet I have made with rosters for defunct teams for a video game I am currently developing, the All-Americans are near the end between the Detroit Wolverines and the Pottsville Maroons