Buffalo Bill
Buffalo Bill
The Buffalo Bills are a professional American football team based in Buffalo, New York. They are currently members of the East Division of the American Football Conference (AFC) in the National Football League (NFL). They play their home games in the suburb of Orchard Park, and since 2008 have played one home game per season in Toronto. The Bills began competitive play in 1960 as a charter member of the American Football League and joined the NFL as part of the AFL-NFL merger in 1970.
The Bills won two consecutive American Football League titles in 1964 and 1965, but the club has not won a league championship since the merger. Buffalo is also the only team to win four consecutive American Football Conference Championships, and the only team in either conference to play in (and lose) four consecutive Super Bowl games.
The Bills were named as the result of the winning entry in a local contest, which named the team after the AAFC Buffalo Bills, a previous football franchise from the All-America Football Conference that merged with the Cleveland Browns in 1950. That team, in turn, was named after William Frederick "Buffalo Bill" Cody. The Bills' cheerleaders are known as the Buffalo Jills. The official mascot is Billy Buffalo; Cody is not used in the team's iconography at all.
The Bills conduct summer training camp at St. John Fisher College in Pittsford, New York, a suburb of Rochester.
They are the only NFL team to play their home games within New York state. Both the New York Jets and the New York Giants play in East Rutherford, New Jersey, nine miles outside of their headquarters in New York City. The Bills actually play their home games further away (11 miles) from their headquarters in the city of Buffalo. On October 2, 2005, the Bills played the New Orleans Saints in the first NFL regular-season game held in San Antonio, Texas. With the inception of the 5-year Bills Toronto Series deal in 2008 that is good through 2012, they are also the only team to play a home game in Canada.
