The Buffalo Bills are a professional American football team based in the Buffalo, New York metropolitan area, playing seven of their home games in the suburb of Orchard Park, and, beginning in 2008, an eighth home game in Toronto. They are members of the Eastern Division of the American Football Conference (AFC) in the National Football League (NFL). 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.

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, though they failed to win any of the subsequent Super Bowls.

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 Buffalo Bill Cody. The Bills' cheerleaders are known as the Buffalo Jills. The official mascot is Billy Buffalo.

The Bills conduct summer training camp at Saint John Fisher College in Pittsford, NY, 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 the suburb of East Rutherford, New Jersey outside of New York City. On October 2, 2005, the Bills played the New Orleans Saints in the first NFL regular season game held in San Antonio, Texas. They are also the only team to play home games in Canada and, currently, the only one to have two home sites (and only the third in modern NFL history; the Green Bay Packers had played games at sites in Green Bay and Milwaukee from 1933 until 1994 (and continue to maintain a separate ticket plan for former Milwaukee season ticket holders), and the aforementioned Saints split home games between San Antonio, Giants Stadium and Baton Rouge, Louisiana in 2005 due to Hurricane Katrina).

Franchise history

Main: History of the Buffalo Bills

The AFL years

When Lamar Hunt announced formation of the American Football League in the summer of 1959, Detroit Lions minority owner Ralph Wilson decided to field a team in the new league. After being turned down in his effort to put a team in Miami, Florida, he next turned to Buffalo. This effort was successful, and he sent Hunt a telegram with the now-famous words, "Count me in with Buffalo."

After a public contest, the team adopted the same name as the former All-America Football Conference team in Buffalo. On October 28, 1959; the Buffalo Bills officially became the 8th member of the AFL.

On August 8, 1961, the Bills were the first (and only) American Football League team to lose to a Canadian Football League team, the nearby Hamilton Tiger-Cats. The score of the exhibition game was 38-21 in favor of the home team.