Buffalo, New York had a turbulent, early-era National Football League team that operated under multiple names and several different owners between the 1910s and 1920s. The early NFL-era franchise was variously called the Buffalo All-Stars from 1915 to 1917, Buffalo Niagaras in 1918, the Buffalo Prospects in 1919, Buffalo All-Americans from 1920 to 1923, Buffalo Bisons from 1924 to 1925 and in 1927 and 1929, and the Buffalo Rangers in 1926. The franchise, which was experiencing financial problems in 1928, did not participate in league play that season.

Buffalo operated an early professional football circuit from at least the late 1800s onward. Among notable predecessors to the team discussed here were the Buffalo Oakdales, whose heyday was in the years 1908 and 1909 and who ceased operations c. 1915; the Cazenovias, who were New York's best team in 1910 and 1911; and the Lancaster Malleables, from the neighboring town of Lancaster, New York, who were the best team in the region in 1913 and 1914. These teams played each other and teams from nearby cities (for example, the Rochester Jeffersons).

The All-Stars played from 1915 to 1917 under the leadership of Eugene F. Dooley; in 1917, Dooley, along with his star player Barney Lepper, took the team on a barnstorming tour of midwestern pro football teams. In 1918, the city's teams were not allowed to play outside the area because of the 1918 flu pandemic; Dooley and Lepper discontinued the All-Stars. Shoe salesman Warren D. Patterson, at the same time as this, formed a new team known as the Buffalo Niagaras, signing former Youngstown Patricians quarterback Ernest "Tommy" Hughitt as his quarterback. As the Niagaras, the team won a citywide championship in 1918, going undefeated with a 6–0–0 record (including a forfeit), having only one touchdown scored on them in any of their six games. They were one of the few upper-level teams still able to play games that year, with most of the top-level teams (such as the Patricians, Canton Bulldogs and Massillon Tigers) all having suspended operations due to the pandemic and/or World War I player shortages; this allowed Buffalo to get a leg up on its Ohio competition and sign otherwise-unemployed players, setting a course for bringing the region on par with the Ohio League and the ultimate establishment of the NFL. With that, they could have theoretically staked a claim to being the best team in the nation, especially considering how the team would perform over the next three seasons, but the Professional Football Researchers Association is dismissive of any claim that does not come from the Ohio League, and gives the mythical "national title" to the Dayton Triangles, who also went undefeated that year. When the New York Pro Football League reopened in 1919, the team, now reorganized into a franchise known as the Prospects, defeated the Rochester Jeffersons for the league title in a two-game Thanksgiving weekend tournament. The two teams tied the Thanksgiving Day game, but Buffalo handily defeated Rochester 20–0 the following Sunday.

Lepper teamed up with Hughitt and Patterson in early 1920 to create the Buffalo All-Americans, then quickly sold the team to Frank McNeil, a somewhat abrasive and aggressive owner who was able to get the team into the National Football League for its first season. However records indicate he may not have actually entered his team into the American Professional Football Association until 1921, the All-Americans are generally shown as the third-place team in league standings from that year (the confusion stems from a statement in the minutes from the league's April 1921 reorganization meeting admitting an unidentified team from Buffalo; this may have instead been the Tonawanda Kardex, who joined the league in 1921, playing only one game). Patterson held on to the Prospects name and put together a lower quality team that played through 1923, including a 1922 game against the All-Americans themselves.

The All-Americans had success during its first couple of APFA seasons, posting a 9–1–1 regular season record in 1920, becoming the first professional NFL team to win by margins of 20 or more points in each of its first four games, an asterisked record which was not tied until the 2007 New England Patriots' offense duplicated the feat; the asterisk is because, in the early NFL, the All-Americans played five of its 11 games against non-league opponents.

Unique for a professional football team, the All-Americans had a sharing agreement with the Union Club of Phoenixville, a side project managed by All-Americans player Heinie Miller. Miller would take himself and seven other All-Americans to Phoenixville, Pennsylvania to play games on Saturdays (Pennsylvania had blue laws that prevented play on Sunday), and then return to Buffalo on Sundays. This sharing agreement lasted into 1921 when Miller formed the new Union Quakers of Philadelphia, but All-Americans owner Frank McNeil put a halt to the agreement halfway through the 1921 season after the Quakers played the Canton Bulldogs and wore out the All-Americans players. Five All-Americans left the team to play for the Quakers full-time; Buffalo had the pickings of the then-defunct Detroit Tigers to replenish their roster.

In 1920, the Akron Pros held the All-Americans to a scoreless tie in front of only 3,000 fans. At the game, Akron owners Frank Nied and Art Ranney agreed to sell Bob Nash to Buffalo for $300 and five per cent of the gate, in the first known player deal between NFL clubs.

Along with the Decatur Staleys and Akron Pros, Buffalo claimed a share of the 1920 league title. That same season the Pros held the best record in the league, and only had to avoid losing a game. Meanwhile, Buffalo and the Staleys had to win in order to capture the APFA Championship. The Pros were able to hold the Staleys to a scoreless tie at Cub Park. However, the Pros still had to play the All-Americans who were fresh from a 7–3 win over the Canton Bulldogs at New York City's Polo Grounds. Despite Buffalo's confidence going into the match, the Pros also held the All-Americans to scoreless tie.