Indianapolis Colts
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Indianapolis Colts

The Indianapolis Colts are a professional American football team based in Indianapolis. The Colts compete in the National Football League (NFL) as a member of the American Football Conference (AFC) South division. Since the 2008 season, the Colts have played their games in Lucas Oil Stadium. Previously, the team had played for over two decades (1984–2007) at the RCA Dome. Since 1987, the Colts have served as the host team for the NFL Scouting Combine.

The Colts have competed as a member club of the NFL since their founding in Baltimore, Maryland, in 1953, after then-owner Carroll Rosenbloom purchased the assets of the NFL's last founding Ohio League member Dayton TrianglesDallas Texans franchise. They were one of three NFL teams to join those of the American Football League (AFL) to form the AFC after the 1970 merger. While in Baltimore, the team advanced to the playoffs ten times and won three NFL Championship games in 1958, 1959, and 1968. The Baltimore Colts played in two Super Bowl games, losing to the New York Jets in Super Bowl III and defeating the Dallas Cowboys in Super Bowl V. The Colts moved to Indianapolis in 1984 and have since appeared in the playoffs sixteen times, won two conference championships, and played in two Super Bowl games; they defeated the Chicago Bears in Super Bowl XLI, and lost to the New Orleans Saints in Super Bowl XLIV (all four Super Bowls that the Colts have played in took place at the home stadium for the Miami Dolphins; while based in Baltimore, Super Bowls III and V were held at the Orange Bowl in Miami, and while based in Indianapolis, Super Bowls XLI and XLIV were at what is now Hard Rock Stadium in Miami Gardens).

The All America Football Conference began play in the 1946 season. In its second year, the franchise assigned to the Miami Seahawks was moved to Maryland's major commercial and manufacturing city of Baltimore. After a fan contest, the team was renamed the Baltimore Colts after the city's history of horse breeding and racing. The team used silver and green as its colors. The Colts played for the next three seasons in the old AAFC until they agreed to merge with the old National Football League (of 1920–1922 to 1950) when the NFL was reorganized. The Baltimore Colts were one of the three former AAFC powerhouse teams to merge with the NFL at that time, the others being the San Francisco 49ers and the Cleveland Browns. This Colts team, now in the "big league" of professional American football for the first time, although with shaky financing and ownership, played only in the 1950 season of the NFL, and was later disbanded.

In 1953, a new Baltimore-based group, heavily supported by the city's municipal government and with a large subscription-base of fan-purchased season tickets, led by local owner Carroll Rosenbloom won the rights to a new Baltimore NFL franchise.

Rosenbloom was awarded the remains of the former Dallas Texans team, who themselves had a long and winding history, with a small part of the franchise starting as the Boston Yanks in 1944, merging later with the Brooklyn Tigers, a franchise that had a far more deep and rich history, being previously known as the Dayton Triangles, one of the original old NFL teams established even before the League itself, in 1913. That team later became the New York Yanks in 1950, and many of the players from the New York Yankees of the former competing All-America Football Conference (1946–49) were added to the team to begin playing in the newly merged League for the 1950 season. The Yanks then moved to Dallas in Texas after the 1951 season having competed for two seasons, but played their final two "home" games of the 1952 season as a so-called "road team" at the Rubber Bowl football stadium in Akron, Ohio.

The NFL considers the Texans and Colts to be separate teams, although many of the earlier teams shared the same colors of blue and white. Thus, the Indianapolis Colts are legally considered to be a 1953 expansion team.

The current version of the Colts football team played their first season in Baltimore in 1953, where the team compiled a 3–9 record under first-year head coach Keith Molesworth. The franchise struggled during the first few years in Baltimore, with the team not achieving their first winning record until the 1957 season.

However, under head coach Weeb Ewbank and the leadership of quarterback Johnny Unitas, the Colts went on to a 9–3 record during the 1958 season and reached the NFL Championship Game for the first time by winning the NFL Western Conference. The Colts faced the New York Giants in the 1958 NFL Championship Game, which is considered to be among the greatest contests in professional football history. The Colts defeated the Giants 23–17 in the first game to use the overtime rule, a game seen by 45 million persons.

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