Buffalo Bills gather to celebrate AFL title teams

ORCHARD PARK, N.Y. – It’s rare they get to celebrate a championship in Buffalo.

Today, the Bills will celebrate two, honoring the 50th and 51st anniversaries of their American Football League championship teams.

“It’s not often, and this is one time they will,” said former Bills cornerback Booker Edgerson, a member of both teams.

Buffalo’s 1964 and 1965 AFL champions will be honored at a special halftime ceremony during Buffalo’s season opener against the Indianapolis Colts, with several former players expected to be in attendance.

“It’s going to mean a lot,” Edgerson said. “We were supposed to have done this last year, but unfortunately (Bills founder) Ralph Wilson Jr. passed away. We definitely had to scrap this and do a tribute. Fortunately, we won the championship two years in a row, so it gave us an opportunity to come back this year and present the 50th anniversary of the championship years. And it means a whole lot.”

The Bills are largely known for their four consecutive trips to the Super Bowl in the early 1990s with Hall of Famers Jim Kelly, Thurman Thomas and coach Marv Levy. But their AFL championship teams from 1964 and 1965 also had plenty of star power and a legendary coach of their own in Lou Saban.

With quarterbacks Jack Kemp and Daryle Lamonica, running back Cookie Gilchrist and wide receiver Elbert Dubenion, the Bills led the AFL in points and yards in 1964. Their defense led the league in points, rushing yards and total yards allowed.

The 1964 AFL championship game turned in Buffalo’s favor following a legendary hit by Mike Stratton on San Diego running back Keith Lincoln. Down 7-0, Stratton leveled Lincoln with a clean hit on a short pass, and the Chargers’ star playmaker was out for the game. Buffalo won 20-7 at home.

“I was standing right there,” said former Bills punter/linebacker Paul Maguire. “I was 15 feet away from it. I thought he killed him. He broke all the ribs on the right side.”

With Gilchrist no longer on the team in 1965, Buffalo’s offense took a step back – but the defense picked up the slack. In a rematch of the previous year’s title game, this time the Bills traveled to San Diego and upset the Chargers 23-0.