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Logo of the New York Yankees’ football team, a franchise that played in the All America Football Conference from 1946 until the league merged with the NFL in 1949. Unfortunately the Yanks weren’t one of the teams absorbed into the NFL, and their players were divided between the New York Giants and New York Bulldogs, who later took the Yankee nickname. The club played its’ home games at Yankee Stadium, in an era where baseball and football franchises routinely shared stadiums and team names. The gridiron Yanks’ roster included two Hall of Famers in Arnie Weinmeister and Tom Landry.

Logo of a team from the wild and wooly early days of the National Football League, the Oorang Indians. They were a traveling  team that played in the league in 1922 and 1923, and were named after the Oorang dog kennels in Larue, Ohio. The team was a novelty created by the kennel’s owner for marketing purposes, and its’ roster was made up entirely of Native Americans, led by future Hall of Famer Jim Thorpe. The kennel’s owner was able to purchase the franchise for $100, which he was easily able to do since he could sell one of his prize Airedale dogs for $150. With a population of less than 1,000 the town of Larue is the smallest city to ever have been home to an NFL franchise.

Logo of a baseball team from the old Negro Leagues, the Newark Eagles. The Eagles played in the Negro National League from 1936 until 1948, when the league disbanded due to Jackie Robinson’s successful integration into the major leagues. They have the distinction of being the first professional team with a female owner, Effa Manley, and under her guidance won the Negro League World Series over the powerhouse Kansas City Monarchs in 1946. Their roster over the years included many players who went on to great major league careers, including Larry Doby, Don Newcombe, Monte Irvin and Ray Dandridge.

Logo of  another football team from the old defunct All America Football Conference, the Los Angeles Dons. Among the ownership group of the Dons were entertainers Bob Hope and Bing Crosby. Their roster for their 4 years of existence, from 1946 until 1949, included longtime pro football kicker Ben Agajanian and Hall of Famer Len Ford. When the AAFC merged with the NFL for the 1950 season, the Dons were not included. Their roster was merged with the crosstown Rams, already members of the established NFL.

Logo of the old Dallas Texans franchise that played in the National Football League in 1952. The club had been known as the New York Yankees but relocated to Dallas in ’52, where they were a dismal failure. They even wound up playing the final 2 home games of their only season as the Texans at the Rubber Bowl in Akron, Ohio. The team moved to Baltimore the next season and became the Colts. The Texans, although mostly remembered as one of the worst NFL teams of all time, did have 2 future Hall of Famers on their roster who would go on to have stellar careers with the Colts – defensive linemen Gino Marchetti and Art Donovan.

Logo created to honor a specific section of the fan base of the National Football League’s Cleveland Browns, known as the “Dawg Pound”. The section, located in the east end zone of the team’s home stadium, has fans who bark and wear dog masks, dog noses, bone-shaped hats and other dog-related outlandish costumes. They had a reputation, at least in the old Cleveland Municipal Stadium, of throwing dog biscuits at opposing players and also for consuming large amounts of alcohol. One fan once even snuck a keg of beer into the section in a makeshift dog house. It’s never been officially verified, but the legend is that the original Dawg Pound in the old stadium was actually Section K9.

Logo of a legendary team that was part of the league that later became the National Football League, the Canton Bulldogs. They were founded in 1905 and played in the “Ohio League”, then became part of the NFL in 1920 until folding in 1926. They are the reason why the Pro Football Hall of Fame is located in Canton. The Bulldogs had six Hall of Famers during their short existence, including Guy Chamberlin, Greasy Neale and the top gate attraction of his time, Jim Thorpe.

We’ve featured a number of old Buffalo Bills logos on this site over time, but this one is unique. It’s the logo of the Buffalo Bills’ franchise that existed in the All America Football Conference from 1946 until the league merged with the NFL prior to the 1950 season. The team began as the Bisons (we’ll feature that logo in the future), but changed their name to the Bills in ’47. The franchise folded when the leagues merged and they weren’t absorbed into the NFL. Notable AAFC Bills players include QB George Ratterman, back Chet Mutryn and receivers Fay King and Al Baldwin.

The logos above are examples of “prototype” logos that teams considered at certain points of their existence. These prototypes are obviously for the National Football League’s Miami Dolphins, with the helmet logo on the left and a logo that’s just a slight variation of what became their regular logo – with the Dolphin wearing a pair of cool South Florida shades instead of his football helmet.

Logo of the Baltimore Ravens football team, used in their inaugural season in the NFL in 1996, until 1998. The Ravens came into existence when owner Art Modell abandoned Cleveland after the ’95 season, moving his Browns to Baltimore. The team’s nickname is derived from the poem by Edgar Allen Poe, who is buried in the city. After representatives from Cleveland sued the NFL over the Browns’ relocation, a settlement was reached that forced Modell to surrender the team’s name, color scheme and affiliation with the Browns’ past history, which pretty much made the Ravens a quasi-expansion team. When the Browns returned to the NFL in 1999, they were considered a “reactivated” franchise. The Ravens won a Super Bowl for Modell in 2000.