The Richmond Roadrunners played in the Atlantic Coast Football League in 1968 and 1969. The team moved up from the United American Football League, where they played their inaugural season as the Richmond Mustangs. In 1970, the team re-branded as the Saints, reflecting their affiliation with the NFL’s New Orleans Saints.
The Providence Steamroller were one of six founding teams in the Atlantic Coast Football League in 1962. The ACFL franchise adopted the “Steamroller” name used by several Providence football teams of the past dating back to 1916. Most notably, Providence had an entry known as the Steamrollers in the very early days of the National Football League from 1925 until 1931.
The Boston Steamrollers were a minor league football team that played for one season in Everett, Massachusetts, a small city on the northern border of Boston, during the autumn of 1965. The ‘Rollers had a strong season on the field (8-5) but moved at the end of the season to become the Lowell Giants in 1966.
The Virginia Sailors were a minor league football team that operated in the Washington suburbs for three seasons from 1966 to 1968. The Sailors captured back-to-back ACFL titles in 1966 and 1967 and returned to the championship game once again in 1968, only to see their three-peat bid spoiled by the Hartford Knights.
Cox’s squad returned to the title game in 1968 with a chance for a three-peat, but lost 30-17 on the road to the Hartford Knights.
Roanoke, Virginia was the final stop for this well-traveled Mid-Atlantic minor league football outfit that first formed in Maryland as the Annapolis Sailors in 1965. By the time the team arrived at Roanoke’s Victory Stadium in 1969, it had landed a deal as a farm team of the NFL Washington Redskins and adopted the “Buckskins” name to reflect that affiliation. The Buckskins went out of business in 1971 at the end of their third season in Roanoke.
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