The Houston Oilers were a professional American football team. Now known as the Tennessee Titans, they previously played in Houston, Texas from the team's founding in 1960 to 1996, before relocating to Memphis, Tennessee, and later Nashville, Tennessee, and becoming the Titans.
The Houston Oilers began play in 1960 as a charter member of the American Football League . The team won two AFL championships before joining the NFL as part of the AFL–NFL merger in the late 1960s.
The Oilers competed in the AFL's East division – along with the Buffalo Bills, the New York Jets and the Boston Patriots – before the merger, after which they joined the newly formed AFC Central. Throughout their existence the team was owned by Bud Adams. For the majority of their time in Houston, the team played their home games at the Astrodome; Jeppesen Stadium and Rice Stadium hosted the team for their first eight years.
The Houston Oilers were the first champions of the American Football League, winning the 1960 and 1961 contests, but they never won another championship. The Oilers appeared in the 1962 AFL Championship, losing in double overtime to their in-state rivals, the Dallas Texans; they also won the AFL East Division title in 1967 and qualified for the AFL Playoffs in 1969, both times losing to the Oakland Raiders. From 1978 to 1980, the Oilers, led by Bum Phillips and in the midst of the Luv Ya Blue campaign, appeared in the 1978 and 1979 AFC Championship Games, but lost both. The Oilers were a consistent playoff team from 1987 to 1993, an era that included both of the team's only division titles , as well as the dubious distinction of being on the losing end of the largest comeback in NFL history. For the rest of the Oilers' time in Houston, however, they compiled losing seasons in almost every other year.
