After playing a single disastrous season, the Seahawks were seized by the league, and were purchased and reorganized by a group of businessmen as the Baltimore Colts.

The All-America Football Conference had initially intended to place a team in Baltimore in its opening 1946 season, but this fell through as its prospective owner, retired boxer Gene Tunney, was unable to secure a stadium deal.

[1] Needing an eighth team to avoid byes, the AAFC granted a franchise to a group of Miami-based boosters, who formed the Miami Seahawks.

[3] Five businessmen, led by Washington, D.C. attorney Robert D. Rodenburg, made a bid to purchase the Seahawks' assets and use them to start a new team in Baltimore.

[3] The AAFC quickly approved the deal, and the team was reorganized as the Baltimore Colts, a name chosen due to the city's long history of horse racing and breeding.

Due to the club's inherited talent drought, the Colts were permitted to recruit a player from each of the AAFC's four strongest teams.

[4] Sensing a crisis, the AAFC supplied its three weakest teams (the Colts, the Chicago Rockets and the Brooklyn Dodgers) with superior players.

The team found new ownership group, which consisted of 18 area businessmen led by Baltimore Bullets president R. C. Embry, but its financial crisis was not resolved.

The leagues began negotiating a deal in which three AAFC teams would be brought into the NFL, and the owners of the others would be compensated for their interest.

[9] Despite playing in the second-smallest market in pro football (ahead of only Green Bay) and Buffalo's notoriously harsh climate, the Bills were arguably a better choice for entry into the NFL.