The NFL was unable to find a buyer for the Texans and folded the team after the season. A few months later, the NFL granted a new franchise to a Baltimore-based group headed by Carroll Rosenbloom and awarded it the remaining assets (including the players) of the failed Texans operation. Rosenbloom named his new team the Baltimore Colts, but for all intents and purposes, Rosenbloom bought the Texans and moved them to Baltimore.

However, the Colts (based in Indianapolis since 1984) do not claim the history of the Yanks/Bulldogs/Yanks/Texans as their own, in spite of the fact that the Colts’ 1953 roster included many of the 1952 Texans. Likewise, the NFL reckons the Colts as a 1953 expansion team; it does not consider the Colts to be a continuation of the Yanks/Bulldogs/Yanks/Texans franchise, or even the Dayton Triangles for that matter considering that franchise’s successor, the Brooklyn Dodgers/Tigers, merged with the Yanks in 1945. As a result, the Texans officially remain the last NFL team to permanently cease operations and not be included in the lineage of any current team.