An all-time great of the American Football League and one of the most decorated Buffalo Bills in team chronicle, Pro Football Hall of Famer Billy Shaw died on Friday of hyponatremia, his family announced.
Shaw was 85.
Shaw, an offensive guard, made eight AFL All-Star games in his nine seasons, was an All-AFL selection five times and was twice an AFL champion. He was also a member of the All-Time AFL Team.
“Billy Shaw holds the distinction of being the only member of the Pro Football Hall of Fame to play his entire career in the American Football League, but while that fact is worthy of noting and nice to recite, it comes nowhere near providing the reason he was elected as a member of the Class of 1999,” Hall of Fame president Jim Porter said Friday in a statement. “Billy’s all-around athleticism brought a new dimension to the guard position and made the 1960s Buffalo Bills a formidable opponent capable of bruising opponents with a punishing rushing attack. And while Billy could be unforgiving to anyone in his way on the football field, he was the classic example of the ‘Southern gentlemen’ off the field to everyone he encountered.”
Protecting quarterback and future United States Representative Jack Kemp and paving the way for running back Cookie Gilchrist, Shaw was a driving force in the Bills winning back-to-back AFL Championships in 1964-65. Those title triumphs stand as the Bills’ only AFL/NFL championships.
Selected in the second round of the 1961 AFL Draft by the Bills and the 14th round of the 1961 NFL Draft by the Dallas Cowboys, the Georgia Tech product headed north to Buffalo.
Shaw started all 14 games as a rookie and would start 116 of the 119 he played in his career. At 6-foot-2, 258 pounds, Shaw was on the smaller side for an offensive lineman even during his era. Nonetheless, he was a prototypical pulling guard and a crucial cog in the Bills’ success as a running team in an AFL often dominated by the pass.
A member of the Pro Football Hall of Fame Class of 1999, Shaw stands as the only player in the Hall to have never played in the NFL as the duration of his career took place in the AFL. That historic footnote was hardly what made Shaw’s induction memorable, though, as he became a cautionary tale of sorts. During his induction speech, Shaw forgot to mention his wife, Patsy. After realizing his faux pas, Shaw returned to the stage and apologized to his wife — while on his knees.
It was a fitting example of a stand-up guy who was a standout for the Bills across nine seasons.
