Billy Shaw, a member of both Bills American Football League-winning teams in the mid-1960s, died Friday. He was 85. Shaw holds the distinction of being the only player enshrined in the Hall of Fame whose career occurred entirely in the AFL.
Helping Buffalo to back-to-back AFL titles in 1964 and ’65, Shaw was a starting guard throughout a nine-year career spent only with the Bills. He earned first-team All-AFL honors in five consecutive seasons, with that stretch overlapping with Buffalo dominance in the upstart league.
“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 President Jim Porter said. “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.”
A 1961 second-round Bills pick, Shaw went ninth overall; the AFL began as an eight-team league. The Georgia Tech alum was also a 14th-round Cowboys choice — during the six-year period in which the leagues held separate drafts. He joined the Bills for $11K, with a $5K signing bonus and a new car included in the deal. Shaw soon became a fixture at left guard for a Bills line tasked with protecting quarterback Jack Kemp or paving lanes for fullback Cookie Gilchrist during the team’s 1960s heyday.
Although the Bills franchise is best known for its four straight AFC crowns and Super Bowl losses in the early 1990s, the franchise prevailed on the biggest stage decades earlier. As Kemp powered Lou Saban‘s team to a 22-5-1 record from 1964-65, Shaw was the only Bills offensive player to earn first-team All-AFL honors in both seasons.
The Bills, who halted a potential Chargers AFL dynasty by beating them for both the 1964 and ’65 championships, lost to the Chiefs for the right to trek to the first Super Bowl. Shaw kept rolling, collecting first-team All-AFL honors in 1966 and second-team acclaim in ’68. Shaw started 116 career games, not missing a contest until his seventh season. By decade’s end, the Natchez, Miss., native was the only Bills offensive player to land on the AFL’s All-Decade first team.