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Butch Byrd

American football player

Correspondence, annotated notebooks and portrait silhouettes prepared for research
People and ideasInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionAug 27, 2026
Entity authorityQ3182440 ↗
Source-derived summary

George Edward "Butch" Byrd (born September 20, 1941) is an American former professional football player who was a cornerback and punt return specialist in the American Football League (AFL) and National Football League (NFL), playing for the Buffalo Bills and Denver Broncos. He played college football for the Boston University Terriers and was selected by the Buffalo Bills in the fourth round of the 1964 AFL draft.

Over his seven years with the Buffalo Bills (1964 to 1970), Byrd was selected to play in five AFL All-Star Games, named first-team All-AFL three times, and named second-team All-AFL twice. Over fifty years after he left the Bills, Byrd still holds the team records for interceptions (40), return yardage on interceptions (666), and interceptions returned for touchdowns (5). During his first three seasons, the Bills went to the AFL Championship Game, winning in 1964 and 1965. Byrd intercepted passes in both of those games and scored a touchdown on a 74-yard punt return in the 1965 game. In an early 1966 game against the Miami Dolphins, he had a 60-yard interception return for a touchdown and a 74-yard punt return for a touchdown. In January 1970, the Pro Football Hall of Fame named Byrd to the second team of the American Football League All-Time Team, at cornerback. In 1984, he was named to the Bills Silver Anniversary All-Time Team. He was also voted to the Bills 50th Season All-Time Team.

Editorial summary

Begin with the source’s own compact description: “Butch Byrd” is american football player. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Butch, Byrd and American, not as a finished interpretation.

Editorial reviewA productive starting point for separating a subject’s documented career from later reputation and commemoration. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1941, 1964, 1970, 1965—that can be checked directly. The linked authority record independently contributes the date 1941-09-20. For this dossier, Butch, Byrd and American is the immediate research focus.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

The phrase “american football player” supplies a clear boundary for inquiry. It also exposes the unanswered questions: who defined that boundary, when it became stable and which sources sit outside it.

Evidence profile

Chronology provides the most reliable spine for this subject; interpretation should follow only after identities and dates are secure. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 27, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q3182440. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1941, 1964, 1970 and 1965.

Critical limits

A concise life account rarely captures disputed attribution, private networks or the changing language used to describe a career. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Read biographical claims against dates, named institutions and the cited references. Distinguish a subject’s later reputation from evidence produced during their lifetime.

Best used for
  • Establishing names and roles
  • Building a first chronology
  • Locating cited institutions
Verify next

Personal papers, civil or court records, institutional files and the scholarship cited by the source.

Three-step research path

  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “Butch Byrd”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow Butch Byrd primary sources, Butch Byrd archive and Butch research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

  1. Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Butch Byrd”?
  2. Which primary records establish identity, chronology and institutional ties?
  3. How has the subject’s reputation changed across later accounts?
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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from “Butch Byrd” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.