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Matt Cavanaugh

American football coach and 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 revisionJun 17, 2026
Entity authorityQ5569794
Source-derived summary

Matthew Andrew Cavanaugh (born October 27, 1956) is an American former professional football player and coach in the National Football League (NFL). He played as a quarterback, winning two Super Bowl titles. He played college football for the Pittsburgh Panthers. He is currently the senior offensive assistant at Washington.

After retiring from playing following the 1991 season, Cavanaugh worked as an offensive coach and offensive coordinator for teams including the San Francisco 49ers, Chicago Bears, Baltimore Ravens (where he earned a third ring as a coach), Washington Redskins (now the Washington Commanders), and New York Jets.

Early life

Cavanaugh was born in Youngstown, Ohio, on October 27, 1956. He attended Chaney High School, and played quarterback on its 1973 and 1974 city championship teams, as team captain his senior year (1974). In 1988, he was inducted into the Chaney Athletic Hall of Fame.

College football

He went on to the University of Pittsburgh after graduating, and is considered one of the greatest quarterbacks in school history. He played under College Football Hall of Fame head coach Johnny Majors (1974-1976) and head coach Jackie Sherrill (1977).

Editorial summary

Begin with the source’s own compact description: “Matt Cavanaugh” is american football coach and player. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Matt, Cavanaugh 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—1956, 1991, 1973, 1974—that can be checked directly. The linked authority record independently contributes the date 1956-10-27. For this dossier, Matt, Cavanaugh and American is the immediate research focus.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

The phrase “american football coach and 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

The entry’s evidential value lies in the named roles, institutions and publications that can be tested against primary documentation. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jun 17, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q5569794. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1956, 1991, 1973 and 1974.

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 “Matt Cavanaugh”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow Matt Cavanaugh primary sources, Matt Cavanaugh archive and Matt 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 “Matt Cavanaugh”?
  2. Which claims depend on a single source or contested interpretation?
  3. Which primary records establish identity, chronology and institutional ties?
Subject index

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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from Matt Cavanaugh” 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.