CACrown ArchivesThe cinema collection
Menu
Research dossier · People & Ideas

Neil Graff

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 23, 2026
Entity authorityQ6988646
Source-derived summary

Neil Graff (born January 12, 1950) is an American former professional football player who was a quarterback in the National Football League (NFL). He played college football for the Wisconsin Badgers and was selected by the Minnesota Vikings in the sixteenth round of the 1972 NFL draft.

He later played two seasons for the New England Patriots, making his first appearance in 1974 during a Patriots blowout win. Backup quarterback Dick Shiner came in and led an 80-yard touchdown drive when the game was already out of hand and Graff came in thereafter to finish the game. In 1975 the Patriots struggled as they had for most of the early seventies finishing 3–11. Graff made his only two NFL starts for the Patriots throwing two touchdowns and three interceptions.

Later he was selected in the 1976 NFL expansion draft by the Seattle Seahawks and split that season as a member of the Seahawks and the Pittsburgh Steelers, though he did not see any playing time in a regular season game with Seattle. He played the following year with the Steelers appearing in four games and being dressed for their playoff appearance against eventual AFC champion Denver. In 1978 he played for the Green Bay Packers but did not make an appearance during the regular season.

Graff is one of two NFL quarterbacks born in the state of South Dakota, the other being Norm Van Brocklin.

Editorial summary

“Neil Graff” enters the record as american football player. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Neil, Graff and American can confirm, complicate or overturn.

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—1950, 1972, 1974, 1975—that can be checked directly. The linked authority record independently contributes the date 1950-01-12. Its strongest next move is a source search built around Neil, Graff and American.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

“Neil Graff” is worth following because a concise public description often conceals a longer documentary argument. Here, Neil, Graff and American provides the most credible route into that argument.

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 23, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q6988646. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1950, 1972, 1974 and 1975.

Critical limits

Public reputation and documentary evidence do not always develop together; absence from a summary is not evidence of historical absence. 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 “Neil Graff”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow Neil Graff primary sources, Neil Graff archive and Neil 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 “Neil Graff”?
  2. How has the subject’s reputation changed across later accounts?
  3. Which claims depend on a single source or contested interpretation?
Subject index

Search terms from this dossier

Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from Neil Graff” 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.