Billy Shaw, an offensive guard for the Buffalo Bills who was known as a Southern gentleman off the field but a terror on it, and who became the only member of the Pro Football Hall of Fame to play his entire career in the American Football League, died on Friday in Toccoa, Ga. He was 85.

The cause of his death, at an assisted living facility, was hyponatremia, a condition caused by excessively low sodium levels, his daughter Cathy Thornton said.

Once described as an “‘aw, shucks’ sort of guy from Mississippi,” Shaw was a star two-way lineman for the Georgia Institute of Technology before being selected in the second round of the 1961 A.F.L. draft.

In a nine-year Bills career that dovetailed with all but one season of the decade-long run of football’s “other” professional league, Shaw was considered one of the best guards of the 1960s in either league.

Bobby Bell, the Hall of Fame Kansas City Chiefs linebacker and defensive end, said in a 1999 interview with the football historian Joe Horrigan: “When you played against Billy, you brought your lunch. He played every down to the maximum. He was relentless.”

Shaw helped Buffalo carve a path toward two A.F.L. championships, in 1964 and 1965. He also earned first-team all-A.F.L. honors four times and played in eight A.F.L. All-Star Games.

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