the Namath love. If he hadn't predicted the win no one would have cared. The defense won that game, keeping the Colts off the board till there was 3:30 to go in the game. The Jets defense was so good across the board that no one stood out enough to be MVP. Namath was 17-29 for just over 200 yards and ZERO TDs. He also lost a fumble. Heck, Sauer or Snell was the Jets best offensive player in that game. Both were better than Namath.
How do you get to be the 12th best QB in Super Bowls with no TDs? Ahead of Simms who had the best completion percentage ever and threw 3 TDs. Makes no sense at all. Heck, Dilfer had as good a game as Namath. And people consider him an afterthought. At least he had a TD pass.
RE: RE: Seems like Jim Kelly could have gotten a sniff as an Alternative
He wins the most impactful game in NFL history and you guys throw stones? His team was 18pt underdog. No one picked them to be competitive much less to win. He guarantees a win and backs it up. He makes the list for sure.
He wins the most impactful game in NFL history and you guys throw stones? His team was 18pt underdog. No one picked them to be competitive much less to win. He guarantees a win and backs it up. He makes the list for sure.
We are calling Joe fucking Namath a “flash in the pan”. 😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂
He wins the most impactful game in NFL history and you guys throw stones? His team was 18pt underdog. No one picked them to be competitive much less to win. He guarantees a win and backs it up. He makes the list for sure.
But what did HE do to back it up. Virtually nothing. The defense won that game, hands down. The Colts score 27 points or more 12 times in 16 games. And they scored 24 and 26 in two others. That's 14 games with 24 points or more. They scored one TD against the Jets, with 3:30 to go in the game. The Jets scored over 25 in 12 of their 16 games, with 7 games over 35 and games of 47 and 48. They averaged almost 30 points a game before the Super Bowl. They scored 16.
Tell me how that translates to a great QB performance, two touchdowns below their average. Namath didn't back anything up, the Jets' defense did the heavy lifting, but the media gave Joe all the credit because the guarantee (to a fan by the way) made a good story.
Namath was an average QB. In his best season he threw 26 TD passes - and 28 INTs. That's Jameis Winston territory. He had more INTs than TDs 11 times. Think about that. He only had 2 years where he had more TDs than INTs, and he barely did that, with 18 TDs and 15 INTs and 19 TDs and 17 INTs, both in his first five years.
And please, how was it the most impactful game in NFL history? The merger deal had already been finalized, and announced, in 1966. So the 1969 SB had nothing to do with that. The TV audience grew by exactly the same amount from 1968 to 1969, 2.6 million, as it did from 1969 to 1970. The big audience jump didn't come until the 1971 game, when 10.6 million more people watched the game than a year earlier.
IMO anyone under 60 years old who has an opinion on Joe Namath
should be ignored. He played for the Jets and this is a Giants web site. If you can't see past the imagined rivalry and/or your family "role model" had a crew cut in the 1960s and hated everything Joe was about feel free to carry on uninterrupted.
But if you're interested in the history of professional football and the players who had the biggest impact on what it has evolved into in 2023 Joe Namath is at the very top of that list. Like Gale Sayers, Namath's prime was very short. Just 5 years. His career was basically over by the time he was 27. But if you were lucky enough to see to see him in his prime you would never forget him. Dan Marino grew up idolizing Namath even copying some of his mannerisms and IMO he wasn't as good as the real thing.
In his first 5 years Namath was a pro bowl player 4 times. He was the rookie of the year in his first season. He finished in the top 3 MVP voting 3 years in a row. He was the AFL MVP and first team All Pro in 1968. He won the first Super Bowl the AFL ever won. He was and deserved to be the MVP of Super Bowl III. Namath called the game himself and about 75% of the plays run in Super Bowl III he called at the line. There were no plays called from the sideline in those days.
1967 Namath threw for 4007 yards in 14 games. An average of 286 yards a game. John Hall was second with 3365 and Daryle Lamonica was 3rd with 3228. 4th was HOFer Len Dawson with 2651. Jack Kemp was 5th with 2503. In 1967 Namath threw for over 30% more yardage than the average of the next 4 QBs.
To put that into perspective Patrick Mahomes threw for 5250 yards in 17 games in 2023. An average of 308 yards a game. 5th in the NFL this year was Joe Burrow with 4475. Mahomes threw for about 12% more yardage than the average of the next 4 QBs.
If you're old enough to have seen the way QBs were brutalized in Namath's era vs the way QBs are protected today and how the rules have changed in the passing game from the 1960's to the NFL we watch now you might understand why Namath was such a game changer in his day on the field. There's a reason he was voted 1st team AFL Hall of Fame All-1960 Team.
The 1968 AFL Championship game made Eli's signature game in the 2011 NFL Championship game look tame.
Quote:
What Namath remembers as the "toughest, most physical game" he ever played was a tribute to the grittiness that was hidden behind the bravado. In many ways, it was the ultimate test of his career.
In their meeting the previous year, defensive end Ike Lassiter tried to rearrange Namath's Noxema-smooth face, breaking his cheekbone with a blow to the right side of the helmet. It's a hit the Jets insist came after the whistle, or as Larry Grantham puts it, while Namath was "standing there watching whoever caught the pass running with the ball." Namath stayed in the game only to be soon separated from his helmet by Raiders end Ben Davidson's double-fisted blow to an aching chin. Davidson ended up getting credit for the fracture, and a spectacular picture of the play earned a place of honor on Al Davis' office wall.
And so they came into Shea, where the winds were howling out of the open end of the stadium at 35 miles an hour, where Davis had built a protective hut for his team that Weeb Ewbank had torn down, and where the Raiders were up to their old tricks.
Namath came out of one pileup with a finger bent three different ways.
"I remember lying on the ground grabbing my hand and Birdwell was on his feet with a big grin on his face, yelling, 'Hey Joe, look, you broke your finger.' And I didn't say anything," Namath remembers. "I was a little bit in semi-shock when I saw it was pointing in the wrong direction."
Later in the first half, the Raiders made their only sack of the game count. Lassiter and Davidson met with the quarterback in the middle, Davidson's airborne knee catching Namath in the helmet. At halftime, with the Jets up 13-10, Namath had to be walked into the locker room by trainer Jeff Snedeker. Ewbank told backup Babe Parilli he might have to go in.
Recalls Namath, "They were looking at my head. I got an injection in my finger and both knees and it was fine. We were able to play."
Trailing by 23-20 after a Pete Banaszak touchdown, Namath ran back onto the field for the signature drive of his career. He played the Raiders like a fiddle in a three-note samba.
On first down, with the Raider corners strangely playing off, he hit Sauer on an out route for 11 yards. That set up his next play because it lured Atkinson and Willie Brown closer to the line to do, as Namath says, "what they do best." That would be bump and run, or what Maynard called "mug and run."
"Earlier in the game, I told Joe, 'Down the road sometime, I've got things set up pretty good and I've got a long one if you need it,'" Maynard says. "So, Joe told us in the huddle, 'Hey we're going to go for it, so make sure, no holding by you linemen, we're going after it.'"
"I can remember it clearly just like I'm describing it," says Namath. "The team was alerted, 'Be ready for the check. If we check, we're going to go to maximum protection and run go (routes). Maynard had told me he could get a step on that guy and sure enough, we broke the huddle and came up to the line and I saw Atkinson and Brown come up, so we audibilized to the pass to Maynard and you know the result."
Maynard calls it his "Million Dollar Catch" because of what it would mean. Here's how he explains it:
"Joe threw the ball and I was going to catch it about 11 o'clock over my inside shoulder. The wind was really blowing that day. I'm reaching out to catch the ball and all of a sudden I'm looking up and the ball is kind of fading and it goes over to 12 o'clock and it goes over to 1 o'clock and my head's looking at the sky, just following the ball. I caught it at about 2 o'clock."
Maynard's momentum took him out of bounds at the 6. Namath says he thought of a taxi driver who once told him the Jets get too conservative near the goal line. He thought the Raiders would be expecting the run. He called a play-action pass. Maynard says he came out of the huddle as the No. 1 receiver and ended up being the No. 4 receiver – on his knees with the ball in the end zone.
The play worked because the Jets line gave Namath time to find Maynard, after his first three options were covered. Namath even tripped on the play, regained his balance and made his throw.
"If you ever look at that film, just watch (Maynard)," Namath says. "He just sets up Atkinson with his pass route prior to his break. Maynard had that clock in his head. He knew if I was coming back to him how long it would take. He was biding his time, man, and made his break at the right instant. He broke clean and I was able to see him and get it to him."
He wins the most impactful game in NFL history and you guys throw stones? His team was 18pt underdog. No one picked them to be competitive much less to win. He guarantees a win and backs it up. He makes the list for sure.
But what did HE do to back it up. Virtually nothing. The defense won that game, hands down. The Colts score 27 points or more 12 times in 16 games. And they scored 24 and 26 in two others. That's 14 games with 24 points or more. They scored one TD against the Jets, with 3:30 to go in the game. The Jets scored over 25 in 12 of their 16 games, with 7 games over 35 and games of 47 and 48. They averaged almost 30 points a game before the Super Bowl. They scored 16.
Tell me how that translates to a great QB performance, two touchdowns below their average. Namath didn't back anything up, the Jets' defense did the heavy lifting, but the media gave Joe all the credit because the guarantee (to a fan by the way) made a good story.
Namath was an average QB. In his best season he threw 26 TD passes - and 28 INTs. That's Jameis Winston territory. He had more INTs than TDs 11 times. Think about that. He only had 2 years where he had more TDs than INTs, and he barely did that, with 18 TDs and 15 INTs and 19 TDs and 17 INTs, both in his first five years.
And please, how was it the most impactful game in NFL history? The merger deal had already been finalized, and announced, in 1966. So the 1969 SB had nothing to do with that. The TV audience grew by exactly the same amount from 1968 to 1969, 2.6 million, as it did from 1969 to 1970. The big audience jump didn't come until the 1971 game, when 10.6 million more people watched the game than a year earlier.
The AFL proves their players are on par or better than the NFL and you want to talk stats. Please.
That TD to IN ratio for Montana is insane. That said, Bengals CB Billups-I think that was his name?-dropped a gimme pick in the end zone in that second 49ers Bengals Super Bowl. I think SF scored 6 the very next play.
I was too young to have seen Namath in his prime. I remember seeing him when i was a kid in the 70s. I remember wondering why he moved in a funny way. I later found out his knees were shot at that time.
You make a great defense of him and his prime years and Sayers is a good comparison.
Peyton Manning at #9 is laughable. He didn't even have a great game when the Colts beat Chicago. And he a passenger when the Broncos beat the Panthers.
Eli should be #4 and Aikman and Elway should move down. Move Elway to #5. Eli had iconic plays in each game NYG won.
I love Elway, but the three losses are minuses. And Aikman did nothing iconic, so he he should be behind Elway.
is a good one to see if you get a chance to catch it on the NFL Network. I saw him in his last year with the Rams. Every single older person I ever talked to about him that did see him play said he was a incredible talent and great QB.
He also seems like a really good guy and despite the whole "Broadway Joe" was a great teammate and had great respect for his coaches. John Madden said in his later years the players would never go down low on him on hits and said it was out of "respect". He meant a great deal to the game.
The rules changed so dramatically to favor the passing game and boost passing stats, it cannot be underestimated.
Ever hear of the 5 yd chuck rule? That didn't exist before 1978. You could basically molest a WR all the way downfield. The year that rule was instituted, Dan Fouts became great. Plus many of those QBs called their own plays.
I'm positive more than one of today's better QBs couldn't have functioned pre-78, never mind Winston.
I would love to see Stabler and Staubach play today. They would tear up this league.
He had a great arm when he came out. He had a short peak. If he didn't win SB3 he wouldn't be the legend that he is today. And that win was all about ball control and defense.
He was a good QB. His skills dictated a high risk approach. I think he would do ok today. I'm not sure he would be great. There were better QBs from that era
He had a great arm when he came out. He had a short peak. If he didn't win SB3 he wouldn't be the legend that he is today. And that win was all about ball control and defense.
He was a good QB. His skills dictated a high risk approach. I think he would do ok today. I'm not sure he would be great. There were better QBs from that era
Did you ever see Namath play? I hated the Jests then and now but JWN was a warrior. His 1 legged bootleg to beat the hapless Giants on Nov 10, ‘74 broke my heart. Back in my youth, when we couldn’t get tix to the Giants, we’d get standing room in the end zone at Shea for $5 a game. Great blue collar atmosphere and Namath was king of NY football in that era.
Phil was absolutely brilliant in SB21
Who on that list is a flash in a pan?
How do you get to be the 12th best QB in Super Bowls with no TDs? Ahead of Simms who had the best completion percentage ever and threw 3 TDs. Makes no sense at all. Heck, Dilfer had as good a game as Namath. And people consider him an afterthought. At least he had a TD pass.
Quote:
given his 4 appearances in a short span...one of which he only lost b/c of Wide Right. Some of the others on that list were just a flash in a pan.
Who on that list is a flash in a pan?
Namath, for one.
Phil was absolutely brilliant in SB21
14th? Not that day!
We are calling Joe fucking Namath a “flash in the pan”. 😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂
But what did HE do to back it up. Virtually nothing. The defense won that game, hands down. The Colts score 27 points or more 12 times in 16 games. And they scored 24 and 26 in two others. That's 14 games with 24 points or more. They scored one TD against the Jets, with 3:30 to go in the game. The Jets scored over 25 in 12 of their 16 games, with 7 games over 35 and games of 47 and 48. They averaged almost 30 points a game before the Super Bowl. They scored 16.
Tell me how that translates to a great QB performance, two touchdowns below their average. Namath didn't back anything up, the Jets' defense did the heavy lifting, but the media gave Joe all the credit because the guarantee (to a fan by the way) made a good story.
Namath was an average QB. In his best season he threw 26 TD passes - and 28 INTs. That's Jameis Winston territory. He had more INTs than TDs 11 times. Think about that. He only had 2 years where he had more TDs than INTs, and he barely did that, with 18 TDs and 15 INTs and 19 TDs and 17 INTs, both in his first five years.
And please, how was it the most impactful game in NFL history? The merger deal had already been finalized, and announced, in 1966. So the 1969 SB had nothing to do with that. The TV audience grew by exactly the same amount from 1968 to 1969, 2.6 million, as it did from 1969 to 1970. The big audience jump didn't come until the 1971 game, when 10.6 million more people watched the game than a year earlier.
But if you're interested in the history of professional football and the players who had the biggest impact on what it has evolved into in 2023 Joe Namath is at the very top of that list. Like Gale Sayers, Namath's prime was very short. Just 5 years. His career was basically over by the time he was 27. But if you were lucky enough to see to see him in his prime you would never forget him. Dan Marino grew up idolizing Namath even copying some of his mannerisms and IMO he wasn't as good as the real thing.
In his first 5 years Namath was a pro bowl player 4 times. He was the rookie of the year in his first season. He finished in the top 3 MVP voting 3 years in a row. He was the AFL MVP and first team All Pro in 1968. He won the first Super Bowl the AFL ever won. He was and deserved to be the MVP of Super Bowl III. Namath called the game himself and about 75% of the plays run in Super Bowl III he called at the line. There were no plays called from the sideline in those days.
1967 Namath threw for 4007 yards in 14 games. An average of 286 yards a game. John Hall was second with 3365 and Daryle Lamonica was 3rd with 3228. 4th was HOFer Len Dawson with 2651. Jack Kemp was 5th with 2503. In 1967 Namath threw for over 30% more yardage than the average of the next 4 QBs.
To put that into perspective Patrick Mahomes threw for 5250 yards in 17 games in 2023. An average of 308 yards a game. 5th in the NFL this year was Joe Burrow with 4475. Mahomes threw for about 12% more yardage than the average of the next 4 QBs.
If you're old enough to have seen the way QBs were brutalized in Namath's era vs the way QBs are protected today and how the rules have changed in the passing game from the 1960's to the NFL we watch now you might understand why Namath was such a game changer in his day on the field. There's a reason he was voted 1st team AFL Hall of Fame All-1960 Team.
The 1968 AFL Championship game made Eli's signature game in the 2011 NFL Championship game look tame.
In their meeting the previous year, defensive end Ike Lassiter tried to rearrange Namath's Noxema-smooth face, breaking his cheekbone with a blow to the right side of the helmet. It's a hit the Jets insist came after the whistle, or as Larry Grantham puts it, while Namath was "standing there watching whoever caught the pass running with the ball." Namath stayed in the game only to be soon separated from his helmet by Raiders end Ben Davidson's double-fisted blow to an aching chin. Davidson ended up getting credit for the fracture, and a spectacular picture of the play earned a place of honor on Al Davis' office wall.
And so they came into Shea, where the winds were howling out of the open end of the stadium at 35 miles an hour, where Davis had built a protective hut for his team that Weeb Ewbank had torn down, and where the Raiders were up to their old tricks.
Namath came out of one pileup with a finger bent three different ways.
"I remember lying on the ground grabbing my hand and Birdwell was on his feet with a big grin on his face, yelling, 'Hey Joe, look, you broke your finger.' And I didn't say anything," Namath remembers. "I was a little bit in semi-shock when I saw it was pointing in the wrong direction."
Later in the first half, the Raiders made their only sack of the game count. Lassiter and Davidson met with the quarterback in the middle, Davidson's airborne knee catching Namath in the helmet. At halftime, with the Jets up 13-10, Namath had to be walked into the locker room by trainer Jeff Snedeker. Ewbank told backup Babe Parilli he might have to go in.
Recalls Namath, "They were looking at my head. I got an injection in my finger and both knees and it was fine. We were able to play."
Trailing by 23-20 after a Pete Banaszak touchdown, Namath ran back onto the field for the signature drive of his career. He played the Raiders like a fiddle in a three-note samba.
On first down, with the Raider corners strangely playing off, he hit Sauer on an out route for 11 yards. That set up his next play because it lured Atkinson and Willie Brown closer to the line to do, as Namath says, "what they do best." That would be bump and run, or what Maynard called "mug and run."
"Earlier in the game, I told Joe, 'Down the road sometime, I've got things set up pretty good and I've got a long one if you need it,'" Maynard says. "So, Joe told us in the huddle, 'Hey we're going to go for it, so make sure, no holding by you linemen, we're going after it.'"
"I can remember it clearly just like I'm describing it," says Namath. "The team was alerted, 'Be ready for the check. If we check, we're going to go to maximum protection and run go (routes). Maynard had told me he could get a step on that guy and sure enough, we broke the huddle and came up to the line and I saw Atkinson and Brown come up, so we audibilized to the pass to Maynard and you know the result."
Maynard calls it his "Million Dollar Catch" because of what it would mean. Here's how he explains it:
"Joe threw the ball and I was going to catch it about 11 o'clock over my inside shoulder. The wind was really blowing that day. I'm reaching out to catch the ball and all of a sudden I'm looking up and the ball is kind of fading and it goes over to 12 o'clock and it goes over to 1 o'clock and my head's looking at the sky, just following the ball. I caught it at about 2 o'clock."
Maynard's momentum took him out of bounds at the 6. Namath says he thought of a taxi driver who once told him the Jets get too conservative near the goal line. He thought the Raiders would be expecting the run. He called a play-action pass. Maynard says he came out of the huddle as the No. 1 receiver and ended up being the No. 4 receiver – on his knees with the ball in the end zone.
The play worked because the Jets line gave Namath time to find Maynard, after his first three options were covered. Namath even tripped on the play, regained his balance and made his throw.
"If you ever look at that film, just watch (Maynard)," Namath says. "He just sets up Atkinson with his pass route prior to his break. Maynard had that clock in his head. He knew if I was coming back to him how long it would take. He was biding his time, man, and made his break at the right instant. He broke clean and I was able to see him and get it to him."
Joe Namath, Jets recall the day they took fateful Super step in AFL Championship game vs. Raiders - ( New Window )
Quote:
He wins the most impactful game in NFL history and you guys throw stones? His team was 18pt underdog. No one picked them to be competitive much less to win. He guarantees a win and backs it up. He makes the list for sure.
But what did HE do to back it up. Virtually nothing. The defense won that game, hands down. The Colts score 27 points or more 12 times in 16 games. And they scored 24 and 26 in two others. That's 14 games with 24 points or more. They scored one TD against the Jets, with 3:30 to go in the game. The Jets scored over 25 in 12 of their 16 games, with 7 games over 35 and games of 47 and 48. They averaged almost 30 points a game before the Super Bowl. They scored 16.
Tell me how that translates to a great QB performance, two touchdowns below their average. Namath didn't back anything up, the Jets' defense did the heavy lifting, but the media gave Joe all the credit because the guarantee (to a fan by the way) made a good story.
Namath was an average QB. In his best season he threw 26 TD passes - and 28 INTs. That's Jameis Winston territory. He had more INTs than TDs 11 times. Think about that. He only had 2 years where he had more TDs than INTs, and he barely did that, with 18 TDs and 15 INTs and 19 TDs and 17 INTs, both in his first five years.
And please, how was it the most impactful game in NFL history? The merger deal had already been finalized, and announced, in 1966. So the 1969 SB had nothing to do with that. The TV audience grew by exactly the same amount from 1968 to 1969, 2.6 million, as it did from 1969 to 1970. The big audience jump didn't come until the 1971 game, when 10.6 million more people watched the game than a year earlier.
The AFL proves their players are on par or better than the NFL and you want to talk stats. Please.
You make a great defense of him and his prime years and Sayers is a good comparison.
Peyton Manning at #9 is laughable. He didn't even have a great game when the Colts beat Chicago. And he a passenger when the Broncos beat the Panthers.
Eli should be #4 and Aikman and Elway should move down. Move Elway to #5. Eli had iconic plays in each game NYG won.
I love Elway, but the three losses are minuses. And Aikman did nothing iconic, so he he should be behind Elway.
Have some context in your thought process, at least.
He also seems like a really good guy and despite the whole "Broadway Joe" was a great teammate and had great respect for his coaches. John Madden said in his later years the players would never go down low on him on hits and said it was out of "respect". He meant a great deal to the game.
SB21 is on at 4:30am.
The rules changed so dramatically to favor the passing game and boost passing stats, it cannot be underestimated.
Ever hear of the 5 yd chuck rule? That didn't exist before 1978. You could basically molest a WR all the way downfield. The year that rule was instituted, Dan Fouts became great. Plus many of those QBs called their own plays.
I'm positive more than one of today's better QBs couldn't have functioned pre-78, never mind Winston.
I would love to see Stabler and Staubach play today. They would tear up this league.
He was a good QB. His skills dictated a high risk approach. I think he would do ok today. I'm not sure he would be great. There were better QBs from that era
He was a good QB. His skills dictated a high risk approach. I think he would do ok today. I'm not sure he would be great. There were better QBs from that era
Did you ever see Namath play? I hated the Jests then and now but JWN was a warrior. His 1 legged bootleg to beat the hapless Giants on Nov 10, ‘74 broke my heart. Back in my youth, when we couldn’t get tix to the Giants, we’d get standing room in the end zone at Shea for $5 a game. Great blue collar atmosphere and Namath was king of NY football in that era.