{"id":34819,"date":"2019-01-12T01:55:40","date_gmt":"2019-01-12T01:55:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/?p=34819"},"modified":"2019-01-12T01:56:19","modified_gmt":"2019-01-12T01:56:19","slug":"super-bowl-iii-was-it-that-long-ago","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/?p=34819","title":{"rendered":"Super Bowl III: Was it that long ago?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
Tweet<\/a><\/div>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Can you believe it? Fifty years ago this weekend, Joe Willie Namath allegedly “guaranteed” that a prohibitive underdog football team would win the biggest game of the year, the Super Bowl.<\/p>\n

As it turned out, the New York Jets did<\/em> win that game, 16-7 against the Baltimore Colts. The date was Jan. 12, 1969.<\/p>\n

One aspect made this game among the most memorable in pro football history.<\/p>\n

It was the first victory of an American Football League team over a team from the supposedly “superior” National Football League. The AFL and NFL had brokered a merger after the two leagues battled over draft picks out of college. The merger took effect the season after the Jets-Colts Super Bowl III game. Three NFL teams — the Colts, Cleveland Browns and Pittsburgh Steelers — moved into what became the American Football Conference, which competed with the National Football Conference in the newly reconstituted NFL.<\/p>\n

The AFL had come into being in 1960. The new league proved to be an entertaining venture for football fans. I was one of them as a youngster. I followed the AFL closely during its early years, cheering the exploits of Daryle Lamonica, John Hadl, Len Dawson, Cookie Gilchrist, Paul Lowe, Keith Lincoln, Lance Alworth and, oh my . . . I could go on. But I won’t.<\/p>\n

The AFL then landed a prize rookie out of Alabama named Joe Namath. The flashy quarterback became an instant celebrity. He signed a $400,000 contract with the New York Jets.<\/p>\n

The leagues met in two prior Super Bowls. The Green Bay Packers defeated in order the Kansas City Chiefs (35-10) in 1967 and the Oakland Raiders (33-14) in 1968.<\/p>\n

Then came Super Bowl III. The Colts were favored by nearly three touchdowns over the Jets. Namath wasn’t hearing that. He made some kind of semi-flippant remark to reporters that many of them interpreted as a “guarantee” that the Jets would win.<\/p>\n

Then they did. They manhandled the Colts. The AFL had gained “parity” with the NFL.<\/p>\n

And Joe Namath had just written his ticket to the Pro Football Hall of Fame in Canton, Ohio.<\/p>\n

Allow me this bit of heresy, which is that Namath’s role in defeating the Colts is the only<\/em> reason he is enshrined in the Hall of Fame in the first place. His career was otherwise, shall we say, not exactly sparkling<\/em>. I won’t debate the issue here, except that one game can enable someone to gain athletic immortality.<\/p>\n

Joe Namath did on that day 50 years ago. Man, some of us are getting old.<\/p>\n\n

Tweet<\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Can you believe it? Fifty years ago this weekend, Joe Willie Namath allegedly “guaranteed” that a prohibitive underdog football team would win the biggest game of the year, the Super Bowl. As it turned out, the New York Jets did win that game, 16-7 against the Baltimore Colts. The date was Jan. 12, 1969. One … Continue reading Super Bowl III: Was it that long ago?<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[17],"tags":[170,8294,2515,3279,3302,8295,4468],"class_list":["post-34819","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-sports-news","tag-afl","tag-afl-nfl-merger","tag-joe-namath","tag-new-york-jets","tag-nfl","tag-pro-football-hall-of-fame","tag-super-bowl"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34819","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=34819"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34819\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":34822,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34819\/revisions\/34822"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=34819"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=34819"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=34819"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}