Super Bowl III (1968)

Super Bowl III, The New York Jets vs. The Baltimore Colts

The date was January 12th, 1969, and fans could just tell it was going to be a great day for football. This game was played in Miami, Florida, in the Orange Bowl. This Super Bowl was between the New York Jets and the Baltimore Colts. Many people were willing to show up to this game and the attendance was off the charts with nearly 75,400 people at the stadium to watch Super Bowl III (USA Today via Wikipedia).

Joe Namath, quarterback for the New York Jets, was part of the reason the Jets got to the Super Bowl, but not all of his influences were displayed on the field. In the week leading up to the big game the odds makers had Namath’s Jets as astounding 18-point underdogs. Despite the odds, there was an overwhelming feeling of confidence in the Jets locker room (Newsday). Pete Lammons, tight end for the Jets, was heard in the film room days before the game stating, “We’ve got to stop watching these films. We’re going to get overconfident” (Newsday). The defining moment of this confidence was when Namath went in front of the Miami Touchdown Club and declared, “We’re gonna win this game, I guarantee it” (New York Daily News). Along with that, Namath began bad-mouthing some of the Colts players before the game claiming that they had not had competition like the Jets in their conference (About Sports). At that time, a majority of fans thought Namath was out of his mind if he thought he was going to have a chance at winning this game. The Jets were up against NFL MVP quarterback Earl Morrall who had led his Baltimore Colts to a 13-1 record while outscoring opponents by 258 points. All that sports analysts were talking about was how bad the Colts would beat the Jets by, and that New York did not have a chance to even compete with the Colts (Newsday).

To many people’s disbelief, the Jets tore apart the Colts by compiling a 16-0 lead by the beginning of the fourth quarter thanks to a Matt Snell touchdown run and three field goals by Jim Turner (About Sports). The Jets had intercepted Earl Morrall three times, and he had to be replaced by the injured Johnny Unitas who was also picked off once. Two of the interceptions had occurred in the red zone for the Colts which really shifted the momentum towards New York (New York Daily News). The game ended in a 16-7 Jets win, but the score really didn’t do justice to how lopsided the game actually was. This would be the New York Jets first Lombardi Trophy and Namath would rightfully be named the MVP. The MVP award was like the icing on the cake to his “guaranteed” Super Bowl win promise he made a few days before because he had defied the odds and led his team to a win.

The Super Bowl III win for the Jets proved to pro football that the AFL was just as competitive as the NFL. The first two Super Bowls had been won by the NFL’s champion, and both times in blowout fashion, but now the NFL was no longer considered the only formidable league that played football. The AFL’s champion showed that they could not only compete with but beat an NFL team (New York Daily News) . The win was also satisfying for a group of players on the Jets that had been ostracized from the NFL because many of them had been former players for the Colts like starting left tackle, Winston Hill. Players like Hill had been cut from NFL teams because they thought they weren’t good enough to play, but these players demonstrated in the Jets’ heroic performance that they were anything but that (New York Times).

This game will be remembered as one of the biggest upsets in sports history, and was made much more interesting by the underdog team’s confidence and “trash-talking” towards the opponent before the game. Namath may have been considered overconfident by many but the fact is that he delivered on his promises in one of the most important games in his life.