Broadway Joe Of Jets

In recent years the New York Jets have done little to capture the imagination in the football globe outside of bringing in Brett Favre for one particular incredibly peculiar season. Other than that, there have been a few playoff appearances – most frequently as a wild card group – and even a couple of division titles in 1998 and 2002, but nothing close for the sort of glory experienced by the other New York group, the Giants. Actually, to revel in Jets glory, one particular has to travel all the way back towards hallowed NFL and AFL days in the late 1960s. It was through that time that the Jets won what would prove to be their only Super Bowl appearance and win within the franchise’s fifty year history.

Building a team from the AFL

The primary five years in the Jets’ existence within the American Football League were filled with mediocrity. Though the AFL had not achieved the status from the NFL at that point in time, even by their standards the Jets were anything but a high quality group or a potential threat for a title. That changed with the arrival of a quarterback from the University of Alabama in 1965. The young Joe Namath rapidly earned a name for himself in the AFL with flashy performances through the air that set new standards for quarterback excellence. Among his several aerial feats was his establishment with the first 4,000 yard season by a quarterback – something that was truly breathtaking in that day and age of powerful runners and explosive offensive lines. Coincidentally, that feat occurred throughout the 1967 season, the same one in which Namath led the Jets to an 8 and 5 record which was their greatest ever.

1968 and also the march for the Super Bowl

The 1968 season was the highpoint on the team’s history at that point, as Namath engineered 13 wins and only 3 losses, earning the team a berth from the playoffs. After defeating the Oakland Raiders in the AFC title game, the Jets became the American Football League’s representative from the third matchup between the AFL and NFL Champions – known towards the entire globe as Super Bowl III. At the time, the AFL had the respect of few expert analysts, and most predicted that the Baltimore Colts would effortlessly defeat the upstart New York team. Fans in the Colts even went so far as to heckle Jets players – including Namath – whenever they saw them. Broadway Joe, as Namath was called, finally had enough when he was heckled through an award ceremony only a few days prior towards the big game. His response would become the stuff of legend as he proudly declared that the Jets would not only win the game, but that he personally guaranteed it.

Prophetic boast

Days later, with much more than 75,000 fans watching Super Bowl III, the Jets took the field against Johnny Unitas and his Baltimore Colts. What happened next was a stunner for each fan from the game, as the Jets thoroughly dominated the favored Colts for the entirety with the game, allowing them to score with only minutes remaining within the fourth. The final score was 16 to 7, in a game in which Broadway Joe Namath never connected on a touchdown pass, and threw no passes within the fourth quarter.

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