Dave Anderson - Countdown to Super Bowl: How the 1968-1969 New York Jets Delivered on Joe Namaths Guarantee to Win it All

Copyright 1969 by Dave Anderson

Introduction 2018 by Dave Anderson

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available on file.

Cover design by Tom Lau

Cover photo credit Associated Press

ISBN: 978-1-68358-264-9

Ebook ISBN: 978-1-68358-265-6

Printed in the United States of America

THE ANATOMY OF AN UPSET

Ten days before the New York Jets were to face the Baltimore Colts in the Super Bowl, Jimmy the Greek (the man who sets the odds from coast-to-coast) called it: The number is 17, the Colts by 17.

Ten days before the New York Jets were to face the Baltimore Colts in the Super Bowl, Joe Willie Namath called it: Were going to win; Ill guarantee it.

One of them was going to be wrongvery wrong, and Jimmy the Greek was almost always right. But not this time...

How a brash young football star proved a master odds-maker wrong, is the story of a super-upset that changed the course of pro football history.

Superb... cinematic... the best of the new books inspired by the Jets victory over the Colts, a game that provided rich symbolism for the victories of a new league and of a controversial quarterback. The New York Times

To Maureen

who made the last two days the best

CONTENTS

INTRODUCTION

T his isnt a book so much as its an 11-day time capsule of how Joe Namath and the New York Jets won Super Bowl III, a stunning 167 upset of the Baltimore Colts half a century ago in an America that was aflame. Protestors of the Vietnam War disrupted the Democratic Convention in Chicago. Before the Jets swept to an 113 record in the 1968 season Dr. Martin Luther King was assassinated in Memphis on April 4, and Bobby Kennedy was assassinated in Los Angeles on June 5. At the Olympics in Mexico City, Tommie Smith, the gold medalist in the 200-meter dash, and John Carlos, the bronze medalist, each raised a black-gloved black power fist as the national anthem played. Richard Nixon was elected president.

And on the 12th day of 1969, the Jets won the Super Bowl. The Jets from that other league, the nine-year-old American Football League that proved it was as good as the champions of the National Football League that had been around for nearly half a century, the Jets with a shaggy-haired quarterback that dared to guarantee a victory.

Thats why Super Bowl III has endured as arguably the most memorable of more than 50 Super Bowls. Old-timers remember Vince Lombardis Green Bay Packers winning the first Super Bowl and also the second. Fans of other Super Bowl winners remember those particular games, but just about every pro football fan remembers Joe Namath and the Jets.

Thats what prompted this rare reprint 50 years later of Countdown . And here are its day-to-day details as I observed them or learned about them as the New York Times reporter, who covered the Jets throughout the 1968 season, the AFL championship game, and Super Bowl III.

Sadly for the Jets generations of frustrated fans over the last half-century, the team has yet to return to the Super Bowl, but they wasted four opportunities in the AFC championship game. The 1982 team, with Richard Todd at quarterback, lost on a soggy field in Miami, 140. The 1998 team, with Vinny Testaverde at quarterback, lost in Denver, 2310. The 2009 team, with Mark Sanchez at quarterback, lost in Indianapolis, 3019, and the 2010 team, again with Sanchez at quarterback, lost in Pittsburgh, 2419.

At least the 1968 Jets advanced to Super Bowl III and won it. The Detroit Lions, the Cleveland Browns, the Jacksonville Jaguars, and the Houston Texans have yet to get to the Super Bowl at all.

And surely the Jets someday will return to the Super Bowl. Someday.

Dave Anderson

THURSDAY, JANUARY 2

Chicken Aint Nothin But a Bird

T he quarterback lifted the top of the small white box. Inside, on a patch of cotton, gleamed a gold brooch, its diamonds sparkling.

Its for my mother, Joe Namath said. Its her Christmas present. We had to practice that day, and I wasnt able to get home to give it to her, but shes coming down next weekend for the game.

How many diamonds are in it? asked John Free, the New York Jets traveling secretary

I dont know, I didnt even count em, Namath said. I just fell in love with it when I saw it.

It looks like twelve, Free said. Here, let me count how many.

Crouching in the aisle of the chartered Northeast Airlines jet, Free silently counted the diamonds.

Twelve, he said. The same as your number.

Twelve diamonds, Joe Namath said, with a sly smile. My number is twelve, and were playing them on the twelfth. This has got to be an omen.

Most people believed the New York Jets would need much more than an omen.

At this moment, shortly after six oclock on Thursday evening, January 2, 1969, the champions of the American Football League were on their way to Fort Lauderdale, Florida, where they would be lodged while they prepared for the Super Bowl game in Miami with the Baltimore Colts, the National Football League champions. As their yellow Boeing 727, its wing lights flashing, droned above the clouds, the Jets were considered by most of the outside world to be the only lambs ever led to slaughter at an altitude of 35,000 feet.

The previous Sunday the Jets had needed to rally in the final quarter for a 2723 victory over the Oakland Raiders in the AFL championship game. That same day the Colts had thrashed the Cleveland Browns, 340, for the NFL championship.

But there was no atmosphere of impending doom among those on the Jets charter. The players had gathered at Shea Stadium at noon to review the films of the AFL championship game and to listen to their head coach, Weeb Ewbank, warn them not to provoke the Colts with any inflammatory statements.

Let me do all the talking about the Colts, the coach had commanded.

Later in the afternoon, they had regrouped in the Northeast Airlines terminal at Kennedy International Airport. Relaxing on a soft beige chair in a private waiting lounge there, Larry Grantham, the experienced linebacker who calls the defensive signals, had disclosed the teams approach to the game.

Joe will get us points, Grantham said, meaning the quarterback, and its up to the defense to make sure whatever points he gets us are enough.

Not far away, Curley Johnson, the punter and the teams humorist, had established the attitude as he poured some Johnnie Walker Red Label scotch over the ice cubes in a big, tall glass.

Chicken aint nothin but a bird, Curley said, and this aint nothin but another football game.