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On this day in New York · January 12, 1969

Joe Namath Guarantees, Then Delivers

Three days before Super Bowl III, a Jets quarterback made a promise nobody believed, then beat the best team in football to keep it.

Joe Namath Guarantees, Then Delivers
Wikimedia Commons / Joe Namath

The facts

Final score
New York Jets 16, Baltimore Colts 7
Date
January 12, 1969
Attendance
75,389 at the Miami Orange Bowl
MVP
Joe Namath, 17 of 28 passing for 206 yards

On January 12, 1969, the New York Jets beat the Baltimore Colts 16 to 7 at the Miami Orange Bowl to win Super Bowl III. The Colts had gone 13 and 1 that season and crushed Cleveland 34-0 for the NFL title, and bookmakers made them roughly 18 point favorites over a Jets team from the still-scorned American Football League. Three nights before kickoff, Jets quarterback Joe Namath stood up at the Miami Touchdown Club and told the room he had no doubts. Namath threw for 206 yards without a touchdown and still won MVP, while fullback Matt Snell ground out 121 rushing yards and the Jets defense picked off Colts quarterback Earl Morrall three times. New York's win forced the NFL to take the upstart AFL seriously, a year before the two leagues fully merged.

In their words

The day in the words of the people who were there. Every quote is verbatim, and every source links out so you can check it.

  1. We're gonna win the game. I guarantee it

    Joe Namath, at the Miami Touchdown Club, three days before Super Bowl III

    Source: Wikipedia

  2. By this time, the Colts were pressing. You saw the frustration and worry on all their faces.

    Jets fullback Matt Snell, recalling the game

    Source: Wikipedia

Why it still matters

The win legitimized the entire American Football League a year before it merged with the NFL for good, and it turned Namath into the kind of guaranteed-to-deliver New York folk hero the city still tells stories about.

Sources

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