Super Bowl 50: Top 15 quarterback performances of all-time
By John Buhler
6. Joe Namath, New York Jets, Super Bowl III
The football world hadn’t seen a player like the New York Jets quarterback Joe Namath before the late 1960s. Arguably, football hasn’t been the same since Broadway Joe’s guarantee of Super Bowl III, the first Super Bowl to carry the coined term and the one that changed the sport forever.
Namath’s Jets were an 18-point underdog to Don Shula, Johnny Unitas and the Baltimore Colts. In 1969, the AFL was considered a renegade league inferior to the National Football League, with their two-point conversions, passing-heavy offenses, playing in secondary media markets like Buffalo, New York and Denver, Colorado.
While Namath’s numbers weren’t impressive in Super Bowl III, he did pull of the most notable upset in the Super Bowl era, by leading his Jets to a 16-7 victory over the supposedly superior Colts. Namath became a larger than life quarterback in football, paving the way for quarterbacks to move the football through the air on and just on the ground.
The Jets’ victory over the Colts combined with AFL Champions Kansas City Chief’s Super Bowl IV victory over the Minnesota Vikings helped force the AFL-NFL merger. The NFL name stayed, but the AFL won, getting its own conference in the NFL and helping pave the way for the next 40 years of Super Bowls.
All it took was a shameless proclamation of a certain victory by an underdog to take down the goliath Colts, ultimately changing the course of NFL history. Who would have thought that a 17-for-28 for 206 yard performance would have as big of an impact on the NFL as Namath’s MVP game against the Colts in Super Bowl III?
Next: 5. Super Bowl XXII