Most Iconic Game in Jets History: Stunning The Favored Colts in 1969 Super Bowl

No matter how many iconic games take place between the New York Jets and their opponents, the franchise will never be able to surpass the legacy of Super Bowl III. The third “Super Bowl Game,” as the National Football League (NFL) and American Football League (AFL) called it then, was a coup for the new AFL, changing the course of pigskin history by leading to more AFL-over-NFL victories, and a merger of the leagues only one year later. 

Everyone thinks they know the story of Super Bowl III. Quarterback Joe Namath of the AFL's New York Jets guaranteed a victory over the NFL's powerful Baltimore Colts in pregame, stunning reporters whose laughter turned to alarm as the event's formerly 2-0 NFL lost to the upstart AFL 16-7. Namath had backed up his guarantee by leading the Jets to a convincing win. Still, how much of that tale is just mythology?

Namath didn't light up the Baltimore Colts. His team only scored one touchdown in Super Bowl III. But a surly set of New York Jets tacklers did light up the Colts' offense in a landmark performance on defense. 

Any honest recap of Super Bowl III shows that when Joe Namath uttered his famous line, “We're gonna win, I guarantee it,” he didn't expect the New York Jets to win a defensive struggle. The AFL, and the Jets, specialized in a wide-open variety of football in which Namath had 4,007 passing yards in the 1967 season before dialing back the attack somewhat during the Jets' championship year of 1968. 

The quarterbacks of Super Bowl III - who included Johnny Unitas of the Colts - did not throw any touchdown passes in the contest. Namath threw 17 complete passes for 206 yards and no interceptions, just enough to keep Baltimore's defense on the field. It was a game of ball control and opportunistic turnovers. 

At least one aerial weapon loomed large in Super Bowl III. The Jets' superb 6-foot-2 wide receiver George Sauer Jr. grabbed eight of Namath's passes for 133 yards to help the Jets play keep-away against the Colts. It was the New York Jets' defensive backs who were real difference makers on Jan. 12, 1969, snagging four interceptions, including a pair of picks for second-year defender Randy Beverly.

If Super Bowl III's upset happened today, its recap would be called sloppy and boring by modern NFL reporters, who have come to see any low-scoring game as a bad watch. Lucky enough, football fans of the 1960s had no such prejudice against defense, and they loved to watch slobberknockers like Super Bowl III. In the 1968 NFL season, the average total points scored by two Sunday opponents was 41. That number began to rise after the two leagues merged in 1969 and peaked at 49.6 points in 2020.

The winning points in Super Bowl III came from the boot of New York Jets placekicker Jim Turner. It just wasn't obvious at the moment. Turner kicked an innocuous 32-yard field goal in the third quarter to complete the Jets' second scoring drive and extend New York's lead to 10-0. By that time, the legendary signal-caller Unitas was off the Baltimore Colts' bench and trying to lead a Colts comeback win. But once Turner kicked another field goal to put the Jets ahead 16-0, it was too late.

Turner went on to kick for the Jets through the 1970 season, after which he spent nearly a full decade with the Denver Broncos, retiring in 1980 following 16 decorated years as a professional.

No masterpiece of defense and ball control is complete without a dominant running back. Matt Snell of the New York Jets used his 6-foot-2 and 219-pound frame to smash right through the Colts' proud front seven, galloping for 119 yards and scoring the Jets' only touchdown of the game on a 4-yard run at the 9:03 mark of the second quarter. Snell, who retired in 1973, was also a critical blocker for Namath's pocket. 

Super Bowl III is so iconic that the NFL made it into a fairy tale in editions of “Football Follies,” describing Namath as the young wizard who vanquished an aging Unitas at handling the magic “bean.” Once again, the quarterback got more credit for creating Super Bowl III's legacy than the Jets' ball-hawking defense. 

Colts defensive end Bubba Smith told the New York Times in 1983 that he thought Super Bowl III was fixed. Claiming to have heard the truth from “a bookmaker and a member of the NFL Players Association,” Smith contended the Colts had purposefully thrown away chances to score close to the goal line. Quarterback Earl Morrall, who threw three of Baltimore's four picks, was hinted to be Smith's “fixer.” However, Morrall's key goal-line interception from the game's second quarter occurred on a tipped-ball play. It was Colts kicker Lou Michaels who missed two short field-goal attempts in the first half. 

Namath's called shot of a Super Bowl win made “Broadway Joe” into such a celebrity that NFL and AFL coaches alike accused him of leading the game astray with money and hype. In Vince Lombardi's last days, he is said to have awoken from his sleep and yelled, “Joe Namath! You're not bigger than football! Remember that!” Namath would become a full-time entertainer following his injury woes of 1976 and a subsequent single season spent with the Los Angeles Rams before retiring from the NFL in 1977.