This Sunday Super Bowl 51 will be played, wow! 51 times the best in the NFC has met the best in the AFC. However, there was a time when…
In 1959 a group of disgruntled rich men, refused ownership by the NFL, together with some minority NFL owners, decided it was time to create a new league, one that would rival the old established one. The AFL was created, and consisted of an Eastern division of the New York Titans, Boston Patriots, Buffalo Bills, and the Houston Oilers, and a Western division of the Los Angeles Chargers, Denver Broncos, Oakland Raiders, and Dallas Texans.
Prior to the first season (1960), these new owners send a huge message by signing the majority of NFL first round draftees. The game was on!
It was a rough start, TV contracts with ABC and NBC, together with the relocation of the Texans to Kansas City, Chargers to San Diego, all helped into shaping this new and somewhat of an innovative league. The biggest change was the selling of the Titans to new ownership, solidifying the biggest media market in the US. Suddenly the new league had money to spend on players, and the NFL paid attention. A single-game attendance record was set on November 8, 1964, when 61,929 fans packed Shea Stadium to watch the New York Jets and Buffalo Bills.
In 1965 the new owners of the Jets made the first big statement that would change the course of league history. College star, Alabama’s Joe Namath was the number one pick of the AFL’s New York Jets, and pick #12 by the NFL’s St. Louis Cardinals. Namath chose the limelight of NY and the AFL money over the more prestigious league, the old NFL owners noticed!
In 1966, the AFL and NFL merged and agreed to basically stop hurting each other. The NFL’s stingy owners had little desire to truly absorb the new league, they basically wanted to find a way to destroy them and take back sole possession of America’s second favored sport. The two leagues agreed to have a common draft (the real reason the NFL wanted the merger) and a Champion of All Champions (the real baby behind the AFL’s thinking).
Super Bowl 1 and 2, in 1967 and 1968, the more dominant and better equipped Green Bay Packers destroyed the Raiders and Chiefs. The NFL owners were proud that their plan to basically turn the AFL into a minor league was showing its results. That was about to change.
The NY Jets would represent the AFL in SB3, playing against the more seasoned and better equipped Baltimore Colts. Don Shula’s Colts entered the game favorited by 18 points over Weeb Ewbank’s Jets. The NY presence was a media heaven, and Jets quarterback Joe Namath used them to his benefit.
Lets back up a little, because Broadway Joe gets a lot of hate and disrespect by Jets haters, however, it should be noted that he became the first professional quarterback to pass for 4,000 yards in a season when he threw for 4,007 yards in 1967. That was a 14 game season, during a time in which teams considered WRs nothing more than downfield blockers for RBs. The record was not broken until 1979, 4082 yards by Dan Fouts in San Diego, in a 16 game season. Today we tend to call QBs elite and great because they get to 4000 yards.
Back to SB III
All week leading up to the game, the press kept reminding the world that the AFL had been blown out in their previous attempts at winning the big game. Joe Namath, not one to shy away from the media limelight, tired of the press having the game decided before being played, he responded. Three days before the game, he responded to a heckler at a sports banquet in Miami with the line: “We’re going to win the game. I guarantee it.”
So many athletes in all sports have tried to do that with the same attention, none have ever had the same effect.
The lowly Jets went on and beat the Colts 16-7. That Super Bowl marked the end of NFL dominance, and a respect for the new league. The next year, in 1970, the AFL was absorbed into the NFL, and the ten AFL franchises (now including expansion teams in Miami and Cincinnati) along with the Baltimore Colts, Cleveland Browns, and Pittsburgh Steelers became the American Football Conference.
Notes from the author:
I understand this is not new news to most, but during a week when our division is represented by one of the original 8, in the biggest game of the year, I wanted to remind Dolphins fans how lucky they are to have had the Jets, Patriots and Bills pave the way. As a Jets fan, you are very welcome!
Go Patriots! (It is so painful to say it)
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