Super Bowl III
Super Bowl III was an American football game played on January 12, 1969, at the Orange Bowl in Miami, Florida. It was the third AFL–NFL Championship Game in professional American football, and the first to officially bear the trademark name "Super Bowl".[2] Super Bowl III is regarded as one of the greatest upsets in both American football history and in the history of professional sports.[3] The 19 1⁄2- points underdog American Football League (AFL) champion New York Jets defeated the National Football League (NFL) champion Baltimore Colts by a score of 16–7.[4]
"1969 Super Bowl" redirects here. For the Super Bowl that was played at the completion of the 1969 season, see Super Bowl IV.
New York Jets
(AFL)
(11–3)
January 12, 1969
15:05 UTC (3:05 PM EST, 2:05 PM CST)
Colts by 19.5
75,389
Lloyd Geisler of the Washington National Symphony Orchestra[1]
"America Thanks" with Florida A&M University band
36.0
(est. 41.66 million viewers)
71
$55,000
The game was the first Super Bowl victory for the AFL. Before the game many sports writers and fans believed that AFL teams were less talented than NFL clubs, and expected the Colts to defeat the Jets by a wide margin.[5][6][7] Baltimore posted a 13–1 record in the regular season and shut out the Cleveland Browns 34–0 in the NFL Championship Game. The Jets were 11–3 in the regular season, and defeated the Oakland Raiders 27–23 in the AFL Championship Game.
Jets quarterback Joe Namath famously made an appearance three days before the Super Bowl at the Miami Touchdown Club in which he personally guaranteed his team's victory. His team backed up his words by controlling the majority of the game, building a 16–0 lead by the fourth quarter off of a touchdown run by Matt Snell and three field goals by Jim Turner. Colts quarterback Earl Morrall threw three interceptions before being replaced by Johnny Unitas, who then led Baltimore to its only touchdown, during the last few minutes of the game. With the victory, the Jets were the only winning team to score only one touchdown (either offensive, defensive, or special teams) until the New England Patriots in Super Bowl LIII. Namath, who completed 17 out of 28 passes for 206 yards, was named as the Super Bowl's most valuable player, making him the first player in Super Bowl history to be declared MVP without personally scoring or throwing for a touchdown.
This is the only Super Bowl whose matchup cannot (barring a future realignment and/or change to the playoff format) occur in the Super Bowl again, as both the Jets and Colts play in the American Football Conference (AFC).
Background[edit]
Host selection process[edit]
The NFL awarded Super Bowl III to Miami on May 14, 1968, at the owners meetings held in Atlanta. It marked the second of eleven Super Bowls in the Miami area (as of 2022). It was also the second consecutive Super Bowl to be awarded to Miami (II and III), the only time that the Super Bowl has been hosted by the same stadium in back-to-back seasons. Two cities were considered for the game, New Orleans (Tulane Stadium) being the other.[8][9][10][11]
Going into the meeting, several observers believed that New Orleans was the favorite. It had been reported that New Orleans was being promised the game by commissioner Pete Rozelle as a payback to Louisiana congressman Hale Boggs and senator Russell B. Long for being instrumental in passing crucial antitrust exemption legislation, which allowed for the AFL–NFL merger.[12] In selecting Miami, owners rejected any potential quid pro quo. Miami's hosting of sold-out Super Bowl II just four months earlier was seen by all accounts as a huge success, and owners elected to stick with a known commodity. The expansion Saints had lost money in their first season, and were publicly going through front office shakeups. Furthermore, during the presentation, a mix-up in the Tulane Stadium rental fee helped dissuade the league. Rozelle made it clear, however, that Miami was not positioned to become the permanent home for the Super Bowl.[8][9][10][11]
Professional football[edit]
The National Football League (NFL) had dominated professional football from its origins after World War I. Rival leagues had crumbled or merged with it, and when the American Football League (AFL) began to play in 1960, it was the fourth to hold that similar name to challenge the older NFL. Unlike its earlier namesakes, however, this AFL was able to command sufficient financial resources to survive; one factor in this was becoming the first league to sign a television contract—previously, individual franchises had signed agreements with networks to televise games. The junior league proved successful enough, in fact, to make attractive offers to players. After the 1964 season, there had been a well-publicized bidding war which culminated with the signing, by the AFL's New York Jets (formerly New York Titans), of Alabama quarterback Joe Namath for an unprecedented contract.[13] Fearing that bidding wars over players would become the norm, greatly increasing labor costs, NFL owners, ostensibly[14] led by league Commissioner Pete Rozelle, obtained a merger agreement with the AFL in June 1966, which provided for a common draft, interleague play in the pre-season, a world championship game to follow each season, and the integration of the two leagues into one in a way to be agreed at a future date.[15] As the two leagues had an unequal number of teams (under the new merger agreement, the NFL expanded to sixteen in 1967, and the AFL to ten in 1968),[16] realignment was advocated by some owners, but was opposed. Eventually, three NFL teams (Cleveland Browns, Pittsburgh Steelers, and the Baltimore Colts) agreed to move over to join the ten AFL franchises in the American Football Conference.[17]
Despite the ongoing merger, it was a commonly held view that the NFL was a far superior league.[5] This was seemingly confirmed by the results of the first two interleague championship games, in January 1967 and 1968, in which the NFL champion Green Bay Packers, coached by the legendary Vince Lombardi, easily defeated the AFL's Kansas City Chiefs and Oakland Raiders. Although publicized as the inter-league championship games, it was not until later that the moniker for this championship contest between the now two conferences (National and American) began having the nickname of "Super Bowl" applied to it by the media and later began being counted by using Roman numerals, the creation of the term being credited to the founder of the AFL, Lamar Hunt.[18]
Ceremonies and entertainment[edit]
"Mr. Football" was the title of the pregame show, which featured marching bands playing "Mr. Touchdown, U.S.A." as people in walking footballs representing all NFL and AFL teams except the Jets and Colts were paraded, after which performers representing a Jets player and a Colts player appeared on top of a large, multi-layered, smoke topped cake. Astronauts of the Apollo 8 mission (Frank Borman, Jim Lovell, and William Anders), the first manned flight around the Moon, which had returned to Earth just 18 days prior to the game, then led the Pledge of Allegiance. Lloyd Geisler, first trumpeter of the Washington National Symphony Orchestra, performed the national anthem.[1] The Florida A&M University band was featured during the "America Thanks" halftime show.[42]
Postgame reactions[edit]
When Sal Marchiano asked Namath in the locker room if he was the "king of the hill", Namath replied "No, no, we're king of the hill. We got the team, brother".[37] Morrall later said, "I thought we would win handily. We'd only lost twice in our last 30 games. I'm still not sure what happened that day at the Orange Bowl, however; it's still hard to account for."[30] Snell wrote, "The most distinct image I have from that whole game is of Ordell Braase and some other guys—not so much Mike Curtis—having a bewildered look".[28]
In 1983 Bubba Smith contended that the game had been fixed, saying "I knew something was wrong, you know, through the whole day, because if you look back at the films, we were inside the 20 five times in the first half and came away with no points".[56]
In an interview for the series America's Game, Bill Curry, Mike Curtis, and Bubba Smith said they have never gotten over that loss and that they never will. Curtis said "It was one of the best teams I ever played with, and we lost to somebody that we would beat a thousand times after the Super Bowl. It was humiliation to be kind." After the game, the team went to what was supposed to be an automatic victory party at owner Carroll Rosenbloom's house where Curry said to Rosenbloom, "We will get back here and we will win. I promise."
Note: A seven-official system was not instituted until 1978.
Unlike the first two Super Bowls, officials wore their standard uniform. The AFL switched to the NFL uniform for 1968 in anticipation of the 1970 merger.
Jack Reader became the first official to work two Super Bowls. He was the only official to work two prior to the merger. He was promoted to referee in 1969.