Sports Then and Now

Will cosmic forces decide which teams will play in Super Bowl XLIV?

Something cosmic is about to happen.

The New York Jets, a wild card team, continued to play over their heads, lead by a gangly, tall, brown-eyed, brunette quarterback, a strong running game, and a punishing defense, they surprised everyone winning two playoff games on the road in order to play the Colts.

Does that sound about right? Of course. It is the 2010 New York Jets.

Wrong. And right. It is also the 1969 New York Jets. Same description: wild card, tall dark and young quarterback, strong ground game, strong defense, wild card, playing over their heads as momentum builds.

In 1969 the quarterback was Joe Willie Namath. While lounging on Miami Beach in the week leading up to Super Bowl III, the kid couldn’t keep his mouth shut. He guaranteed a Jets victory.

In the first two super games, the NFL, represented by Vince Lombardi’s Packers, totally dominated their AFL opponents: Kansas City the first year, Oakland the second. Everyone just assumed that the Baltimore Colts would make it three in a row. This, especially because the Jets were a wild card. Most of the pundits had them at either the third or fourth best AFL club. Everyone expected the Jets to be dragged across the field and trampled at the Orange Bowl. Read the rest of this entry →

Matt Stafford passed for 205 yards and three interceptions in his debut for the Detroit Lions.

There was a time in the not so distant past when the biggest things a rookie NFL quarterback had to worry about on game day were wearing a cool baseball cap and keeping track of his clipboard.

Current rookies Matt Stafford and Mark Sanchez are just the latest reminder that times have certainly changed, at least for top draft picks.

Instead of carrying clipboards and wearing baseball caps, highly drafted rookie quarterbacks today don’t usually have to wait long before getting a chance to show their stuff.

In the last two seasons, four of the five quarterbacks taken in the first round started the opening game of their rookie season. Only Josh Freeman of Tampa Bay, who was the third quarterback for the Bucs in their 2009 opener against Dallas, wasn’t under center from the beginning of his career.
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Johnny Unitas and Joe Namath each personified an era in Pro Football history.

“I Can’t Wait Until Tomorrow…’Cause I Get Better Looking Every Day“…words to live by.

I was a 10-year-old farm boy when Joe Namath signed the biggest contract in pro football history.

The war between the AFL and NFL had reached its apex, and the news of Namath’s choosing the upstart AFL traveled far and wide—even to our local weekly, the little ol’ “Reidsville Review” down in Carolina.

At that point in my life, my knowledge of professional football was gleaned from family gatherings around a huge woodstove on Sundays and an occasional peek at a snowy black and white TV that the men huddled around after church…as long as I was quiet.

Out of those bull sessions, I surmised that Johnny Unitas and the Baltimore Colts were, and always would be, the greatest group of athletes in the history of the game…forever, 1958’s “Greatest Game Ever Played” being the benchmark against all who would challenge their superiority.

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