[SamAdams76]

If not for that one game in Super Bowl III when he predicted a victory and beat the Baltimore Orioles 16-7, would we even remember who Joe Namath was?

His entire claim to fame seems to revolve around that one game.

He also did some pantyhose ads in the early 1970s. I guess that caused a stir as well.

[GeronL]

didn’t he get a broken leg right on the field?

[thesharkboy]

If not for that one game in Super Bowl III when he predicted a victory and beat the Baltimore Orioles 16-7,

Wow. That would be memorable. I think you mean the Colts.

[TangibleDisgust]

If not for that one game in Super Bowl III when he predicted a victory and beat the Baltimore Orioles 16-7, would we even remember who Joe Namath was?

it's easy to guarantee a victory when you know the mob has the game bought and paid for. Bubba Smith, to his dying days, was convinced that something about SB III was not on the up and up. on paper, the Colts weren't just better than the Jets... they were FAR better than the Jets. this was back in the day when most football players and coaches had offseason jobs to make ends meet. they were not getting the sort of money pro players get now. i was too young to remember the game, but Bubba Smith went on the record publicly several times expressing his beliefs.

[Alberta's Child]

It's hard to assess Namath's place in history as a quarterback because he played most of his career pretty banged-up, and because the game has changed so much over the years that numbers don't mean much anymore. But if you really want to get a sense of how good he was, leave aside that Super Bowl III game and look at his entire 1967 season.

Namath threw for 4,007 yards that season, and that was in an era when QBs simply didn't do that. That was almost 700 yards more than the second-highest total in the NFL, and it would be twelve years before anyone would do it again (Dan Fouts in 1979, I think).