Joe Namath Talks Super Bowl III, Miami and Life in New York City

Someone ran up behind me and jumped on me and knocked me to the ground.

We had a team meeting and I told the guys, mess with me.

Don’t do that because you’re gonna get a fight.

You might whip me, but you’re gonna get a fight.

1968, you guys are getting better and better as the year goes on, you played really well, cut back on your interceptions.

Season goes along, you win the AFL Eastern Division.

Did the AFL championship game back then mean more to you in the moment than the Super Bowl just because the Super Bowl is in its infancy?

I mean, obviously you’re playing Super Bowl 3.

The Packers who won the first two pretty handily.

Did beating the Raiders in that moment mean more to you and mean more to the team, you think, than even a couple of weeks later down in Miami?

Each new game means more than the rest, you know, than, than the ones in the past, and, you know, I mean, uh, you, you, you get.

You lose sometimes you get beaten sometimes.

Now there was no getting back at anything.

It was the next game we just kept trying to win along the way and shooting to win the Super Bowl, shooting to win the world championship of professional football.

That game against the Raiders at Shea Stadium, the weather was brutal.

Playing the Raiders was not an easy task back then.

They, they were coming off of being in the Super Bowl.

That AFL title game, what do you remember most about that game and that day winning it.

No, you’re right about the weather.

It was gusty.

The wind was blowing, you know, Shay was a horseshoe and the wind was coming in down this way across there and with it back, you know, you couldn’t , you weren’t really throwing with the wind.

The Raiders were good.

They were really a good team.

Uh, but we were better and we played it.

We came up with the big plays.

Uh, the greatest catch I’ve ever seen to this day, at least in my eyes, was Don Maynard catching a ball going out of bounds.

The wind took it and he made a catch like that that set us up down on the eight yard line or so.

Uh, I don’t know how he was able to turn around, look around and catch it like that, man, but, uh, that was uh.

It was a tough game because they were nasty.

They were good and uh they did the business to you when you were on the ground a little bit, you know, put their hand in your face or whatever, lean on your head to get up and, uh, so beating the Raiders, uh, that, that was a huge game, of course.

You know you’re playing the Colts who at the time were one of the, at least considered one of the greatest teams in NFL history.

They’d only lost one game as you’re just starting to get ready for that game.

You know, what were your thoughts as you’re getting ready to play Baltimore?

We’re gonna win.

You don’t go into a game expecting to lose.

After looking at the films, uh, uh, they weren’t going to change for us.

The defense was wonderful defense, but when it came especially to the passing game, you could read what they were going to do.

When it came to the running game, our offensive line just was, you know, played beautifully.

Baltimore was really good.

It’s just that we outplayed them that day.

The game got played in Miami obviously at the Orange Bowl.

You had played collegiately at the Orange Bowl, some big games for Alabama.

You had played there, of course, and you played against the Dolphins.

Did it help at all that you were just familiar with just Miami in general, that you’re familiar with the area, familiar with the stadium, uh, you have a lot of people down there.

I mean, did, did that give you any kind of mental advantage or anything like that?

You feel like, yeah, I’ve been there before.

I’ve been around town before.

You know, I was really looking, we were looking forward to getting down to Miami and the weather change, of course, but I spent time down in Miami and we thrived there.

I did.

I just loved it and the Colts were staying there too and we had our defensive safety Jim Hudson and I at a bar and uh Lou Michaels and Dan Sullivan, who was the offensive guy, came in the bar and we had a few drinks at the bar, but Lou, you know, he, he, he, he, he, he had to, had to turn.

He had to say, you know, Joe, we’re gonna kick your, you know.

Oh, come on, Lou, don’t talk like that.

And besides, what do you know, you’re just a damn kicker.

Woo, man.

Man, that Joe got big, you know, he stepped back and Sullivan had to hold him back, you know, uh, a football player, and, and he was all-American, a great football player, but at that time he only played in short yardage situations, you know, and then, uh, he was doing their kicking that week leading up to the game.

Like everybody, everybody talks about what you said going to the game, the guarantee you’re gonna win the game.

Did you ever have any point that week where you regretted saying that?

Yeah, no, I, I, I didn’t, uh, regret saying that a little bit.

It was a feeling.

It was something that I believed in.

I felt bad for Coach Eubank to a degree because, uh, after the next morning after I had, uh, said we’re going to win the game, I guarantee you, uh, he called me out in the center of the field before practice, you know, and he was upset.

And he just, he folded those arms.

You could tell, boy, when he had his arms folded like that.

Oh, he wasn’t a happy guy.

and I ran out there.

I said, yes sir.

He said, you know what you’ve done.

You know what you’ve done.

I said, no sir, he said, you know, all those clippings of how good the the the coats were and all that, you know, uh, you, you, you’ve gone and given them ammunition.

To read about what you said.

They, they were taking us for granted and now you’ve gotten them fired up and uh he was really upset, but I, I swear to you I just said, well, coach.

We’re gonna win, aren’t we?

Yeah, that, that’s, I said, well, you know, you’re the one that’s given us confidence.

You, you, you’re the one that’s uh made me feel that way.

Uh shucks, uh , I’m just telling what, what you told us.

Get out of here.

Get out of here, Joe.

Go on, get going.

That week.

Did anything about the game make you nervous?

You know, there’s a couple of different kinds of being nervous.

One’s anxious to get going, man, and doing it, and you’re nervous not because you’re not prepared, but there’s that nervousness that you’re not sure not to be prepared, you know, whether it’s going out on stage whether it’s going out on the football field, and we were convinced we knew what we were going to do no matter what their defense did offensively we had.

The way of attacking the weak spot or the spot that we needed to attack.

And again, as they say, why would they change for us?

You know they were a great team that year and I don’t think they respected us as much as they wished they should have.

When you win that game, obviously, look, there’s a famous shot of you running off the field with your finger up in the air.

You’re, of course, thrilled.

What’s going through your mind as you’re running off the field knowing, hey, look, not only did we pull off this massive upset, but we did it.

I, I was going along the sidelines and the whole side, they were, they were Jet fans.

They were screaming and they were yelling.

And I had never in my life, uh, did one of those things, putting my hand up like that.

They were cheering and all that, and I’m just running by there and looking and just saying, yes, this is the AFL.

We, we were number one.

How much did it mean to other guys in the AFL?

How many guys reached out to you after you guys won that game?

Oh man, there were 3 guys, Bobby.

Well, uh, Emmett Thomas and, uh, Buck Buchanan, Buck Buchanan, yeah, man, when we got, uh, back to the hotel at the bus they were waiting for us.

They were waiting for us, and they, they, they were just thank nice school thank you good they wanted the next year.

How much did it mean to you?

Ask you about like goosebumps talking about that.

How much did it mean to you as an AFL player that they won the next year, that they backed up what you had done?

See, this is the thing.

We had lost the first two.

I’m talking about the AFL.

Now when you’re a kid playing in wherever, you lose 3 out of 3.

What, what are you?

You’re gone.

You’re history.

I don’t, no respect whatsoever.

Uh, so, uh, yeah, we, we won the 3rd 1 and KC, they won that 4th 1 and we went in.

That’s when the league merged and, uh, we went in, even Steven, we both won 2 of the 4 game championship game.

Living in New York, you, you’ve got money, you’ve got fame, you’ve got good looks, you’ve, you’re a Super Bowl champion quarterback at that point.

Like, what was it like being Joe Namath in the 1960s in New York City?

Well, During football season it was football, you know that was the most important thing going and after we’d won the championship for sure it became a lot more visible in New York papers and everything.

A lot of people know where you live and the nightlife was good.

I was single and I was able to get around and then we opened a place in New York.

Uh, so I, I love New York, man.

It’s a unique spot.

The people are great.

There’s good and bad and everything, but New York is, is wonderful.

Joe , thank you very much.

I appreciate you.