In epic Super Bowl upset, Jets make good on Namath guarantee

On January 12, 1969, at the Orange Bowl in Miami, the New York Jets of the American Football League defeat the NFL’s Baltimore Colts, 16-7, in Super Bowl III—a result considered one of the biggest upsets in sports history. Days earlier, Jets quarterback Joe Namath guaranteed a victory by New York, an 18-point underdog.

The win was the first in the Super Bowl for the AFL, which merged with the NFL for the 1970 season.

Before Super Bowl III, an NFL coach said, “Namath plays his first pro football game today.” But the Colts, who had a 15-1 record entering the game, trailed 16-0 after three quarters.

Namath, a four-year-veteran and former University of Alabama star, completed 17 of 28 passes for 206 yards and was named the game’s Most Valuable Player. 

“We overcame our critics,” Namath told reporters in a jubilant Jets locker room. “Most people predicted a 42-13 loss.”

In the fourth quarter, backup quarterback Johnny Unitas—subbing for ineffective NFL MVP Earl Morrall—led the Colts on their only scoring drive.

Said Baltimore coach Don Shula: “We had more opportunities in the first half and just couldn’t get the blamed thing going. I don’t think we did anything right.” 

Shula said the key to the game was Namath’s ability to exploit Baltimore’s weaknesses. 

“He not only made me believe—he made us all believe,” said Jets rookie safety John Dockery said of Namath. “I never saw another fella like him in my life.”

READ MORE: 10 Things You May Not Know About the First Super Bowl

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Colts win NFL title in ‘Greatest Game Ever Played’

On December 28, 1958, the Baltimore Colts defeat the New York Giants, 23-17, in overtime in the NFL Championship Game—a back-and-forth thriller that later is billed as “The Greatest Game Ever Played.” The nationally televised championship—the league’s first overtime contest—is watched by 45 million viewers and fuels the NFL’s meteroric rise in popularity.

“Never has there been a game like this one,” Tex Maule of Sports Illustrated wrote. “When there are so many high points, it is not easy to pick the highest.”

According to the New York Daily News, gross receipts for the sellout at Yankee Stadium in New York, including television and radio, were $698,646. That resulted in a a $4,718.77 bonus for each Colts player, $3,111.33 for each Giant.

READ MORE: The greatest games in sports history

The star of the game was Colts quarterback and future Hall of Famer Johnny Unitas, who completed 26 of 40 passes for 349 yards and a touchdown—impressive statistics in the pre-Super Bowl era. 

Near the end of regulation, Unitas led the Colts on a drive from their 14-yard line to tie the score. In overtime, he led a 13-play, 80-yard drive that culminated with a one-yard touchdown run by Alan “The Horse” Ameche.

When asked about the winning drive, in which he completed four of his five passing attempts, Unitas responded with his trademark confidence, “Why shouldn’t I have passed then? After all, you don’t have to risk anything when you know where you’re passing.” 

“The Greatest Game Ever Played” was sloppy, with the teams combining for eight fumbles (six lost). But the championship featured 16 future Hall of Famers besides Unitas. Among them were Giants running back (and future TV star) Frank Gifford andassistant coach Vince Lombardi, who went on to lead the Green Bay Packers to five NFL titles.

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NFL’s Rams announce move to St. Louis

On January 17, 1995, the Los Angeles Rams announce they are leaving Southern California after 49 years and moving to St. Louis. The team, which reportedly lost $6 million in 1994, is lured to Missouri with a package that includes a new $260 million stadium and a $15 million practice facility.

The Rams’ move, which came seven years after the NFL’s Cardinals (1962-87) left St. Louis for Phoenix, was led by then-majority owner Georgia Frontiere and minority owner Stan Kroenke. St. Louis’ competitors for the franchise were Baltimore and Anaheim, California.

After the decision, Frontiere—who was born in St. Louis—told reporters: “I’m overwhelmed. I don’t think I’ve been this happy since the last game we won.”

The Rams were competitive throughout the 1970s and 1980s, but the team declined in the 1990s. From 1991-94, the team finished last in the NFC West.

After struggling in St. Louis during their first four seasons, the Rams had an unexpected season for the ages in 1999. Led by NFL Most Valuable Player, Kurt Warner, they finished the regular season with a 13-3 record and defeated the Tennessee Titans, 23-16, in the Super Bowl. Warner started the season as a backup to quarterback Trent Green, who suffered a season-ending knee injury in the preseason.

In 2016, the Rams moved back to Los Angeles—a move spurred by majority owner Kroenke, who had purchased land in Inglewood, California for a new stadium. In 2017, St. Louis sued Kroenke and the NFL over the move to Los Angeles. In 2021, the lawsuit was setted for $790 million.  

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Dallas Cowboys win playoff game on ‘Hail Mary’ pass

On December 28, 1975, Dallas Cowboys quarterback Roger Staubach throws a 50-yard touchdown pass to Drew Pearson in the waning seconds to beat the Minnesota Vikings in a playoff game, 17-14. Afterward, Staubach calls the miraculous touchdown a “Hail Mary,” thus cementing the term for a desperation pass in the sports lexicon. 

 “It was a play you hit one in a hundred times if you’re lucky,” Staubach told reporters after the game in Bloomington, Minnesota. “I guess it’s a Hail Mary pass. You throw it up and pray he catches it.” 

READ MORE: 7 of the Greatest Hail Mary Passes of All Time

Said Dallas coach Tom Landry: “Our only hope was to throw and hope for a miracle.” 

The play was controversial. Minnesota contended Pearson pushed off against defensive back Nate Wright and should have been called for pass interference.

“It was just as clear as day and night,” Minnesota coach Bud Grant said. 

But Pearson said Wright was the one who pushed. “… I might have put my hands on him,” he said. “The ball hit my hands and then something hit my arm. The ball slid down and stuck between my elbow and my hip. That’s all there was to it. It was a lucky catch.”

In 1963, after a victory by his Navy team over Michigan, Staubach described a touchdown as “a Hail Mary play.” But the term didn’t become widespread until after his miraculous completion against the Vikings. 

Since 1975, many quarterbacks have completed Hail Marys.

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First NFL playoff game is played indoors

On December 18, 1932, the Chicago Bears defeat the Portsmouth (Ohio) Spartans, 9-0, in the NFL’s first playoff game—and first game played indoors. The victory gives the Bears the championship and leads to a playoff system for the first time. Because of frigid weather and waist-deep snow, the game was moved from Wrigley Field to Chicago Stadium, home of the city’s NHL team.

Chicago Stadium could not accommodate a regulation-sized football field, so the game was played on a field 60 yards long, 40 yards less than regulation, and with constricted end zones. The field was covered with 400 tons of dirt from a recent circus. 

In 1932, the eight-team NFL did not have a formal playoff system. The champion was the team with the best winning percentage. In the regular season, Portsmouth and Chicago each finished with 6-1 records. (The Bears had six ties, the Spartans four.) To determine a champion, the Bears and Spartans agreed to play a winner-take-all game in Chicago. 

READ MORE: The NFL’s First Playoff Game Was Played Indoors in a Hockey Arena

The game, attended by nearly 12,000 fans, was bizarre. By mutual agreement, neither team attempted a field goal. When the teams crossed midfield, the ball was moved back 20 yards, artificially lengthening the field. Only one punt was returned during the game—the rest landed in the stands. One struck an organist in the stands. Kickoffs came from the 10-yard line.

A wire service reporter panned the event. “There have been comical happenings on the football battlefields without number,” he wrote, “but herewith is submitted the champion football comic strip. And it was for a championship.”

In 1933, the NFL enacted a two-division alignment, with the winners of each division playing in an annual championship game. The NFL used that setup for the next 33 years. 

In 1967, the first Super Bowl was held. 

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First Thanksgiving college football game played

On November 30, 1876, Yale defeats Princeton, 2-0, in Hoboken, New Jersey in the first collegiate football game played on Thanksgiving. Nearly 1,000 fans attend the game, played in cold, rainy weather. “The friends of both colleges mustered in good force,” the New York Times reports. “Several carriages containing ladies were on the ground, and a goodly number of Alumni were there to cheer the contestants.”

The football was oval and made of leather, the Times noted, “similar to those used in Rugby Union rules.” The game resembled rugby more than a present-day football game.

READ MORE: Who Invented Football?

Playing conditions were not ideal. “[T]he ground was so hard that terrific thumps and bruises were the rule and not the exception,” the New York Daily Herald reported. But each team was superbly outfitted. 

“The Yale team wore blue skullcaps, shirts, stockings of the same color and white flannel trowsers,” the Daily Herald reported. “The Princeton lads were gorgeous in their orange and black uniforms.”

Play became ragged, with the game reportedly resembling Greco-Roman wrestling. Perhaps the first example of college football trash talk was noted by the Daily Herald.  “Just wait awhile, and we will show these fellows something,” a Princeton player was quoted. 

The Yale-Princeton Thanksgiving game started a collegiate tradition. Later in the 19th century, the universities of Kansas, Missouri, Michigan and others began playing football on the holiday. 

On November 6, 1869, a little more than four years after the end of the Civil War, Rutgers defeated Princeton, 6-4, in the first college football game. 

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Ernie Davis becomes first Black player to win Heisman Trophy

On December 6, 1961, Syracuse running back Ernie Davis becomes the first Black player to win the Heisman Trophy—college football’s top individual award—beating  Ohio State fullback Bob Ferguson. Earlier in day, Davis meets with President John Kennedy at the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel in New York. “I never thought I’d ever be shaking the hand of the President of the United States,” he says.

As a senior in 1961, Davis rushed for 823 yards and scored 14 touchdowns. The previous season, he rushed for 877 yards. 

Davis was the first pick in the 1962 NFL draft, by Washington, which traded him to the Cleveland Browns. But he never played in the NFL. Davis was diagnosed with leukemia later in 1962, and died on May 18, 1963. He was 23.

“When I look back I can’t call myself unlucky,” Davis wrote in The Saturday Evening Post in March 1963. “My 23rd birthday was December 14. In these years I have had more than most people get in a lifetime.”

Years after Davis’ death, Syracuse coach Ben Schwartzwalder called him “the best kid I ever had anything to do with.”

“Ernie was just like a puppy dog, friendly and warm and kind,” he told Sports Illustrated. “He had that spontaneous goodness about him. He radiated enthusiasm. His enthusiasm rubbed off on the kids. Oh, he’d knock you down, but then he’d run back and pick you up. We never had a kid so thoughtful and polite.”

READ MORE: The Heisman Trophy Is Named After This Coach and Innovator

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Chicago Bears beat Philadelphia Eagles in freaky Fog Bowl

On December 31, 1988, the Chicago Bears defeat the Philadelphia Eagles, 20-12, in a playoff game plagued by a thick fog starting late in the first half. Playing conditions at Soldier Field in Chicago become problematic, and fans in attendance and television viewers struggle to see the game, dubbed the “Fog Bowl” by media.   

The freak conditions were caused when cold air over Lake Michigan was blown by a breeze toward warm air at Soldier Field on the lakefront, according to the National Weather Service. Meteorologists said the fog was so thick that it was like having clouds on the ground.

READ MORE: Fog Bowl: The Most Bizarre Game in NFL History

“It will be remembered as the best game you never saw,” Fred Mitchell wrote in the first sentence of his game story in the next day’s Chicago Tribune.

“We couldn’t see anything—absolutely nothing,” CBS-TV play-by-play broadcaster Verne Lundquist told the Associated Press. “We had to look at the TV just like everyone else.” Lundquist’s color man, Terry Bradshaw, told viewers the game should have been suspended.

Bears defensive end Al Harris likened the bizarre conditions to playing in a cemetery. “I never saw anything like this,” he said.

The NFL considered suspending the game, but the league ultimately left the decision to referee Jim Tunney and the NFL commissioner’s representative.

“We felt the playing conditions were satisfactory,” Tunney said. “They were really tough in the middle of the third quarter … No word came to me that either coach wanted to stop play.” 

Other NFL games have been plagued by thick fog. In 2017 in Foxboro, Massachusetts, fog was so thick for a game between the New England Patriots and Atlanta Falcons that NBC relied on its Skycam for most in-game coverage instead of the usual sideline cameras. 

The week after the Fog Bowl, the Bears lost to eventual Super Bowl champion San Francisco in the NFC Championship Game.

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Miami Dolphins beat Kansas City Chiefs in NFL’s longest game

On December 25, 1971, Garo Yepremian boots a 37-yard field goal in the second overtime of an AFC playoff game to give the Miami Dolphins a 27-24 win over the Kansas City Chiefs in the longest game in NFL history. Game time elapsed for the Christmas contest: 82 minutes and 40 seconds. 

READ MORE: The NFL’s Longest Game: How a Soccer Player-Turned-Kicker Secured the Win

“After I kicked the ball,” Yepremian told reporters, “I look up at the sky and thank God for giving me the chance to kick it.” 

The loss was devastating for the Chiefs, who got a remarakble performance from Ed Podalak, a largely unheralded running back. He finished with 350 all-purpose yards, an NFL record for a playoff game.

Kansas City might have won were it not for a poor performance by Pro Bowl kicker Jan Stenerud. Following a long, fourth-quarter kickoff return by Podolak, the future Hall of Famer missed a 31-yard field goal attempt with 35 seconds left. In the first overtime, his 42-yard field goal attempt was blocked.

Said Chiefs coach Hank Stram: “It’s a shame to fight that hard, play that well with them and not win.”

Yepremian was confident he would make the winning kick. “I thought when we were driving I could make anything under 50 yards,” he said. “On the sideline I was dying to get a chance to kick [the winning field goal].”

With the win, the Dolphins advanced to the AFC Championship Game, which they won against the Baltimore Colts, 21-0. Two weeks later, however, Miami lost in the Super Bowl, 24-3, against the Dallas Cowboys.

Miami bounced back the next season, finishing 17-0—the only perfect record in NFL history. In the Super Bowl, the Dolphins beat Washington, 14-7.

READ MORE: The greatest games in sports history

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Packers beat Chiefs in first Super Bowl


Year
1967
Month Day
January 15

On January 15, 1967, the Green Bay Packers of the National Football League (NFL) smash the American Football League (AFL)’s Kansas City Chiefs, 35-10, in the first-ever AFL-NFL World Championship, later known as Super Bowl I, at Memorial Coliseum in Los Angeles.

Founded in 1960 as a rival to the NFL, the AFL was still finding its way in 1967, and the Packers had been heavily favored to win the game. As 60 million people tuned in to watch the action unfold on television, the Chiefs managed to keep it close for the first half, and by halftime Green Bay was ahead just 14-10. The Chiefs’ only touchdown came in the second quarter, on a seven-yard pass from quarterback Len Dawson to Curtis McClinton.

The Packers, however, proceeded to break the game wide open, after safety Willie Wood intercepted a Dawson pass and returned the ball 50 yards to set up a touchdown. Green Bay scored three more times in the second half, as Elijah Pitts ran in two touchdowns and backup end Max McGee–who came on the field after the starter Boyd Dowler was injured on the sixth play of the game–caught his second touchdown pass of the day. Prior to the game, McGee had made only four receptions all season; he made seven that night, for a total of 138 yards.

The Packers’ famed quarterback, Bryan Bartlett “Bart” Starr, completed 16 of 23 passes on the night. The score at game’s end stood at 35-10, and Starr was named Most Valuable Player. Asked to comment on the match-up after the game, Green Bay Coach Vince Lombardi expressed the common opinion that even the best of the AFL—the Chiefs—“doesn’t compare with the top NFL teams.”

Two years later, the AFL proved itself to doubters by winning its first championship, when Joe Namath led the New York Jets to an upset 16-7 victory over the Baltimore Colts in Super Bowl III. In 1970, the AFL and NFL merged into one league, as the Colts, Cleveland Browns and Pittsburgh Steelers agreed to join the 10 AFL teams to form American Football Conference (AFC). Since then, the Super Bowl has been the annual meeting of the top teams in the AFC and the National Football Conference (NFC) for the championship of the NFL.

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