This week Stiles Points is going to look back at the anniversaries of some of the past Super Bowls...today's spotlight occurred 40 years ago in Super Bowl III when Joe Namath (photo - right) guaranteed his New York Jets would beat the mighty Baltimore Colts even though they were an 18-point underdog...Super Bowl III took place on January 13, 1969 in front of 75,389 people at the Orange
Bowl in Miami...this was a game in which the AFL needed to win because the NFL may have pulled out of the merger...in the previous two championship games, the Green Bay Packers smashed their AFL competition...a third straight win by the NFL would have been disastrous for the AFL...the Colts entered the game with a 13-1 mark and a thrashing of the Cleveland Browns in the NFL title game by the score of 34-0....As we all know, the Jets won the game 16-7, but there was always a hint of controversy about the game...while I was in college, I took a class called The History of Sports...my professor seriously believed the game was fixed because of questionable decision-making by the Colts...
Personally, I don't believe the game was fixed, but the Jets were just a very fortunate team as the ball bounced their way that day...the biggest and most controversial play of the game occurred right before half with the Jets leading 7-0...on the last play of the half, the Colts had the ball and quarterback Earl Morrall threw an interception down the middle of the field instead of throwing to a wide-open Jimmy Orr (photo, top of page) ...there was not a defender within 20 yards of Orr...but somehow, Morrall missed the certain touchdown...what builds the case for the conspiracy theory is that in fact, the pass was intended to be thrown to Orr in the first place...
Conspiracy?...Fix?...or just plain knucklehead playing?...in the end, the Jets won and the history of the NFL was forever changed - 40 years ago...
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