Ignoble Endings - Joe Namath

 

Ignoble endings: A periodic series examining the sad conclusion to the careers of some of the greatest sports icons in history.

 Prior post: Babe Ruth

When Joe Namath jogged off the field at the Orange Bowl on the night of January 12, 1969, he was, with the possible exception of Muhammad Ali, the most famous athlete in the world. Namath had just led his New York Jets to victory over the heavily favored Baltimore Colts in Super Bowl III, backing up a guarantee he made days before that the Jets, two-touchdown underdogs, would win.

Namath’s raised index finger in the universal sign for “#1” was instantly iconic and, in its way, an exclamation point at the end of the history of the American Football League (AFL). Founded in 1960 as a competitor to the National Football League (NFL), the AFL flailed in its first few seasons, but when the Jets outbid the NFL’s St. Louis Cardinals and signed Namath to a then-unheard-of contract valued at $400,000, the league’s credibility received an immediate shot in the arm. Namath’s style was well-suited for the AFL, which played a more open, free-wheeling style of offense than the NFL. Namath would become the first quarterback to throw for more than 4,000 yards in a season and his brash style on the field was matched by his bachelor lifestyle off it. Namath became one of the first modern day athlete celebrities, hawking everything from aftershave to pantyhose while the tabloids ate up photos of him out on the town in New York with a revolving door of attractive female companions.

The Jets’ win in Super Bowl III was not just career defining for Namath, but validation for the AFL, whose representatives in the first two Super Bowls played were outclassed by the NFL’s Green Bay Packers. Those losses affirmed in the minds of many sports reporters (and the public) that the AFL was an inferior league with less talented players, but when Namath and the Jets upset the Colts, that thinking began to change and indeed, the following year, another AFL team, the Chiefs, easily handled the NFL’s representative, the Minnesota Vikings, ending any discussion of whether the two leagues were on par from a talent perspective.  

Unfortunately for Namath, his fortunes and those of his team began a slow but inexorable decline after their Super Bowl triumph. Although Namath was named AFL league MVP in the 1969 season, the Jets failed to defend their title, losing to eventual champion Kansas City in the divisional round of the playoffs. The following year, the AFL and NFL formalized their merger and created two conferences. The Jets were placed in the East division of the new American Football Conference, a mix of NFL teams (Baltimore and Miami) and AFL teams (New York, New England, and Buffalo). The Colts and Dolphins would dominate the division for the entire decade, appearing in four straight Super Bowls and winning every division crown. The Jets stumbled, as many of the players who served as the foundation for their improbable Super Bowl III victory got old, retired, or were traded. Management failed to replace these cornerstones with quality players and Namath was hampered by injuries, missing large chunks of the 1970, 1971, and 1973 seasons.

The results were predictable. The Jets finished last or next-to-last in the division five times between 1970 and 1976. Longtime coach Weeb Ewbank retired after the 1973 season and the Jets cycled through four coaches in the next three years. Namath’s performance on the field was average at best. Saddled with few weapons and a leaky offensive line, his completion percentage hovered around 50 percent, and even in the couple of years he was not spending long periods of time on injured reserve, he was tossing more interceptions than touchdowns. In 1975, the Jets limped to a 3-11 record, Namath completed less than half his passes and threw nearly twice as many interceptions (28) as touchdowns (15). 1976 was worse. Playing in 11 games, Namath tossed just four touchdowns against 16 interceptions and the team matched its atrocious 3-11 record from the season before. Whatever magic Namath had in his right arm appeared to be gone.

The team and Namath were at a crossroads. In the era before free agency, owners held almost complete control over their players’ fates. Namath, now 33 and virtually immobile in the pocket due to chronic knee injuries, was earning far more than his play warranted and when the two sides could not reach an agreement on a contract the Jets did what would have been unimaginable just a few years earlier – they released Namath.

But Namath landed on his feet. In what you might think of as an eerie mirror image of the Jets’ signing of Aaron Rodgers decades later under the theory the team was just a good quarterback away from winning a title, Namath was signed by the Los Angeles Rams, a perennial contender who had reached the NFC title game in each of the previous three seasons, only to lose each time. Incumbent Pat Haden was serviceable, but lacked the strong arm (or cache) that Namath possessed. But the experiment lasted a mere four games. In the first three, Namath failed to throw for 150 yards while completing just half his passes. In what would turn out to be Namath’s final professional game, the Rams traveled to Chicago to play the Bears on a rainy Monday night in October. Namath struggled with the weather and the Bears defense. He completed just 16 passes on 40 attempts and was picked off four times before a late hit knocked him out of the game and, as it turned out, ended his career. He remained with the Rams for the rest of the season but never again set foot on the field of play.