Tommy John surgery would have totally fucked up his knees even worse. Now, if he tore the tendons in his elbows, yeah that would have helped _
Sad what happened to him. What a beating QBs in general took back then. Joe was a marked man for reasons other then being Broadway joe. AFL guy. His downfall was fast and brutal...and no qb in today's game can even comprehend the pounding he took.
To add to that he was already damaged coming into the league. According to the NFL program on Superbowl III, coming out of college, he was only projected to play four seasons in the NFL. Here's a picture of his rookie card The story behind this card is that he was propped up in a hospital bed for the photo.
That interesting stuff...did not know it was to that extent. He is the reason I stayed a Jet fan....became one for a weird reason which might bore some....but ACAD23 said it well...the Jets owned New York for a half decade. He was bigger than life. His stats? If memory serves me correctly, he had several horrible starts to seasons ....even games. Then a switch would go on and the world got to see a qb in a zone. Seeing a qb in a zone was not common back then. Even the Jets preferred ground and pound in big games. He threw the long ball like nobody I have ever seen. The release...lightning. When on....he was beautiful to watch. If you look at his stats, the final 7 or 8 years were tough...but still he would have games no qb could dream about back then. So yeah...maybe we get defensive about him...because if sa the movie but didnt read the book...you have no idea what you are talking about. Because someone liked Ken Obrien when they were younger and later found he wasn't that good is breaking news to alot kids back then who knew Ken Obrien was never good.
The quote about him playing 4 years came from his surgeon, the renowned Dr. James Nichols. http://mmqb.si.com/2014/06/25/nfl-history-in-95-objects-joe-namath-knee-brace/ Joe Namath’s Knee Brace The white fur coat might have been his most famous accessory, but the knee brace was Broadway Joe’s most important. All the history Joe Namath made for the New York Jets, after all, depended on him playing on those wonky knees. His right knee was already gimpy when he signed his superstar-making $427,000 contract (record-setting money in those days) as the No. 1 pick in the 1965 AFL draft. Just a few weeks later, Jets team orthopedist James Nicholas operated on Namath for the first time, to fix the injury he’d suffered during his senior season at Alabama. Nicholas fashioned a special brace to protect Namath’s knee, with the help of the Lenox Hill Hospital’s brace shop, and told the rookie quarterback he might be able to play four years. Namath went on to play 13 seasons, though his knee problems only got worse—he needed four operations during his time with the Jets (two on each knee) and years later had a double knee replacement. That fourth season, though, did end up being significant: That was 1968, the year Namath made his famous guarantee to upset the Colts in Super Bowl III—still the Jets’ only championship. It has since been postulated that he actually tore his ACL at Bama. http://www.complex.com/sports/2014/10/athletes-without-acls/joe-namath Sport: Football Team: New York Jets, Los Angeles Rams Career Stats: 27,663 Passing yards, 173 Passing touchdowns Awards: 4x AFL All-Star, First-Team All-AFL (1968), Pro Bowl (1972), 2x AP AFL MVP (1968, 1969), Super Bowl III Champion, Super Bowl MVP, Pro Football Hall of Fame ACL Status: Tore ACL while at Alabama, never repaired While a senior at Alabama, Joe Namath suffered what we now believe to be a torn ACL. Just like with Mickey Mantle, the proper surgery to repair such an injury just wasn't available. Despite the lack of a functioning ACL, he went on to have a wildly successful NFL career and became one of the most recognizable figures in football history. The injury caused his knees to swell up with fluid so often he sometimes needed to have it drained at halftime in order to finish games. Wrapping a torn ACL in a knee brace and hoping for the best rarely ends with a Hall of Fame career, but that's exactly how things played out for Broadway Joe. _
Wtg stokes. Great stuff. Tangibles. I mean....wow. Imagine almost 50 years later and I'm still learning. Thanks stoker.
To be honest there nothing to fight over. Your opinion is yours and mine is mine and my dad has his. I just think some people are joke when they want to bash someone for there own opinion. Not saying you have.
Are you purposely being obtuse, or do you really not understand about personal accomplishments and personal responsibility? Namath wasn't acting as a spokesman for the Jets or any other entity when he asked Suzy Whoever for a kiss, he was letting his booze talk for himself. You're free to disagree, but he represented, and embarrassed only himself. Babe Ruth is not a great player, Babe Ruth is dead. I hear he also drank a lot and had a hard time getting ready to play sometimes. I never loved him. Hell, I never even met him. He quit playing years before I was born. Why ask me about him? We're talking Jets football here.
I don't know your father or what he "seen" (sic) nor do I care about his opinion or yours. He was probably a Giants fan, anyway.
there's no squirming, I didn't bring Brady up. others did. I commented on your outrageous post making that issue a huge one when in reality it's very small issue. I am not trolling anyone, you are trolling me. you have completely lost it. Let's stick to the topic, you want to bash me respond to my message. let's stick to the topic at hand rather than discussing me.
he was a Giant, he actually caught the KO in that famous 1958 title game in OT. he was a part of 2 of the greatest games in pro football history- 2 of the most significant. One other thing about discussing the past. we all know everyone thinks their generation was the greatest and the stories get inflated. Now I am reading how Joe was killed on every play and we all know that isn't true. did he take more shots that would be illegal today? of course, was he incredibly tough? no doubt about it but to bash players of today and make it sound like they aren't tough and couldn't handle the old days is silly. No one can question Joe's toughness, no one can question what Joe meant to the game, what we can question is how great his career was. w/ Stabler dying I saw messages comparing their careers and wondering why Stabler isn't also in the Hall. Played in similar era, put up similar #s. Stabler won a lot more(not just in Oakland, he had a winning record in Hou and .500 w/ awful NO) but he's not in the Hall. I back Joe in arguments like this, Joe was so much more than just #s, he meant so much to this game but we cannot pretend he had a great career, he had great years, great moments but overall it was not great. that doesn't mean you shouldn't love him as much as you do, that doesn't mean you have to agree with me. He is an icon in the game.
He was a punt returner for the Giants in 1958 and they released him in training camp in 1959. He went to the CFL for a year and then the Titans signed him when the AFL formed. Sammy Baugh knew him from his days in college and he was the first player the Jets signed.
what you fail to understand is whether he likes it or not he was representing the Jets, he was attending a JETS function and was speaking to a Nat'l TV audience that night. this wasn't him driving drunk and killing someone, that would be on him. this was at a franchise function honoring Jets greats of the past. he did not only embarrass himself.
I don't agree about Joe Willie not deserving to get into the HOF because he is comparable to other Qbs who got in. But you made a good argument based on his Tds vs ints. He had 173 Tds vs 220 picks during his career. Ken Stabler btw had 194 Tds vs 222 picks. Roger Staubach had 153 Tds vs 109 picks. I saw many of Joe's games mostly live but on TV. While I think it gives you a better feel for the player to see things as they happen and that he is better than his stats it's still legit on your part to have an opinion based on watching his games years later on tape. As for counting injuries in evaluating a player. Not for the HOF. You can't say a guy would have been greater if he hadn't gotten injured. Even though in his case it was true. I read something years ago that he had great speed before the knee injuries and could get from home to first in Mantle like times. Don't hold me to that its off of memory. He really wanted to play baseball and I saw a quote from him that said he wanted to play for the Pirates so he could be in an outfield with Clemente. He was offered $50000 from the Cubs and that was a big deal at that time.
The number of picks you had in the 60's and 70's was often based on what type of offense your team ran and almost always on the number of raw throws you were asked to make. The Cowboys, for all the Bob Hayes hype, were a fairly conservative offense under Tom Landry. In the 60's and 70's they tended to be in the middle of the pack in terms of passes attempted. This gave their QB's a much safer pass attempt than the guys who were throwing the ball 60% of the time like Namath was for the Jets. When Roger Staubach was asked to throw a lot he threw picks, just like everybody else. If you're looking for the extremes look no further than Bob Griese. He was clearly an excellent QB for the Fins in their Super Bowl era in the 70's. He wasn't asked to throw a lot but he was asked to throw on 3rd and long all the time. His career interception percentage was 5%. His *best* year in interception percentage was 3.4% in 1971. He was asked to throw when the other team was expecting a pass and as a result he got picked off much more often than would be acceptable for a current era QB. Today if your interception percentage is north of 3% people consider you to be a risky QB. If it's north of 4% you're bad and if it's 5%+ you're about to lose your job. In the 70's the league leader in interception percentage was usually above 3%. The really good QB's were at 4% and the average guy was close to 5%. Bob Griese's career interception percentage was 5% in 3,429 throws. Roger Staubach came along later and so the game had changed some. He still had a 3.7% career interception percentage in 2,958 throws. Geno Smith has a 4.2% career interception percentage in 810 throws. If he had played the way he does now in the 60's he'd have had an int% of about 8%
