I'm nowhere near as old as your dad, but Mantle and Namath were my heroes too. One of, if not THE most disappointing thing of my early life, was learning what a drunk, womanizer and ass Mantle was. He gave his all for the team on the field, but not off the field. If he had taken care of his body, drank a lot less and gotten more sleep, there's no telling what he could have accomplished, even with bum knees. But it was a different era then, and professional athletes had a totally different mindset.
The Demographics of women over the age of 70 and Viagra insure Joe's relevance for at least another 10 years.
The people who hate him are mostly people who never saw him play. They have no idea what he did for the Jets, NY and the NFL. They never saw his 2 step drop and then winging the ball 70 yards downfield on target. Nobody could do that then, since then or now. Even Buddy Ryan says he was the greatest QB to ever play.
the problem is he'd "wing it" 70 yds downfield but his receivers couldn't get 70 yds downfield in 2 steps so he threw INTs.
Yes, he threw picks and he threw TDs and he threw enough TDs to get the Jets to their one and only super bowl. Then he won it when everybody on the planet said it was impossible.
I appreciate what he did but he never won another playoff game and only brought us back once. We knew his career was derailed by injuries but that's part of the game.
Yes, it's a shame he got hurt in college and was never what he could have been. He was a scrambling QB that was fast as hell with a bazooka for an arm. We can only imagine what he might have done he had stayed healthy.
So there wasn't a whole other team of players that won in 69? It was just Joe Namath, and ONLY Joe Namath? Guess what, we've all heard the Namath was the most instrumental person in the history of football thing. The problem is, we've all heard it roughly 15,331 times. There is a difference between respecting what he did for the league and the Jets, and not wanting to listening to what this guy feels he has to say 40+ years removed from when he was somebody
I loved Namath and that team but the NFL is what it is becaue of ownership and the development of TV. There are so many great players and game translates so well to TV which happened to explode during the same era as Namath that it's easy to get carried away with one or 2 guys. Namath was exciting and the Jets were a very good team and being from NY and having an owner who knew how to promote the team didn't hurt at all. The history is what it is but it was ownership and risk takers that made this game. The talent has always been there and will always be there. It's the direction of the league owners that make the league what it is.
Joe forgot more football then anyone on this forum will ever know. The complainers can't handle him giving honest (and just) criticism of the Jets shortcomings, like lack of OL depth, or the age of the receiving corp. As far as his TD/INT ratio and completion percentage, the game was very different back then. The only QB in the AFL with a 60% completion percenatage was Len Dawson, who didn't play the same style as most of the other AFL teams,that being long (and exciting) pass plays. Sorry to the Joe haters who can't handle his truthful and higly experienced assessment of the current Jets. Maybe if he predicted the Jets to go 16-0 all the haters wouldn't be so sick of him.
You have yet to answer my observation that you don't like Joe talking because you don't like what he said. So you are wrong, too. As a suggestion going forward, any time you find yourself in apparent agreement with junc, stop. Think. Think harder. Eventually if you work it through, you will see junc is wrong.
Eggzactly. His critics either don't know about or care about his contributions to the franchise, and are merely being homeristic if he deviates from pure homerism. Right about the stats argument, too.
If Joe predicted the Jets to go 16-0, I'd still call him a senile old man who needs to shut his pie hole already. You can keep harping on about how people don't care about his contributions to the franchise, but it's been stated by quite a few people who are sick of him that while they respect and appreciate what he did, it's time for him to go away. It's not like people are in here saying "Hey Joe, go die in a gas fire because you think our team isn't perfect!" It's more like "Hey Joe, shut up, you're old and outdated." I would rather listen to Kris Jenkins or Damien Woody talk about the Jets. Shit, I'd rather listen to Brett Favrerererererrer talk about the Jets, and I hate that moron.
I don't care what Namath says to be honest, it's just embarrassing to listen to him say anything at this point.
