Bravo. I was finding this thread a bit disturbing until you responded. Joe Namath was awesome in his prime. Period.
I was a season ticket holder for Namath's entire career. You can not imagine just how good he was without understanding how the game was played then. QB's and receivers were NOT protected as they are now. Defensive linemen could use the head blow on OL which was a huge advantage. The AFL was a pass happy league which featured low percentage vertical passing. Namath was the single most dangerous player in the league until injuries almost crippled him. On Monday's after a game he could barely climb a flight of steps. Only Curtis Martin challenged Joe's as far high pain tolerance. I feel sorry for those of you who never saw him play. You missed seeing one of the greatest QB's and leaders who every played the game. Yes he was an exceptional field leader who raised everyones level of play when he was on the field.
To give you some perspective of the difference in the game Namath in his 3 best years was averaging just under 8 yards per attempt on about a 50% completion rate which averages out to almost 16 yards per completion. Pennington averages about 7.4 YPA but he completes about 65% of his passes which averages out to about 11 yards a completion. That's without considering the rule changes which highly favored the D compared to today. Coles has averaged just over 13 yards per catch with Pennington. Sauer, the No. 2 WR with Namath averaged just over 16 YPC and Maynard the No. 1 averaged just under 19 YPC.
My point is only that years from now when no one saw him play -- even if he is in the hall of fame -- those who look at his numbers will have a hard time figuring out why he was so great. In fact, just look at this thread -- its by someone who never saw him play and based on the numbers cant figure out why hes so great.
The numbers won't help any of these guys. Most of the people on this board don't consider Bradshaw or Staubach in the same league as Elway or Montana. In 10 years if Manning every wins a SB people won't even mention Montana or Elway's name with his.
One of the most amazing stats imaginable is that Terry Bradshaw only passed for more than 300 yards in a game 7 times in his career, and 3 of those were in the postseason (2 in winning Super Bowls). Staubach's numbers were similarly "unimpressive" for most of his career, as the 70s were a time of relatively low passing yardages. People talk about the difficulties of comparing baseball players across eras, but I think it's much more difficult to do that in the NFL, especially for offensive players.
It's much worse, for whatever reason there doesn't seem to be much of a statistics community around football, I guess due to the relative shortness of the season and other factors football analysis is dominated by hype more then anything. I've never seen any kind of QB rating adjusted for the league average, just the base number. Another problem with football is that player success is often reliant on a number of factors outside the players "skill" and it makes independant analysis very difficult. Just look at James this year in Arizona.
We can not forget that Namath was the first one to break the super bowl ice and beat an NFL team. The NFL thought they were invincible at the time. Namath put the AFL on the map. There are extra HOF points given for being first - for setting the bar. Plus, we were 21 point underdogs for Super Bowl III. 21 point underdogs!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! When have you ever seen a professional team today more than 14 point underdogs? Not too often. You also have to factor in he was in NY and inherited the name "Broadway Joe" because of his charisma and the alure he brought to New York. The guy was flat out cool in every sense. He had personality. It is the intangibles we must also consider. Namath HOF, hands down.
I caught the tail end of Joe's career when the Jets were bad and he was old. Still, you could see what made him great. He had the combination of field smarts--it was mentioned he called his own plays--and a great arm. He dropped straight back and had the quick release a lot like Dan Marino did. Plus, he was a huge QB coming out of Alabama, it's not like he showed up for Super Bowl III and had one good game. He was the top guy coming into the pros a few years before that and led the Jets from a bad team to the title.
Doesn't the fact that he's the only Jet in the Hall of Fame (I think) give him the inside track for being considered "the greatest Jet"? If not, what's your criteria?
Thanks, I knew I was going out on a little limb there. It just surprises me that a Jet fan would question a Jet legend's status...
I'm sure you've heard of "Raider myopia," Jim Rome's view that Raiders fans only can see things as rosy for the silver and black. The corresponding "Jets myopia" would certainly be that Jets fans can see things only as bad for the green and white. After being here for a while, I'm surprised that you haven't picked up on that!
As a young boy, I became a Jets fan in 1973 and got to see Namath play in his final years as a Jet and they were not very pretty. I remember one game where it was like 43-0 losing to the Dolphins in the rain and Namath looked horrible. So I can see where some people would question how good he was over-all. From 1968 through 1971 was his prime years. I always remembered Howard Cosell (sp?) saying that with Namath in the game and his arm strength the Jets could score at any time and that was true, but the Jets were pretty bad during the mid to late 70's. For the young guys, I would say that memory of Namath for me would be to take the 2005 version of Vinny T. and make him a lot wilder off the field and you have Namath in his last years as a Jet. His knees and movement was horrible but every now and then he would suprise you with a bomb down the field.
I'm the same as you, but 1974, a year later. There were times where he tried to make plays he probably could have made earlier in his career that didn't work when he was older. I remember a game at Buffalo where he was throwing into a 35 mph wind and kept getting picked off.
Hall of Fame quarterbacks Bob Waterfield and Bobby Layne also had stats that look bad to today's youth.
