Then we agree. Earlier you had written he did not make the PFHOF based on talent. Either you changed your opinion from earlier in the day or we define talent differently. To me, talent as it pertains to Namath was arm strength, release point, dropback ability, maneuverability in the pocket, etc. Physical stuff, in other words. The execution not being there as you stated? To me, that is a performance issue that can be blamed on questionable coaching, subpar teammates, mental mistakes by Namath or Favre-like stupidity (read: forcing the issue). I can find Walsh quotes on a number of QBs. I don't recall seeing his comments on Simms. I'll have to recheck some books. Simms had good arm strength.
I don't think i worded that well. I think he's got great ability as a football player, but I think that there were mistakes in his play style. Great arm, better mobility than should have been the case for a guy with his knees, and he had great accuracy to boot. He just didn't always read defenses well and at times I think he was a bit reckless. I know, it was a different era. That's just my two cents on him. The Simms bit was from an NFL Films feature on Bill Walsh as a QB talent assessor, I think.
I don't disagree with any of that. It looks like you simply worded your initial post in a less than ideal way.
LOL! BEST post in thread! ..... no, I didn't read through 3 pages of crap either. Sad when it takes a Cowboys fan to present logic to JETS fans ripping the only real star this team has had. :breakdance:
You must be kidding me? Comparing Namath to Sanchez? This is the funniest thing I've read!! Think Sanchez could ever have a game like this? Listen to the commentary at the 2:45 mark! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jDJdFsnOdNI The game was totally different then. If Namath played with today's rules which are geared totally to the offense, he would put up Peyton Manning numbers. Please f*ck the stats, they were different eras.
I don't know if I'd call Namath overrated. Over his career he had more average years than great ones certainly.... ...But he put the AFL on the map with one of the great seasons in league history, leading the Jets to the Championship. And he may be the biggest reason the two leagues merged and created the NFL we have today! That alone is HOF worthy in my opinion.Plus, he threw for 4000 yards in a 14 game season when that number was unheard of. As far as completion percentage, the game was very different then. Passing was down field alotmore than today, and DBs could mug receivers all over the field, then knock their heads off when they tried to catch the ball.
Joe Namath Won the one that counted! That can never be more true for the Jets of today because we haven't won another. You cant take a thing way from him. Ignore him if you want , but he can talk shit if he wants! Lets add three or four more and then we can dilute Joe & company's accomplishment.
Completely different era of football. Compare Namath to the players who played around his time and you'll see that aside from players like Unitas and a few others He was head and shoulders above the league average, especially his first few seasons before injuries started to drag him down. Bear in mind that for most of his career the goal posts were at the front of the endzone, not the back of it like today. There was no 5 yard bump rule, as long as the ball wasn't in the air there wasn't really anything called defensive holding, (which is the reason prior to the late 70's early 80's there were no small recievers, they got murdered) Quarterbacks weren't a protected species back then either, QB's got their bells rung hard and often. In regular play people who didn't see games back then would be yelling "roughing the QB! where's the flag?" on nearly every play the QB dropped back on. Consider this, Namath was the first NFL quarterback to throw for 4,000 yards in a season, And he did it in a 14 game season at that, Noone would throw for 4,000 yards again until Dan Fouts in 1979 (in a 16 game season). In fact until Fouts only 1 player had even been within 300 yards of 4,000, That was Sonny Jurgensen, Ironically also in 1967. Namath also led the AFC in Passing on 3 separate occasions, led the AFC in touchdowns once, Led the league in yards per attempt twice, and had accomplished most of that by the end of his 4th year in the league...but it does bear mentioning that he also led the League in picks 4 times in his career. How would Namath stack up against todays QB's in todays passing rules? Who knows, But I suspect he'd stack up pretty well, especially with modern surgery technics for knee repair. Watch some old football games, if you can find them, they'll open your eyes to the way the game used to be played.
This is a great quote example. People just don't realize how different the game was back then. Now today's athelets are definitely faster and better trained, they have better exercise and physical regimens and they work at football 365 days a year, back in the 60's most guys had off season jobs because the NFL unless you were a star didn't pay very well. The average NFL player in 1970 made 23,000 and the league rookie minimum was 9,000.00..The average salary in the US was around 8,000. But that's a side point, when you compare Namath to the league average during the time he played he was pretty much head and shoulders over most everyone else. But IMHO Unitas remains the best QB to ever play the game when compared to his peers, and heck even to alot of today's QB's.
tbh, I always considered Phil Simms underrated. Don't agree he's got the best arm ever but I do believe he belongs in the HOF. Seeing an offensive genius like Walsh throw complements his way doesn't surprise me all. Or perhaps Walsh meant Simms had one of the best arms he's seen from the 60s-80s when combining strength & accuracy.
These newbies who post anti JWN BS have no idea how good he was. Again I ask any one of them to posted a QB since him who was a better QB then him for the NYJs instead of posting BS :sad:
That pretty much sums up Namath and the Old AFL. Namath threw a lot of long balls, and most of his picks came off of those. I have never to this day seen a guy who was as accurate as consistantly on throws 25+ yards in the air as Namath was. If any game sums up Namath it was the Colts game where he threw 490 odd yards on 16 or 17 passes. He wasn't the mad bomber for no reason at all. There's a video of him playing for Bryant on Youtube when he was in college, if you watch that video, before his knees gave out on him, he was freaking mobile as heck. One has to wonder what kind of numbers he would have put up had he played in an age where they protected the Quarterback abit more and not been as mauled as he was. People talk about his bad knees, but I don't think he was ever the same after he broke his wrist in 1970. He lost a lot of the zip on his ball after that point.
& remember he played his home games @ Shea so most of the home games were played in bad weather in Nov/Dec :sad:
I'd rather show them the conference game, against the Raiders. I'm 26, and that game to me really showed a mature Namath that made the plays to get them to the SB.
Namath pretty much had one really good season and one super bowl season. Other than that his career was pretty mediocre. Threw more picks than TDs and averaged just under 200 yards a game. Sanchez would be crucified if his stats were even close to that.
