His talent was off the charts, FGF. His talent was arguably top 5 all-time. The knock on Namath was performance. Outside of 1972 when he was a consensus 1st-team all-pro, he was spotty in the 1970s.
The significance of Namath is that he was a great (yes, great) quarterback (you need to have seen him dueling it out with the Raiders, Chiefs and Chargers in the late 60's to appreciate him), AND a counterculture figure. He was a maverick who proved that you could deviate from the lockstep, homogenized, cookie cutter image of an athlete and still be great. He never toed the line. He signed with an AFL team. Our high school coach started the 1968 season with a speech: "Don't take any examples from Namath." He was unacceptable to the mainstream. The full length fur coat. The panty hose. The long hair. He took on Rozelle and Rzelle had to compromise with him. He was the Muhammad Ali of football. He made every nonconformist proud. He delivered. And he did it with no knees. I can still hear Merle Harmon: "Sauer to the left. Maynard to the right. Boozer and Snell the setbacks. Namath over Schmitt. Here's the snap. Joe looking. Joe throwing..."
He's in the Hall. Bill Walsh said Namath was "the most beautiful, accurate, stylish passer with the quickest release I've ever seen." You've heard of Bill Walsh, right?
Wouldn't surprise me. Sanchez has piss poor accuracy in an era where so many rules favor the WR & in an era where you can't hit the QB.
Get out of here with that crap. Only a fool judges a player's career when he didn't see the actual player perform. If you've got a problem with Namath then go after all the other people who watched him play & still call him a great qb. Tell them that everything they saw is wrong because you've got some stats combined with a strong opinion & no first-hand knowledge of actually watching him play.
Namath played from 1965-77. Look at what these Hall of Famers did in those years- Terry Bradshaw from 1970-77: 93 touchdowns, 118 interceptions Johnny Unitas from 1965-73: 103 TDs, 116 INTs George Blanda from 1965-75: 60 TDs, 69 INTs Dan Fouts from 1973-77: 34 TDs, 57 INTs
All of your NYJ fans that posted anti or negative items on JWN IMHO are just plain jealous that U have not ever seen a NYJ Championship Game in person or SB3 so all you are used to whenever U became a fan is losing year after year after year :sad:
Is there some reason you're only posting a fraction of each quarterback's career? Terry Bradshaw 1970-1983: 212 TD, 210 INT Johnny Unitas 1956-1973: 290 TD, 253 INT George Blanda 1949-1975: 236 TD, 277 INT Dan Fouts 1973-1987: 254 TD, 242 INT Oh, and Joe Namath 1970-1977: 76 TDs, 116 INTs. Amazing what cherry-picking (or in this case, cherry-pit-picking) can do, huh?
I did not cherry pick. Use your head. I was responding to somebody who asked what other HOF QBs threw more interceptions than touchdowns in Joe's era. Joe's era was 1965-77. Was it not? I gave you those QBs stats from years in which they played while Namath was active. Bradshaw had his best statistical seasons after Namath retired and when multiple rules were changed to help the passing game.
I am going to add links to some choice Namath posts through the years. http://forums.theganggreen.com/showpost.php?p=1814100&postcount=201 http://forums.theganggreen.com/showpost.php?p=171303&postcount=37 You really need to look at the era in which Namath played. You can't compare his stats to passers of today. Here are the completion percentage numbers for the leagues in which Namath played- 1965 AFL- 45.3 1966 AFL- 46.3 1967 AFL- 47.6 1968 AFL- 47.5 1969 AFL- 49.8 1970 NFL- 51.1 1971 NFL- 50.9 1972 NFL- 51.7 1973 NFL- 52.0 1974 NFL- 52.5 1975 NFL- 52.5 1976 NFL- 52.2 1977 NFL- 51.3 In six of the nine seasons in which Namath started more than half of the Jets games, his completion percentage was above the league average. He was better than the league average in 1965, 1966, 1967, 1968, 1969, and 1974. He was below the league average in 1972, 1975, and 1976. Note: 1972 was not a bad year at all for him, anyway. He was the 1st team All-Pro quarterback. _____ Knocking Namath for a low completion percentage is not fair.
Can any one of you smart alecks out there that are knocking JWN post another QB for the NYJs who has been better then him :sad:
So, judging him against his era, he was average in completion percentage. Point granted. Going back to your comp list: Bradshaw is in the HOF for the same reason as Namath: the Super Bowl. Of course, he had four, not one. Blanda is in because of placekicking, longevity, his amazing 1970 season, and for being the best QB in the early years of the AFL. He's not in because of his passing between 1965 and 1975. (He was 38 in 1965 by the way.) Unitas was 32 in 1965. He's in the hall for his entire career, the best part of which came before 1965. Fouts: ?? You want to look at QBs who played during Namath's career, so you pick Fouts, who was a rookie in 1973, by which time Namath was pretty much done? And then you look at the first four years? Why not HOFers whose career actually corresponded with Namath's? Like Len Dawson? Bob Griese? Fran Tarkenton? Because you know what you'll find, and it won't be flattering to Namath. Namath is in the HOF because of Super Bowl III and because of his off-the-field impact, which can hardly be overstated. Don't try to make a statistical case for him as a Hall of Famer. It can't be done.
Based on his numbers alone, no but his win in SBIII was still the most dramatic SB ever just because of what it meant. I also think he would have much better stats today then in 1968 AND his knees would have lasted much longer today and be in much better shape. He's still a blowhard but he was a vg QB for the day.
Boy, oh boy, oh boy are you making this ridiculous. Go upthread and read what the posts again. A poster asked anyone to note which Hall of Fame QBs, if any, threw more interceptions than touchdowns in Namath's era (1965-77). I then listed four such QBs and their TD and INT numbers compiled in the Namath era of 1965-77. There was no reason for me to list Griese, Dawson or Jurgensen because they threw more TDs than INTs.
Now we are shifting gears in this thread and getting away from the post I responded to which caused this debate. No debate here. I never wrote he was in the PFHOF based on QB play from 1965-75. He is in because of QB play in the early 1960s, placekicking in the 1960s and 1970s, his 1970 season, and longevity. The passing environment during the Namath era (the second half of Unitas' career) was such that a great QB could throw more interceptions than touchdowns. As for an example, see, well, Unitas. Again, you totally missed the point of why I included Fouts' 1973-77 performance. Also, what do you have to say about the passing environment post-1978 and how a guy like Fouts greatly benefited from the major rules changes after the 1977 season? Super Bowl 3, the first 4,000 yard season, his success in the AFL and the 1972 season and his fame/impact on the sport are why he is a Hall of Famer.
wiki: Professional Football career Despite suffering a serious knee injury in his senior year at Alabama, Namath was drafted by both the National Football League and the upstart American Football League. The two competing leagues held their respective drafts on the same day—November 28, 1964. The NFL's St. Louis Cardinals selected Namath 12th overall in their draft, while the Jets selected him with the AFL's first overall pick.[8] He elected to sign with the Jets, who were under the direction of Hall of Fame owner Sonny Werblin, for a salary of $427,000 (a pro football record at the time) and never put on a Cardinals uniform. Namath was the American Football League Rookie of the year in 1965 and became the first professional quarterback to pass for 4,000 yards in a season (1967) when he threw for 4,007 yards in a 14-game season, a record broken by Dan Fouts in 1979 (4,082) in a 16-game season. He was a four-time American Football League All-Star, in 1965, 1967, 1968, and 1969, although he was plagued with knee injuries through much of his career and underwent four pioneering knee operations by Dr. James A. Nicholas. On some occasions, Namath had to have his knee drained at halftime so that he could finish a game. Later in life, long after he left football, he had to have knee replacement surgery on both legs. In the 1968 AFL title game, Namath threw three touchdown passes to lead New York to a 27-23 win over the defending American Football League Champion Oakland Raiders. His performance in the 1968 season earned him the Hickok Belt as top professional athlete of the year. He was an AFC-NFC Pro Bowler in 1972. Besides having the Hall of Fame distinction, he is a member of the Jets' all-time team and the American Football League All-Time Team. Third AFL-NFL World Championship Game (Super Bowl III) The apex of his career was his performance in the Jets' January 1969 16-7 win over the Baltimore Colts in the third World Championship Game after the AFL-NFL merger. Namath was named MVP of Super Bowl III. This win would make him the first and only quarterback to ever start and win a national championship game in college, and to start and win a major professional league championship and a World Championship. The Colts were touted as "the greatest football team in history". Former NFL star and coach Norm Van Brocklin ridiculed the AFL before the game, saying "This will be Namath's first Professional Football game." Writers from NFL cities insisted it would take the AFL several more years to be truly competitive with the NFL. Much of the hype surrounding the game was related to how it would either prove or disprove the proposition that the AFL teams were truly worthy of being allowed to merge with the NFL; the first two such games had resulted in blowout victories for the NFL champion in the two previous years, the Green Bay Packers, and the Colts were even more favored by media figures and handicappers than the Packers had been. Three days before the game, an intoxicated Namath responded to a heckler in Miami with the now-famous line: "We’re going to win Sunday. I guarantee it."[9] His prediction was initially ignored, but it became legendary after the Jets' upset of the Colts.[9] In the game, however, Namath backed up his boast and showed that his success against tough American Football League competition had more than prepared him to take on the NFL. The Colts' vaunted defense was unable to contain the Jets' running or passing game, while their ineffective offense gave up four interceptions to the Jets. Namath was the game's MVP, completing eight passes to George Sauer alone, for 133 yards. Namath acquired legendary status for American Football League fans as the symbol of their league's legitimacy. When he was asked by reporters after the game whether the Colts' defense was the "toughest he had ever faced", Namath responded "That would be the Buffalo Bills' defense." The American Football League's Bills had intercepted Namath five times, three for touchdowns, in the Bills' only win that 1968 AFL season.
