Thursday, August 21, 2014

1966 Profile: Joe Namath

Quarterback
No. 12
Alabama
"If 6-2, 191-pound Joe Namath isn't already the top quarterback in the league after only one pro season, he will almost certainly be after two. Namath, the Jets' famous $400,000 prize from Alabama, with the fragile right knee, was the AFL's Rookie of the Year and voted the MVP in the league's All-Star game. He also was a 48.2 percent passer who got better and better as he learned to diagnose changing defenses and call the proper automatics.
Joe has great poise, courage, a tremendous throwing arm, enormous hands that enable him to pump-fake deceptively, and an amazingly quick release. The Jets try to protect him from rushing linemen by having him fade back ten yards instead of the usual seven."

-Jack Zanger, Pro Football 1966

"When the 1965 season opened, Joe was sitting on the bench. At the close of the campaign, the young quarterback was voted MVP in the All-Star tilt against the champion Buffalo Bills.
Joe was MVP in the 1965 Orange Bowl. He was the Jets' No. 1 draft pick in 1965."

-1966 Topps No. 96

IS THE PRESSURE OFF NAMATH?
He Was The Rookie-Of-The-Year In The American Football League. He Did All Anyone Expected Of Him. Now ...
"In the summer of 1965, as he prepared for a rather formidable challenge, Joe Namath said, 'In sports, people sometimes expect too much. I hope I don't disappoint the people in New York, but people can come to expect an awful lot and that does bother me.'
Namath did not disappoint the people. He proved himself worth every coin of his unprecedented bonus by starring at quarterback for the New York Jets and becoming the American Football's Rookie of the Year. But because 'people can come to expect an awful lot' the pressure is not off Namath. It will never be off Namath.
Last year Namath had to prove he was worth his bonus. This year Namath has to prove he was not lucky last year. If he has an exceptional 1966 season, he will be rated a proven star and he will be expected to perform as one every season. In that respect, the pressure on Namath will, in time, be no greater than the pressure on any star. But right now, it is greater, because Joe Namath still stands as the symbol of the Big Bonus.
Last summer, John Devaney wrote, 'If he fails- and Namath knows this- he will become a national joke. An expensive flop, like the Edsel and Cleopatra. The TV comics and office comedians will add his name to their Losers' List.'
It still goes. Oh, yes, Namath still has that one good season behind him, but suppose he doesn't ever equal it? Tune in on one of the late-hour variety shows on television in about five years. 'Whatever happened to Joe Namath?' says the straight man. 'Joe Who?' says the comic. Big laugh.
Joe Namath is national news and he accepts the pressure with the glory. The draft board rules him 4-F because of his bad knee, and thousands of people who don't know knees from elbows react with rage. He attends a performance of Funny Girl, doesn't wear a tie, and guess which underdressed football player steals the column space from best-dressed leading lady Barbara Streisand?
Not only is Namath news on the sports pages and in the gossip columns, but also on the medical pages. And thereby rests another pressure. He must play football with the knowledge that he is causing permanent damage to his knee. 'Joe Namath will have an arthritic knee like a man 70 years old when he gets to be 40,' says Jet coach Weeb Ewbank. 'That's the price he will pay to play football. Joe will always have trouble with his bad knee.'
When Namath came to training camp with the Jets last season, the knee proved an immediate problem. 'At the start of training,' says Ewbank, 'he was making many mistakes because he had got into bad throwing habits from favoring his bad knee.'
There were other problems, too. He was driving away from camp evenings in his Lincoln Continental, and some of the older players, resentful of his $400,000 bonus to begin with, were becoming resentful of his social life, too. He was not always cool under the pressure of eternal interviews and attention from the fans. Once, when a fan yelled, 'Hey, Joe, you'd better watch out- Huarte's coming in,' Namath cursed the fan. Then Joe turned to a reporter and shouted, 'Yeah, and you can print that! I don't give a blank.'
At the end of training camp, after the final squad cut, the Jets held their annual 'unifying' meeting, only players, no coaches, allowed. At the meeting, Larry Fox wrote, 'Namath said he had felt an undercurrent of resentment from the veterans, and as quarterback, he had to face this head-on. He had the impression that they thought he was getting away with things and that he wouldn't put out because of his fat, no-cut contract. Well, he wasn't in this just for the money, he said, but to be a member of the squad and a winner. Believe it or not, he said, he was going to do all he could ... and more.
'Joe said, too, that nobody had made any open accusations. He challenged them to make them now. He waited. Nobody spoke.'
Looking back, now, Namath says, 'I think that meeting cleared the air.' Another Jet says, 'If Joe had kept silent in that meeting or said the wrong thing, it could have made a big difference.
Some of the pressure eased up then, the pressure of being accepted by his teammates. But Joe still faced the pressure of proving himself on the field. It took time. He didn't start until the third game of the season. He did well in his start but did not do well immediately thereafter, and he was dropped back to No. 2 quarterback behind Mike Taliaferro. Finally, with the Jets 1-5-1, Joe took command of the team. The Jets won four of their final seven games and Namath finished the season as the league's third-ranked passer. He completed 164 of 340  passes for a .482 percentage, 2,220 yards and 18 touchdowns. His interception percentage was .044 and his average gain per completion was 6.53 yards. The AFL ranks its passers on the basis of 'completions, yards, touchdowns, completion percentage, interception percentage and average gain.' A perfect score is 60 points and Namath had 41 points. Only John Hadl (49 points) and Len Dawson (46) were ahead of him.
In providing reporters with colorful copy, only one man in the AFL, Cookie Gilchrist was ahead of Joe. 'I believe in the happy time,' Joe often told reporters during the season, and he proved it to them. He told them about the swinging places he went to and the reasons (girls) he went to them. He told them his philosophy of marriage: 'That's the worst thing you can do. It's like football. Somebody once asked me if it easier to score on one play from the five-yard line or from the 40. I said the 40 because out there you have more things to do. Once you narrow the field, your choice of plays is limited. It's the same with girls.'
Such quotes and such swagger help make Joe a delightful fellow, but they also add to the inevitable pressure. A man who comes on strong often invites envy and has people rooting against him. He knows, too, that most of the people who root for him will do so only for as long as he comes through. If you live grandly, you must perform grandly. So goes it for the man in the public eye.
Joe says, however, that he feels some pressure has shifted from him to others. Particularly to Jim Grabowski and Donnie Anderson, the bonus champions. 'I'm glad I'm not the champ anymore,' Joe says. 'Now I can get back to plain old football.'
Not so, Joe. Not so, at all. To the public, you will always be the bonus champ."

-Pro Football Almanac 1966, published by MacFadden-Bartell Corp.

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