No. 13
Texas Western
"Getting old but still a dangerous receiver. Even without Joe Namath last year he caught 21 passes; that was his lowest figure since he came to the Jets in 1960, but his per-catch average of 19.4 was up to his usual standard. Don was third among the Jets in receptions.
One of the original AFL players, Maynard has lots of records to show for his long career. He's one of only two men to catch more than 600 passes; Don's 603 is only 28 behind Raymond Berry's record. Maynard's 86 touchdown catches are second only to Don Hutson's 100 on the all-time list. Maynard has one record to himself- 11,306 yards on receptions.
1971 marked the first time in four years that Don has played every game so there's a chance he can hang in and sweep all the major records. He has caught almost twice as many passes as anyone in the AFC and has topped 100 yards in a game 48 times. He's the last AFC player to have topped 200 in a game.
Maynard is an outdoorsman who makes his off-season home in Texas, where he's from. He's married with three children."
-Jim Benagh, The Complete Handbook of Pro Football, 1972 Edition
"Raymond Berry's seemingly-unattainable record of 631 lifetime pass receptions is well within hailing distance for the New York Jets' leathery veteran, Don Maynard. The leading American Football Conference receiver, with 603 receptions for 13 seasons, is zeroing in on the mark set by the Colts' superstar in the '50s and '60s. Maynard was limited to a modest 21 catches last year as three men shared the Jets' passing assignment, but a healthy Joe Namath should provide Maynard with the incentive and coordination necessary for the record.
Maynard already holds the mark for most yardage and has held it for several seasons. It's 11,306 going in, along with 86 touchdown receptions. In the latter category, the only one ahead of him is Packer Hall of Famer Don Hutson."
-Football Digest, September 1972
"The all-time pro record holder for receiving yardage with a career total of 11,306 yards through his 13 years, Maynard has also caught 86 touchdown passes, second only to Don Hutson's 100 for Green Bay. The total of 84 TDs he caught during his AFL career stands as the all-time record. He's four times an All-Star and a member of the all-time All-AFL team as chosen by the Pro Football Hall of Fame. Don has caught 603 passes in his lifetime (second only to Raymond Berry's 631) and holds or shares almost all Jet receiving records.
Maynard finished third on the Jets in receiving a year ago with 21 catches for 408 yards and two touchdowns. In 1971 he avoided the injuries that had plagued him in 1970. Don broke a two-year dry spell in the 10th game of the year at Buffalo when he hauled in a 33-yard Bob Davis touchdown pass to give him career touchdown pass reception No. 85 and undisputed second place on the all-time list. Later in the year, he teamed up with Joe Namath for a 74-yard touchdown against Cincinnati; against Cincinnati he totaled 114 yards on receptions, the 49th time in his career he had hit the 100-yard mark.
Maynard was on his way to leading the AFL in receiving in the '69 campaign when he broke his foot, but was able to play briefly in the AFL playoff that year. In 1970 a series of muscle and knee injuries forced him out of four games and limited him in two others.
Don closed the 1968 campaign with four straight 100-yard games and added 118 more and two touchdowns in the AFL Championship game. His biggest thrill in athletics was catching the two TD passes late in the Championship game to set up and then score the winning touchdown.
Maynard was Jet MVP in 1967 and co-MVP of the '68 All-Star game. He joined the Jets as a free agent in 1960 after playing for Hamilton in the Canadian League and the Giants in the NFL.
Don has done public relations and sales work and has taught school in the off-season. He's presently in sales for Faberge.
His hometown is El Paso, Texas."
-The New York Jets Official 1972 Yearbook, edited by Frank Ramos
DON MAYNARD: THE NON-CONFORMIST RECEIVER
He Has His Own Style In Running Patterns
"Don Maynard's long sideburns, once the bane of his coaches, now are not even fashionably long. They're mere imitations by comparison to those of many of his teammates on the New York Jets and others in professional football. The jeans Maynard wore to work for years have been discarded, though the Jet flanker is still no clothes horse. He wears old slacks.
People outside the Jets family always have had trouble figuring out Don Maynard, the leathery, long-limbed flanker. Many always have regarded his easygoing, almost loosey-goosey manner as a symbol of the rebel that lurks within his 6-1, 185-pound body. This never has been true, and is less true now, in Maynard's 14th season as a pro football player, than it ever has been.
Sure, the veteran Texan, who'll be 36 next January, feels that many pro coaches impose too many rules on their charges. 'What's good for one guy isn't always good for another,' he says. 'There are a lot of rules that don't make sense.'
But Don's no wild-eyed radical in cleats. For one thing, he's one of the most staunch advocates of physical conditioning in the business. A familiar sight in the Jets clubhouse moments before game time on Sunday is the sight of Maynard on his back in front of his locker pumping his legs up and down in the bicycle exercise routine. There isn't an extra ounce of skin on Maynard's body. 'Keeping your body in shape isn't always fun,' he admits,'but it's always necessary. I don't mean only if you're an athlete, either.'
You can also forget what you've heard or read about the clashes Don had with coach Allie Sherman during his brief career in the late 1950's with the New York Giants. 'He didn't like the way I ran with the ball,' Don recalls. 'He bawled me out once after I scored a touchdown. Hell, all they can give you is six points. No way you can carry the ball any different and get more.'
Maynard is a firm believer in the values of hard work and religion. He holds two Masters degrees, in arts and education, from Texas Western University in El Paso, and recalls that when he taught mathematics in an El Paso high school during the off-season, 'I told the kids they had to have two- not one- two, sharp pencils and be ready to go to work when the bell rings. If not they had to stay 15 minutes after school and twice that every time they weren't ready. They tested me and after that I had no trouble with them.'
A member of the Fellowship of Christian Athletes, Don points out, 'After I retire, most people will forget my records. But I do want them to remember me as a Christian.' Maynard believes in signing autographs for long stretches and in answering all his mail. 'It may be the only game a father takes his son to,' he notes.
Obviously, here's the epitome of an old-fashioned guy, whose major departure from tradition has been the way he runs his pass routes. He is not a conformist in the concept of strict pattern running. 'I've never seen a receiver who can do the things he does,' says Babe Parilli, a former Jets' backup quarterback and now a coach with the Pittsburgh Steelers. 'He's in a class by himself,' Parilli continues. 'He'll break the patterns and you just have to wait for him to do his things. He finds the hole. The defensive guy goes outside, Don goes inside, or vice versa. Somehow, he'll figure out a way to get open and beat the defender.'
George Sauer, who used to give the Jets dual receiving firepower when he ran the flank opposite Maynard as a split end, was another admirer of New York's flanker. 'First of all, you can't figure out what he's doing out there,' says Sauer, whose diligence in adhering to pass patterns was as legendary as Maynard's free-lance routes. 'It just looks like all of a sudden he's open. You have to know him to understand his moves. The first time I saw him, he ran patterns I didn't believe were possible. He's got his own style. It' just ... well, it's Maynard.'
Though his receiving techniques are like something out of science fiction, Don, like the political conservatives, longs for a return to the past. He's not, on the other hand, seeking a replay of the 19th century. If he could travel back in time, Maynard would settle for a trip no further back than four or five years, thank you. He's no more old-fashioned than that.
Who can blame him for hearkening back to the good old days of 1967 and 1968? The glory of his performances of those two seasons are there in the book for all to see- 1,434 yards and 10 touchdowns and selection as the Jets' Most Valuable Player in '67, and 1,297 and another 10 touchdowns in '68. The latter year he also became the first receiver in pro football history to surpass the 10,000-yard mark.
For the next three seasons, however, Maynard had a nightmarish existence. His receiving yardage figure of 938 yards, 20 yards per catch, for 1969 was impressive, but his touchdowns fell to six and the Jets lost the playoffs to Kansas City. The last two seasons, he put together the kind of statistics it used to take him less than one season to record. Don caught 52 passes for 933 yards, and - incredibly- only two touchdowns, BOTH in 1971. That means he didn't reach the scoring column at all in 1970.
There are several reasons for the decline. When Sauer retired prematurely before the 1971 season, Maynard lost his premier receiving partner. His own '71 figures showed just 21 receptions, his fewest in 12 years as a Jet.
Secondly, in both 1970 and 1971, Maynard was forced to perform without his prime passing partner, Joe Namath. Don and Broadway Joe always worked well together. Namath is one of the very few quarterbacks who can throw long enough to make Maynard's deepest pass routes truly viable weapons. Forced to reassess his own pass-catching philosophy while working with Al Woodall and Bob Davis, Don lost some of his effectiveness.
Then, of course, as there always seems to be when a player suffers from a deterioration in the statistics column, there was the matter of injuries. Ironically, one struck at the tail end of the 1968 campaign, one of Maynard's greatest, when he helped take the Jets to their classic Super Bowl victory over the Baltimore Colts.
In the next-to-last game of 1968, Maynard twisted his foot while making the last of five catches in a game against Cincinnati. Although he continued to play and do well through the Super Bowl triumph, the injury plagued Don into the 1969 regular season and forced him to sit out four games.
In 1970, a calf injury sidelined Maynard for four games. Completely sound himself last season, Maynard found Namath injured most of the time and unable to throw to him. He also heard the rumblings from within and without the Jets organization that he was nearing the end of the line.
The past couple of years the Jets have been stocking wide receivers. In 1970, Richard Caster was their second round draft selection out of Jackson State. For the 1972 campaign, the Jets took another Jackson State receiving star, Jerome Barkum, on the first round. 'We have to start seeking a replacement for Maynard,' Weeb Ewbank, the Jets' head coach, explains. 'He takes of himself, but he's getting pretty old.'
For his part, Maynard, who is from the little west Texas town of Crosbyton, says, 'I'll play this game until they run me out of my uniform.' He has good reasons. As he came to training camp at Hofstra University last summer, Don nurtured the hope that Namath would settle his contract difficulties with the New York front office, would get back in shape, and throw the bombs of old to Don.
Did the Namath-Maynard combination offer a preview of future heroics yet to come in the 1971 curtain closer against the Bengals? During a 35-21 Jet victory, Namath, who had returned from the injury list three games earlier, threw only 15 passes, but seven of them were in Maynard's direction. Don caught three of them for a whopping 114 yards, and another gave New York 19 yards on an interference penalty to set up the Jets' first touchdown.
The big play was a 74-yarder Don caught for a touchdown during a 21-point second-quarter explosion by the Jets. It was the Jets' longest pass play since 1968 and was a vintage Maynard play ... a race down the sideline, an underthrown ball, a quick turn-in at the last instant that left the defensive back- in this case, Lemar Parrish- tumbling to the ground, and then an easy gallop into the end zone.
'That play was like old times, wasn't it,' grinned Namath in the locker room after the game. 'It wasn't a well thrown ball, but Don's got that knack of going to the ball at the last moment. He knows how to adjust to it.'
The long touchdown reception in the '71 finale was the 86th of Maynard's career. It solidified his hold on second place on the all-time list for touchdown catches. Don's only other score of '71 came in the 10th game against Buffalo, a 33-yarder from Bob Davis that launched a 17-point second-period spree and carried the New Yorkers from an early 7-0 deficit to a 20-7 victory. It was Maynard's first catch for a touchdown since the 10th game of 1969, when he nabbed a 10-yarder from Namath in the course of a 34-16 loss to the Chiefs.
The grab against the Bills, Don's 85th career touchdown, enabled him to vault past Tommy McDonald,, the former Philadelphia and Dallas star who had 84 receiving touchdowns, into undisputed second place. The only man ahead of Maynard is Hall of Famer Don Hutson, the old Green Bay great who scored an even 100 touchdowns on passes.
Though closing the gap between himself and Hutson may be difficult, the Jet flanker is well within reach of becoming the all-time leader in total receptions. Entering the current campaign, Maynard had caught 603 passes, by far the most among active receivers. Only Raymond Berry, who was once Johnny Unitas' chief target on the Baltimore Colts, had more. Berry, who retired at the end of the 1967 season, had 631 catches.
Don's yardage total of 11,306 tops all pro receivers ever, though he was joined in the 10,000-yard category in 1971 by Lance Alworth of the Dallas Cowboys, who finished '71 with 10,071. Alworth's 527 receptions placed him a distant third behind Maynard in that category. Among all the pro receivers in history who have caught at least 410 passes, Alworth, with a 19.1-yard average per catch, is the only man who has topped the Jet's 18.7 average.
Despite his age, Don thinks he and Namath can recreate some of yesterday's glory days, such as the Super Bowl victory and the American Football League title game victory over the Oakland Raiders at the end of the 1968 season. Maynard didn't catch a single pass in the Super Bowl victory, but he cleared out the strong side of the vaunted Baltimore zone defense and made it possible for Sauer to catch eight passes for 133 yards.
Though he was suffering the effects of his twisted foot when the Jets met the Raiders in late December, 1968, at New York's Shea Stadium for the AFL crown, Don gave one of his most memorable performances in lifting the Jets to victory. The New Yorkers were leading most of the way with Maynard running rings around Oakland cornerback George Atkinson, then a rookie. But early in the fourth period, the Jets were nursing a slim 20-10 lead when Atkinson redeemed himself with a gambling dash and interception of a Namath pass intended for Maynard. An Oakland run from the five-yard line a few plays later gave Oakland a 23-20 lead.
But the Jets went right back down the field in three plays to pull out the thrilling 27-23 victory. The last two plays were passes to Maynard- the first for 52 yards, and the second, the touchdown play, for six yards. 'Those two plays are the greatest thrills I've had in this game,' Don says.
He recognizes that the Jets must ultimately look to younger men for the long haul, but says, 'I'm not worried about losing my job. I've got it and it's up to someone else to try to beat me out. When I'm well, I'm not worried about anybody.'
Says the man who was in the big leagues when the youngsters now coming up to the Jets were in grade school: 'This might sound like bragging, but I believe I can clear out an area and engage a couple of defensive backs better than anyone in the game. This helps the receiver on the other side run his route. And a coach told me after last season that he didn't have me down for a single d-p all year. That means dropped pass. I felt great about that.'
So would it be too much to ask for a return to the old days?"
-Larry Bortstein (Football Digest, October 1972)
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