This Saturday marks the 50th anniversary of what was arguably the worst loss in Baltimore sports history. On this fateful day in Miami's Orange Bowl, the NFL champion Baltimore Colts, who were favored by as many as 19 points in some betting circles, were upset by the AFL champion New York Jets, 16-7, in Super Bowl III.
This was supposed to be more of a coronation than a crowning. The Colts were being hailed as one of the NFL's all-time great teams, posting a 13-1 regular season record before beating Minnesota for the Western Conference championship, and then thumping the Cleveland Browns, 34-0, for the NFL championship.
Their defense was said to be peerless, and the record seemed to bear that out. The Colts had recorded four shutouts that year, and surrendered just 144 points, and ranked third in total rushing yards allowed. The offense, while not quite as spectacular, still ranked second in the league in points scored with 402.
Despite such seemingly overwhelming odds, Jets quarterback Joe Namath boldly guaranteed a Jets victory in the days leading up the game. While such brashness certainly added color and spice to a game which had been predictably dull and undramatic in its first two years, few sportswriters gave the Jets a chance. Of the hundreds covering the game that day, only two reportedly picked the Jets to win (although that number has doubtless been embellished with the passage of time.)
Despite Namath's seemingly reckless prediction, the Colts remained confident of victory, and that may have ultimately led to their undoing. Even Colt owner Carroll Rosenbloom was so sure of a Colt win, he planned a big victory party afterward at his Miami home.
But a funny thing happened on the way to that victory party. . .
I've always felt that, despite predictions to the contrary, that the Jets were a better team than they were given credit for. Maybe they weren't as good as the Colts, but they weren't the pushovers they were being made out to be, either. And they certainly had all the psychological advantages going for them. For two weeks they were put down, they played in an inferior league and were going to get eaten alive by the Colts.
The Colts, on the other hand, spent most of the two weeks hearing how great they were, greater even, than the Lombardi Packers, who had easily won the first two Super Bowls. Perhaps, though, those first two games weren't the best of bellwethers in terms of the alleged disparity between the two leagues. As Raider owner Al Davis said years later, the first two Super Bowls didn't necessarily establish the superiority of the NFL over the AFL, but rather, the superiority of the Packers over the rest of professional football.
There has been talk over the years of the game being fixed, done so in order to insure the merger between the league. Bubba Smith, in a Playboy article about 10 years after the game, claimed that Rosenbloom, coach Don Shula, QB Earl Morrall and several other Colt players were all involved in the conspiracy.
My first reaction to this was, They have articles in Playboy? Who knew? 
I've never believed in any of those stories, however. For one, the merger was a done deal by Super Bowl III; the only reason it hadn't yet happened was the NFL and AFL both had to wait for their existing television contracts to expire. While there had been some rumblings of perhaps tweaking the playoff alignment should the NFL's dominance continue, the game itself wasn't going anywhere.
I've always felt that the fix rumors were perpetuated by old Colt fans themselves, some of whom simply couldn't accept the fact that their heroes had failed against a team of alleged upstarts. Conspiracy theories do, after all, help explain the unexplainable and help make sense of an otherwise chaotic world.
In truth, the Colts were simply flat and over-confident, as their play demonstrated. They left some 27 points on the field in the first half, and committed four turnovers deep in Jet territory. Morrall, cast off by the Giants that summer, was the league MVP, but also demonstrated why he had been a career journeyman. Like the rest of the team that day, he simply saved his worst for last.
I've also felt that the loss started in motion a series of events which would eventually lead to the Colts leaving Baltimore in 1984. Even though the Colts would come back two years later and win Super Bowl V in even sloppier fashion, things were just never quite the same after that loss to the Jets. As it turned out, the aftershocks of that fateful day in Miami in January 1969 would be felt long after the final gun sounded.
