Say It's So, Joe

At this point, with some three minutes left in the third quarter, Baltimore Coach Don Shula turned to John Unitas, the master quarterback who spent this season on the bench nursing a tennis elbow. Johnny U. got the Colts their touchdown and showed flickers of his old mastery as he led them 80 yards for the score, completing four passes on the drive. Yet, in a way, it was sad. Unitas hit four passes, but he missed six, and when the Colts tried an onside kick and recovered the ball on the Jet 44 with three minutes and 14 seconds to go, Unitas couldn't pull it off. He hit three passes in a row, but then he missed three to lose the ball. He got it once more but he could not score again.

So the era of John Unitas ended and the day of Broadway Joe and the mod quarterback began. John is crew cut and quiet and Joe has long hair and a big mouth, but haircuts and gab obviously have nothing to do with the efficiency of quarterbacks.

Namath won this one—a historic game for the AFL after eight years of existence, but only the third Super Bowl matchup. It might convince some AFL owners they should keep the present league alignments intact when the two meet in Palm Springs on March 17 to arrange the scheduling merger. Wayne Valley, an owner of the Oakland Raiders, is one AFL owner who wants to keep his league as it is.

If the AFL stays together as an operating unit, it will owe its existence in part to a stubby little man named Weeb Ewbank, who last week gave Joe Namath a brilliant game plan and who won NFL championships in 1958 and 1959 with Johnny Unitas and the Colts. Ewbank, in discussing the two great quarterbacks he has coached to championships, often mistakenly says Namath when he means Unitas.

But it was Broadway Joe—or Super Joe, if you prefer—who did the big job in this game. It is easy to understand why Ewbank has difficulty separating Johnny U. and Super Joe in his mind. They are so different—yet so very much alike.