1969 Jets Remember Super Season : With Offensive Line’s Protection, Namath Made Good on Boast to Beat Colts

They backed their quarterback when he shot off his mouth and for that they wear a Super Bowl ring.

And 20 years later not one member of the New York Jets offensive line blame Joe Namath for uttering his now famous guarantee of victory over the Baltimore Colts in the 1969 Super Bowl.

“I had already played in the league nine years,” said guard Bob Talamini, at an Aug. 8 reunion of the 1969 Jets. “I just figured that was Joe talking. It really wasn’t any harder of a game to play in front of Joe; everybody always wanted to get at him.”

Super Bowl III was to forever change the rivalry between the National Football League and American Football League and expand to even greater proportions the myth of ‘Broadway Joe.’ But his words would have rung hollow had the offensive line not protected him as they always had.

But how many remember the guys who lined up in front of Namath? They bore the brunt of the Colts anger at the Jets’ quarterback; they were the ones who got their hands dirty in order to wear the ring.

In addition to Talamini, Randy Rasmussen, John Schmitt, Dave Herman, Jeff Richardson, and their coach Joe Spencer were part of that group. They were also among 31 former Jet players and coaches to attend a reunion of the franchise’s only Super Bowl team at the Quaker Ridge Golf Club.

Talamini, 49, a vice-president with Shearson-Lehman in Houston, said Super Bowl III held special meaning to him because it finally gave the AFL the respect it needed to compete with the NFL. The AFL had been embarrassed in the first two Super Bowls by the Green Bay Packers.

“It’s like a fine wine, the older it gets, the better it gets,” Talamini said. “And by comparison a lot of the Super Bowl games have been lackluster after the big build-up. Our game delivered.”

Really it was the Jets who delivered, as Namath passed for 206 yards, completing 17 of 28 passes and Matt Snell churned out 121 yards on 31 carries and one touchdown en route to a 16-7 victory.

The Colts went into the game representing the NFL as 17 1/2-point favorites. After Namath’s remarks, they had a chip on their shoulder as well.

“We really laughed when Joe said that about the guarantee,” said Schmitt, now a 45-year-old businessman in Milford, Conn. “It really didn’t bother us too much because there was no way you could have put more pressure on us. Really, it helped.

“They got serious and then they got furious and then really got mad when we started to take control of the game. When Matt scored on that touchdown run (of 4 yards in the second quarter), I think they were in shock.”

Schmitt, who was named the Jets most dedicated player that year, also recalls that the front office may have been a little surprised about the victory.

“We didn’t even have champagne in the locker room after the game,” he said. “We had Coca-Cola. I can’t remember now why it was, but we didn’t have any champagne. We were dousing one another with whatever we could find.”

One of Namath’s offensive linemen would rather the quarterback had not said what he did. Randy Rasmussen, who played guard on the Super Bowl team and holds the the Jets record for appearances with 207, said Namath failed to heed the advice of Coach Weeb Ewbank.

“I thought he was nuts when he said that,” Rasmussen recalled. “I thought he was crazy. We went down there (to Miami) the week before and one thing Weeb said was don’t say anything in the paper to antagonize them. We know that we can beat them, but still let’s not antagonize them.

“It all went well until Thursday. But you know, he didn’t say anything we didn’t really believe.”

The reunion afternoon, sponsored by the New York chapter of the NFL Alumni Assn. and to benefit the National Multiple Sclerosis Society as well as other charities, was filled with reminiscing and warm feelings.

“What I am struck by 20 years later is how little people have changed,” Schmitt said. “The funny guys are still funny, the quiet guys are still quiet and nobody has really fattened up.”

Rasmussen, who was a 12th-round draft pick in 1967 out of Kearney, Neb., and now runs a construction business in Connecticut as well as broadcasting Jets’ games on radio, said that after winning the Super Bowl the team was presented with a much bigger challenge by Ewbank.

“We were playing the (New York) Giants for the first time in the preseason and Weeb told us that we had only completed half the job. We have to beat the Giants now for the bragging rights of New York, then we would really be champions.”

That story also had a happy ending. The Jets beat the Giants in the Yale Bowl the next summer 37-14.