Football is Football: AFL/NFL War

Spring 2003

Football is Football

The AFL and the NFL in the 1960’s

By Mark Bryant

When Joe Namath, in all his irreverent grace, boldly guaranteed days before Super Bowl III in January 1969 that his New York Jets would beat the Baltimore Colts, members of the assembled media were aghast. Hardly anyone outside of the Jets’ locker room thought this was possible, least of all the haughty constituents of the National Football League, which had enjoyed with relish putting the upstart league in its place the previous two showdowns for the world championship. But that day proved to be the culmination of a decade-long crusade of pro football’s acceptance of an equal.

The NFL was founded in 1920. It held supreme, unchallenged hegemony over professional football before the 1960’s. Three leagues, coincidentally named the American Football League, had sprung up at one time or another during this forty-year period. All of them folded due to lack of financial and fan support. Another league enjoyed moderate success. It was the All-American Football conference and was founded in 1946. After four years, the Cleveland Browns were headed and shoulders above everyone else in the league, which hastened the circuit’s demise. In 1950, the Browns, San Francisco 49ers, and Baltimore Colts were accepted into the NFL. The AAFC basically claimed a moral victory by putting three teams into the NFL, but had little else to stand on. The outlook for any other professional league looked grim ten years later, when a new American Football League arose.

In the summer of 1959, Lamar Hunt applied for ownership for the then-Chicago Cardinals franchise in the NFL and was turned down. Piqued, he teamed up with several similarly wealthy businessmen who expressed a vested interest in ownership of pro football franchises. The original investors made up eight franchises in Boston, Buffalo, Houston, New York, Dallas, Denver, Los Angeles and Minneapolis.

The Minneapolis ownership soon dropped out to accept a NFL expansion franchise, which became the Minnesota Vikings. A group of businessmen in Oakland quickly took their sport in the league, primarily because Barron Hilton, millionaire hotel owner and head of the San Diego franchise, wanted a west coast rival to accommodate travel considerations. This irony was not lost on the AFL some years later when the final AFL-NFL championship game saw the Kansas City Chiefs defeat the Vikings in the fourth Super Bowl contest.

The AFL began play in 1960. The NFL at that time consisted of thirteen clubs, which would soon expand to 14 with the Vikings addition in 1961. Other expansion during the decade would include the Atlanta Falcons (1966) and the New Orleans Saints (1967). Consequently, the AFL would expand twice during its’ ten ears of operation, adding the Miami Dolphins in 1966 and Cincinnati Bengals in 1967. The Dallas Texans would become the Kansas City Chiefs in 1963, he New York Titans would be renamed the Jets in 1964, and the Los Angeles Chargers would relocate to San Diego in 1961.

Where the upstart league added talent was somewhat innovative compared to their predecessors, who subsisted on stars well-past their prime to confront this deficiency. The AFL’s first commissioner, Joe Foss, extended an advisory to the entire league: “Create our own stars.” By aggressive drafting and pursuit of college stars such as Lance Alworth, Abner Hayes, Fred Biletnikoff and Namath, the AFL not only raised consternation in the NFL, but also helped expedite the league merger, which was announced in 1966, beginning with the 1970 season.

This policy also extended to players who were considered not NFL caliber and several enjoyed a rebirth to their careers in the AFL. These included quarterbacks George Blanda, Jack Kemp and Len Dawson, who would eventually go on to lend their respective clubs to championships in the new league.

Meanwhile, the NFL began to drag its feet somewhat on the addition of talent to its clubs, attempting to sell their prospective players on solely the name of the established league. This began to show up in the next decade when the two leagues combined. During the fifth to the fifteenth Super Bowl games for example, the Dallas Cowboys were the only “old-line” NFL, now NFC club, to win in the championship game.

As the bidding war between the two clubs escalated, incoming NFL players such as Donny Anderson, Jim Grabowski, and Tommy Nobis forced their hand and signed for record amounts and bonuses. The AFL further pushed the envelope by attempting to sign the 49ers’ John Brodie and the Rams’ Roman Gabriel to contracts with the Oilers and Raiders, although these were rescinded upon the announcement of the merger.

A descriptive list of personalities, then, were the hallmark of the AFL, and these were characterized by men such as Al Davis, Hank Stram, Sid Gillman, Lou Saban, and Weeb Ewbank. Davis arrived in Oakland in 1963 to resuscitate a struggling Oakland Raiders franchise that was failing both on the field and on the gate. He would be the architect of the most successful franchise in the game over a twenty-five year span by espousing a wide-open, quick-strike vertical offense and an attacking defense. Stram was a very successful coach for the Chiefs over a fifteen-year period that saw the Chiefs make two Super Bowl appearances, winningone. Gillman was master of the pass-happy offense that resembled a Chinese fire-drill in San Diego, and Davis was his assistant in the early years. Saban had memorable stints coaching the Denver Broncos and Buffalo Bills. Ewbank was a highly successful head coach of the NFL’s Baltimore Colts, was summarily dismissed for perceived slippage in team performance, and exacted his revenge by coaching the Jets to their Super Bowl III win over the Colts.

Moreover, all of these coaches and leaders showed a willingness to give the black athletes on their teams a fair chance to compete, a practice that had long been denied them in the NFL. Davis’ Raiders and Stram’s Chiefs were built on power and speed, and these were among the first two teams to take full advantage of black athletes at “skill” positions- wide receiver, running back and defensive back. Marlin Briscoe was believed to be the first black quarterback in years when he played the position for Saban’s Denver team in 1968.

Consequently, the coaches and leaders of the NFL showed a czar like approach and were not as sensitive to the changing society of the 1960’s, nor as willing to employ new-fangled methods in the game of football. George Halas, founder of the Chicago Bears, was he head coach well into the 60’s and was notorious for penny-pinching and his chintzy approach to dealing with players. Tom Landry, head man of the Cowboys, proved to e inflexible and non-negotiable regarding players and personnel relations, and the entire Dallas organization reflected this ultra-conservative approach. He felt his system, which included complex offensive strategy, would prevail regardless of he opponent they faced.

Don Shula, who was head coach of the Colts at the time of their stunning loss to the Jets in Super Bowl III, was a disciplinarian who had little patience for youthful indiscretion, as was Paul Brown, the legendary Cleveland coach. Brown clashed routinely with star running back Jim Brown.

And of course, Vince Lombardi has been all but canonized by football fans as the leader of law and order, a fearsome drill sergeant, the ruthless dictator of the Green Bay Packers who ruled the team with an iron hand. Lomardi preached, cajoled, implored, screamed, yelled, and motivated the once-hapless Packers o championship after championship. Thereafter, he and his team have been held as examples of hard work in endeavors, professions and walks of life that have little to do with sports. Such was the cultural icon status that the 1960’s afforded sports celebrities for perhaps for the first time ever.

In the 1960’s, however, a new athlete began to emerge, one that did not merely run through walls when a coach yelled at them to do so, but one that asked specific questions before doing so and why they were doing it. The Packers and the rest of the NFL was the older generation of “don’t ask why, just do it,” and the AFL, with the anti-Lombardi Namath leading the way, became a refuge for the younger, more rambunctious generation of players and followers.

The AFL flourished with this influx of feel-young football because it carried the philosophy of being a wide open league in direct contrast with the NFL. Scores were higher, passing was increased, and the liberal passing rules rendered defenses downright pedestrian. Also, the league adopted the two-point conversion rule long since in effect in high school and college, but frowned upon by the fuddy-duddy NFL.

By contrast, the majority of the NFL teams during this period employed basic, ground-pounding, three-yards-and-a-cloud-of –dust strategy. The senior league disdained the upstart league for not being “physical.” The sentiment was that while AFL teams were flashier and more entertaining, NFL teams were physically superior and therefore were better.

That attitude was never more apparent than during the first two Super Bowl contests. In 1966, the merger was announced. The two leagues would face off in a championship contest thereafter at the conclusion of each season. By January, 1969, it became known as the “Super Bowl,” but in the beginning it was simply known as the “World Championship Game.” The Green Bay Packers, at the height of their reign, easily handled the Chiefs in the Los Angeles Coliseum in the first tilt, 35-10. The Raiders were beaten, 33-14, the following year in Lombardi’s last game as coach of the Packers. Football fans then speculated that the NFL was, in fact, superior to the AFL not only in overall play, but that even the weakest NFL teams could defeat any AFL squad.

The truth of the matter was that while the Packers were certainly the superior team in either of the two leagues at this time, the rest of the NFL was not also head and shoulders above the AFL as fans were led to believe. In the summer of 1967, the first preseason games between AFL and NFL teams took place. The Denver Broncos, a perennial doormat in the AFL, upset the NFL’s Detroit Lions and became the first junior league team to beat a senior circuit team. The Broncos defeated the Lions, 13-7. Kansas City, still smarting from their beating at the hands of Green Bay in the first Super Bowl, took revenge by pounding the Chicago Bears in a preseason tilt, 66-27. The Oakland Raiders, who had by now established themselves as a perennial contender, were still derided by their Bay Area counterparts, the San Francisco 49ers, as being in an inferior league. The 49ers beat the Raiders in their first preseason match up that summer, but the Raiders would enjoy unrivaled success in the Bay Area over the next 15 seasons before leaving for Los Angeles in the early 1980’s.

At this time, leadership in both leagues was important. Joe Foss, as first commissioner of he AFL, helped to establish legitimacy by his even-handed approach, then gave way to Al Davis in 1966. Davis assumed command of the league on a sabbatical from the Raiders, and helped bring the NFL to its’ knees with threats to lure away star players. Milt Woodard served only as president for the remainder of the AFL days, but by then the AFL and NFL were under the same roof and run by Pete Rozelle.

Rozelle would serve as commissioner of the NFL from the early sixties and would stay in that capacity until 1989. He was a constant in this period of massive growth and increased contracts.

Money and television are intertwined as an important component in the survival and success of any league, and through the advent of increased television coverage, both the AFL and the NFL grew exponentially in terms of marketability. Sports on television came of age in the 1960’s, and both leagues were to prosper as a result of this.

In 1968, the Raiders and Jets played a memorable contest, which became known as the “Heidi Game.” During this see-saw contest, the Jets took the lead late in the fourth quarter, 32-29. NBC then preempted the broadcast the show the children’s movie classic as the Jets kicked off to the Raiders with 1:05 left in the game. The station’s headquarters in New York became flooded with calls from irate television viewers, but only fans in attendance at the Oakland Coliseum would enjoy the finish. The Raiders scored on a quick touchdown pass to go ahead, and then recovered a Jets’ fumble on the ensuing kickoff in the end zone to clinch the outcome.

Much to the dismay of football fans around the country, the only notice they saw of this development was the message that NBC placed on the bottom of the screen during Heidi’s romp through the Swiss Alps: Oakland 36, New York 32. Then moments later: Oakland 43, New York 32-FINAL. The furor predictably left NBC with embarrassment all over its’ face. Henceforth, the networks agreed to never take off a game even if it ran into a scheduled broadcast that would take place following the game. This forever changed sports broadcasting at protocol.

Contracts also played a huge role, because before the AFL came into existence, players did not make much money. Most were forced to work second jobs in the off-season. Their treatment at the hands of sadistic coaches- who often served as the team’s general managers and therefore the final authority on contracts- would amaze players in 2003 who often take their hard-earned liberties, such as free agency, for granted. This situation did not suddenly increase with the onset of the AFL, but over time, players began to finally earn the salaries and monetary compensation they deserved.

It is inconceivable to imagine Jerome “The Bus” Bettis today slaving away on a construction job before heading to the Pittsburgh Steelers’ training camp, or Marshall Faulk, in between gigs with the St. Louis Rams, taking up a job as a supermarket checkout clerk. Yet, work ethic and desire transcends the matter of money and security for most players.

Both the AFL and the NFL enjoyed hallmark teams of the decade that proved not only memorable, but larger-than-life. In addition to the Green Bay machine, the NFL had the Browns and Colts and both fielded excellent teams throughout the decade. The Giants, Rams, Bears, and Eagles were powerhouses at tone time or another. The Cowboys were consistently among the league’s best for years. The Cowboys emerged in the 60’s as championship-worthy under Landry, and he instilled preparation and lengthy computerized strategically approaches into his club, though he was often criticized for his impersonal approach. The Vikings established themselves as well, but gained the reputation as chokers, because their loss to the Chiefs in Super Bowl IV began a pattern of Super Bowl losses (four).

Meanwhile, the AFL’s Dallas Texans/Kansas City Chiefs and Oakland Raiders were the league heavyweights by decade’s end, with the Boston Patriots, Buffalo Bills, Houston Oilers and Los Angeles/San Diego Chargers all being strong early in the 60’s.

The Raiders grew from laughable losers into perennial winners under Al Davis, because he appeared to be on the cutting edge of football with his penchant for the long bomb and entertaining offense and aggressive defense that struck fear into opposing teams. Davis’ handling of players was also unprecedented in that he let the players be themselves, rather than like controlled robots under other systems. While other coaches and owners were tyrants and martinets who ran their teams like a police state, Davis’s attitude from the start was to leave them be as long as they got the job done on game day. When John Madden took over as Raiders coach, the prevailing attitude of “Just Win, Baby” evolved. Thus, the Raiders legend is chock full of players who were regarded as questionable character players, flakes, problem players and malcontents on other teams who blossomed in Oakland.

Other teams put restrictions on players most found stifling, but necessary (under the Lombardi school of thought) and some found intolerable.

“We will win, I guarantee it,” Namath uttered days before Super Bowl III, which pitted his Jets against the mighty Colts, a team regarded as unbeatable through the NFL ranks. The Colts came into the game with one loss among 14 decisions; the Jets were 11-3 in the regular season.

Though the mythical Packers had fallen, most believed the Colts as just as strong and powerful as the old Green Bay dynastic clubs.

In defeating the Colts, 16-7, the Jets not only proved to the world that the AFL had arrived, but that the AFL has indeed broken the NFL monopoly that had existed for so long in pro football. The Jets also beat the Colts at their game- smashmouth football and opportunistic defense. Jets running back Matt Snell continually moved the ball on the ground for New York all afternoon. The defense constantly thwarted Baltimore threats by creating turnovers. And Namath, with his hellbent-for-leather approach, confounded both TV viewers and he Colts defense alike by carving them up with a short, controlled passing game. Namath was not known for a conservative approach, either in his quarterbacking style or his life off the field.

The Jets were not a superior team to Baltimore, and few fans, even today, would consider them the better team. But in the end they were victorious over the Colts, 16-7. An indelible mark upon the world of pro football had been created that had never been seen before and is not likely to be seen again.

In the end, after the crowd had exited Miami’s Orange Bowl and disbelieving fans turned away from their TV sets, Jets lineman Bob Talamini summed up the colossal upset. “If this proves anything,” he said at his locker still in uniform following the game, “football is football, the AFL and the NFL can be mentioned in the same breath.”