Following the Green Bay Packers victory in Super Bowl II, doubts about the AFL's ability to compete with the NFL increased. Days before Super Bowl III, New York Jets QB Joe Namath made a bold prediction by guaranteeing a win over the favored Baltimore Colts. He proved a man of his word, leading the Jets to a 16-7 upset victory over the Colts. Trailing 16-0 in the 4th quarter, the Colts QB Johnny Unitas, who had a sore arm, took over and drove the Colts to a TD but it was too late. Take over the Colts after the touchdown with 3:14 left and try to defeat the Jets.
Conditions:
- Now, this is not a recreation moment. This is a history altering moment. Only some of the history altering moments have actual conditions. This one has "Win the game with QB Johnny Unitas".
This is going to suck. We only have 3:15 remaining (I can only set situation mode with 5 second increments). We do have all of our timeouts, but we don't have time to kickoff, stop the Jets, get a TD, kickoff again, recover again and get a Field Goal. Well ... maybe we have ... but I don't think so. We are going for an Onside Kick. If we manage to get possession and we get into the FG range before the 2 minute warning, we can win this game. The key is BEFORE the 2 minute warning. If we take too long, we are probably going to lose.
First we need to get this onside kick back. So come on.
Hmm ... nope. Definitely not what I want. I'll just post when we get the onside kick back. I'll be back with you in a few.
3 tries later.
YES! He missed it! Catch it!
And the Colts fall on the football. There is still hope in this game.
Now, by default in the roster, Earl Morrall is the starting QB. However, like in the game I'm going to put Johnny Unitas as the starter. We need to win this game with him.
All right, Unitas is under the gun, 3:15 on the clock, let's get this done. Note, this part took me about 10 tries. Seriously. Either we couldn't get the TD, we couldn't stop the Jets, we couldn't score the second time, or the Jets came back to win. It was pretty hard. Also, this game was on the Orange Bowl, but when I selected it by altering the .exh file, we got sent to Heinz Field. Not sure why.
We first call for a play action pass and Unitas looks down field.
He launches it to Alex Hawkins and that looks like he won't catch it.
Wait ... he did catch it! This was sort of a miracle, one play, one TD. Sadly, our place kicker shanked the XP. So we are down by 3, we need to stop the Jets and get that football back.
All right Joe Namath, you ain't passing the ball. We all know this.
Sure thing, Namath handed the ball to Emerson Boozer 3 times and we got 4th down.
They got 3 times of that, and I'm happy with it. They punt the ball. This is good news for a great reason. We did all that BEFORE the 2 minute warning.
Ok. Unitas, I need you to be clutch so we take the Lombardi to Baltimore ... hmm ... I wonder what happens if we win. Maybe, in an alternate future, the Colts will stay in Baltimore and we will have the Indianapolis Ravens?
First play, no one got open. So I made Johnny Unitas run. He's not Steve Young but I want him to act like him today.
This guy. Alex Hawkins. To me, Hawkins is like what Wes Welker was to Tom Brady. The Game Changing Slot Receiver. He was the guy I targeted the most. He catched this one and fell out of bounds, which stops the clock.
The only other targeted was Jimmy Orr. He catched this football.
Got out of this tackle.
And refused to got down until he was inside the Red Zone. Now, we need a quick TD and we can end this.
And just like Wes, Alex has this chance to drop key catches. He dropped it this time.
Then we ran the play again and he brought it in. Baltimore is on top! Now ... we need to stop the Jets from getting into the endzone.
Namath's first pass was to George Sauer, who got a first down and gave a man a punch in the face.
The secondary stops what was definitely not only a first down, but a huge gain.
Followed by another deflections to force 3rd down.
And this pass that had TD written all over it.
So, it's 4th down. Can Joe Namath prove he's a man of his word and pull this upset?
Hell, no. That was going to work.
And so we get a great Super Bowl comeback.
