1966 Game of the Year: Jets 38, Patriots 28
By: Sal Maiorana
Tags: Sports, American Football League, Pro Football, Joe Namath, New York Jets

THE AFL 1960–69: A RETROSPECTIVE

1966 Game of the Year: Jets 38, Patriots 28

Joe Namath had a big day, and the Jets victory opened the door for the Bills win their third straight East Division title

Matt Snell and the Jets shocked the Patriots in the 1966 season finale which cost Boston the East Division title.

Ralph Wilson, the owner of the Buffalo Bills, flew to New York City on the next-to-last day of the regular season to watch the Joe Namath Jets take on the Boston Patriots.

Ordinarily, Wilson wouldn’t travel to games that did not involve his team, but this was a special case, and the one-hour flight didn’t seem like much of an inconvenience.

Wilson’s Bills were locked in a spirited duel with Boston for the Eastern Division championship. Entering the final weekend, Buffalo was 8–4–1, the Patriots 8–3–2. Very simply, the Bills had no chance to win the division if the Patriots defeated the Jets at Shea Stadium because even a Buffalo victory the next day over the woeful Denver Broncos would leave the Bills a half-game short and send Boston into the AFL Championship Game against Kansas City.

Wilson felt the need to cheer on the Jets, and by the time the game ended, Wilson’s voice must have been hoarse. With Namath torching the Patriots for 287 passing yards and three touchdowns with no interceptions, the Jets pulled off a surprising 38–28 victory in front of 58,921 energized fans.

“You fellows want some champagne sent in here?” Wilson asked afterward in the locker room, where he had been invited by Jets owner Sonny Werblin.

Of course, there was still another piece of the puzzle to be put in place by the Bills. They had to beat Denver the next day at War Memorial Stadium to clinch their third straight division title, and they did so, 38–21.

The Jets had been knocked out of division contention weeks ago, but Weeb Ewbank’s troops still had designs on a .500 season, and the Jets came out on fire and were never doused. They rolled up a team-record 528 yards including 241 on the ground with Matt Snell gaining 124 and Emerson Boozer 117. And just as important was the fact that Namath — who threw 27 interceptions in his second season — played turnover-free.

“Joe learned, at last,” said Ewbank after the game. “He learned when to throw and when not to throw. When Joe’s going like that, we’re really rolling.”

After Gino Cappelletti caught an 18-yard TD pass from Babe Parilli in the first quarter, the Jets exploded for 24 points in a row. Boozer began the onslaught with a 54-yard run after the kickoff and three plays later, Namath zipped a TD pass to Don Maynard to tie the game at 7–7.

The Jets followed up with a pair of 80-yard drives and a 75-yarder that resulted in Boozer’s one-yard TD plunge, a Jim Turner 12-yard field goal, and Namath’s second TD pass to Maynard from eight yards out.

Boston came to life briefly in the third quarter when Parilli fired an 18-yard TD pass to Jim Whalen and then had the Patriots on the move again in Jets territory. But New York safety Bill Baird picked off Parilli at the New York 9, and three plays hence, Namath beat a blitz and lofted a 77-yard TD pass to George Sauer that blew the game open at 31–13.

“All kinds of terrible things happened to us,” said Boston coach Mike Holovak. “Dropped passes, penalties, men falling down in the open. That’s not football.”

Two minutes later Baird intercepted another Parilli pass at the Jets 22 to kill another drive and it was obvious Wilson would be flying back to Buffalo a happy man.

Boston scored twice in the fourth on Jim Nance’s one-yard plunge and Parilli’s TD pass to Art Graham, but in between, Snell ripped off a 25-yard TD run to keep the Jets comfortably in front.

“That’s the kind of football we should have been playing all year,” said Ewbank. “We’re a much better team than a lot of people think.”