Sunday Morning Coffee — February 8, 2026 — The Perfect New York Jets

By Roy Berger in Las Vegas NV

This is a story about perfection. This is a story about the New York Jets.

You can read that again, but it still says what you thought it said.

Later today, with a hundred million people and two hundred million eyeballs watching some football game from a hard-to-get-to-nook in California called Santa Clara, I will do what I’ve done every big game Sunday for the past 56 years and give a damn less.

Since early evening on January 12, 1969, when the New York Jets achieved perfection, this day and the game hasn’t really mattered. It won’t today either unless the Patriots (boo) lose. That would be a pleasant thing for Jets fans.

When you’re a Jets fan you are imprisoned for life. In 1961 over on the West Side, Riff sang, “When you’re a Jet you’re a Jet all the way from your first cigarette to your last dying day.” For those of us who remember 1/12/69, and are now closer to our last dying day, we will leave this planet knowing our team, once in our lifetime no matter how long ago, achieved perfection.

So what if we finished this season at 3-13, tied for the worst record in the league. That earned us the second pick of April’s NFL draft and our likely quarterback selection, Dante Moore of Oregon, chose to stay in school another year rather than become a Jet. So what if our non-playoff streak now dates back to 2010, the longest of any team in major American professional sports. Big deal. We are still perfect. 1-0. Only three other NFL teams can brag about that kind of perfection.

So today I will do what I do every year on this day. I will forget about our just completed disastrous season and remember the 1968 season morphing into January of ‘69 when I was 16. I’ll go out to the garage and show Andi what needs to be straightened up. I’ll begin to assemble income tax forms, far more pleasing than watching the Patriots. We hate them because they’re good and we’re not. They dominate our division and we don’t. We are their doormat. Or maybe it’s because on January 3, 2000, Bill Belichick (boo) accepted the Jets head coaching job and exactly one day later, January 4, questioned what he just did and submitted his hand-written resignation on a paper napkin. Three weeks later Belichick was hired by the Patriots and stayed long enough to win six Super Bowls. He also lost three which makes us perfect and he’s not. I will then go to YouTube and watch in its entirety that January 12, 1969, NFL-AFL Championship game between the Jets and the then Baltimore Colts, 15 years before they moved to Indy. Curt Gowdy, Al DeRogatis and Kyle Rote with the classic call. It was the third championship game between the bitter rival AFL and NFL and the first game of that magnitude to be called the Super Bowl. Then I will watch The Ed Sullivan Show, the one that aired when Joe Namath left Miami waving his right index finger telling the world what we already knew—the Jets are number one. Sullivan’s guests that celebratory night were The Chamber Brothers; Gina Lollobrigida (oh my); Don Rickles; Jerry Vale and the easily forgotten comedy act The Nitwits. It was one of the rare occasions when the Sullivan show wasn’t broadcast from New York; instead, at three-month old Circus Circus in Vegas. Great show, better earlier football game. I’ll probably also tune into iTunes and play Marvin Gaye’s, I Heard It Through the Grapevine, the number one song in the country on that historic early ‘69 day. And then at some point today I will run over to the neighborhood Red Rock casino and play a five-number keno card—1/12/69 and 16/7. The date and score of the perfect Jets.

And all of you Packers, Chiefs, Eagles, 49ers, Steelers, Cowboys, Patriots (boo) and even the neighboring Giants supporters who are full of yourselves with those 40 combined Super Bowl trophies, please remember you also lost 21 games between y’all and that is far, far from Jets perfection. Your combined winning percentage is only .655. Ours 1.000%. So, stuff that inside of your Lombardi Trophies. Then there is the league riff-raff from Cleveland, Detroit, Houston and Jacksonville who have never put on the Super Bowl pads and experienced Jets perfection. I’m sure that hurts, but too bad. Let’s not forget Buffalo, the poor 0-4 Super Bowl loser Bills. A Jets division rival. You’ve never sipped Veuve Clicquot like we have. Come to think of it, the Vikings are also zip for four. Slugs.

Otherwise, winless Super Bowl teams are Cincy three times; Atlanta and Carolina twice while Arizona, the Chargers and Titans have been there once but unlike the Jets couldn’t get the job done.

With full disclosure, four teams have played in a Super Bowl and never lost. Tampa Bay and Baltimore (Ravens not Colts) twice; New Orleans and the Jets, once.

The Jets huddle as the Miami sun sets on Baltimore’s chances.

Actually, the Jets’ 1968 season success started three years earlier in April 1965 when they selected Joe Namath from Alabama as the first pick of the AFL draft. Then the front office turned over the salary apple cart convincing Namath to sign with the upstart league instead of the St. Louis Cardinals who took him as the 12th selection in the more prestigious NFL draft. (Dick Butkus went to the Bears first). A pro football record contract of $427,000 over three seasons cinched the Namath/Jets deal. The mink coat came later.

That ‘65 season, Namath’s rookie year, started in typical Jets fashion when they lost their first six games as Namath split time under center with third year pro Mike Taliaferro. Joe then got the job full-time. The Jets won five of the last eight.

Building around their quarterback and adding key pieces like Emerson Boozer, Matt Snell, Don Maynard, George Sauer, Pete Lammons, Dave Herman and Winston Hill on offense; then with Al Atkinson, Vernon Biggs, John Elliott, Gerry Philbin, Randy Beverly and Johnny Sample on defense, the good guys improved to 6-6-2 in 1966 and 8-5-1 in ‘67.

It all came together in 1968 with 61-year-old head coach and general manager Weeb Ewbank guiding the team to an 11-3 record and a win over the Oakland Raiders 27-23 in the AFL championship game. In those days there was one playoff game, East winner vs. West champ. Beating the Raiders earned the green and white the right to be slaughtered by the NFL’s Baltimore Colts in what was called, for the first time, the ‘Super Bowl.’

Baltimore, coached by a 33-year-old kid named Don Shula, finished the season 13-1 and were 18-point favorites in the game at the Orange Bowl. Nobody thought the Jets had any chance. The first two championship games between the rival leagues were dominated by Green Bay who had no trouble beating Kansas City and Oakland. Namath, a few days before the game, told those gathered at the Miami Touchdown Club meeting that he guaranteed the Jets would win mainly to conjure up interest in the game that was predicted to be non-competitive. Whether he believed it or not, the tabloids had a field day and went wild with the guarantee. Namath was taken to task the next day at Jets practice by the diminutive but stern Ewbank. Namath in turn retorted, “Well, Coach, we are going to win, aren’t we? I’m just telling them what you told us.” Ewbank shook his head and walked away.

Namath believed that Baltimore quarterback Earl Morrall, subbing for an injured Johnny Unitas, wasn’t of the caliber that the Jets AFL league rivals Oakland’s Daryle Lamonica and KC’s Len Dawson were. The Jets top receiver Don Maynard was hobbled with a pulled hamstring, unbeknownst to the Colts who double-teamed him the entire game thus allowing the Jets to take advantage of single coverage on wide-out George Sauer who caught eight passes for 133 yards. Maynard, the decoy, had none. There’s no getting away with that deceit today when the media watches everything. I remember watching, sitting on the trendy-for-the-era plush green shag carpet in our Long Island den. Maybe an omen that green would be the color of the day? Right after Lloyd Geisel from the Washington National Symphony Orchestra tooted the National Anthem and Apollo 8 astronauts Frank Borman, Jim Lovell and William Anders recited the Pledge of Allegiance, the Jets behind a four-yard touchdown run by hard charging Matt Snell took a 7-0 lead to the halftime locker room. The Florida A&M University marching band provided the halftime entertainment. The second half was all Jets and all Jim Turner who kicked three field goals before Baltimore added a meaningless fourth quarter touchdown. The Colts did some kicking too but instead of through the goalposts it was to their own assess turning the ball over five times in a game that was still remarkably close in net yards—the Jets gained 337, the Colts 324, but Baltimore never could sustain a drive before losing the ball. In fact, Namath was right about Morrall who was intercepted three times before the desperate Colts turned to a hobbled Unitas, Namath’s boyhood idol. Unitas played the fourth quarter; he was 11-24, passing for 110 yards but also had one picked. It was too little, too late for the prohibitive favorites.

That’s it. Over. 16-7. Eighteen point ‘dogs cash. Namath who was 17-28 for 206 yards was the MVP and Broadway Joe officially became an American hero and brand. More importantly, no matter how bad things were to come for the Jets up until today, the Jets are 1-0, a winning percentage of 1.000 in Super Bowls. Perfection

Namath holds court with NY writers at Fort Lauderdale team hotel pool and then, three days later, delivers on his guarantee,

So this evening when Seattle (1-2 in Super Bowls) and New England (6-5 in the big game) play it’s laughingly not even close to Jets perfection. And any Jets fan who watches today’s game has particular interest in Seattle’s roster of ex-Jets. Jason Myers, a Jet in 2018 will be the Seahawks kicker; Leonard Williams, the stellar defensive tackle who wore a Jets’ uniform from 2015-19 joins quarterback Sam Darnold as Seahawks. Darnold was the Jets’ third overall pick in the 2018 draft out of USC; Williams their sixth overall in 2015 also from USC. And as everyone since Joe Namath has, Darnold flamed out in New York after three seasons and has now, of course, become a Super Bowl quarterback wearing a different shade of green. Some Jets fans will root against Darnold, Williams and Myers. Most however will pull for them to beat New England. If that happens those ex-Jets will become our Super Bowl heroes du jour.

As for me, after The Ed Sullivan Show re-run, I will take a nap. And I will dream. I will dream that once more in my lifetime the Jets will play in a Super Bowl. And not to get too greedy, but why not stay perfect and win it?

Sometimes even the most improbable dreams come true. Don’t they?

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I’m proud that Medjet is sponsoring Sunday Morning Coffee. I spent 20 wonderful years with Medjet in Birmingham, Alabama, and can tell you unequivocally they are the standard-bearer for medical assistance membership programs. A talented staff, who cares about its members, is at the forefront of the company’s success. Whether you are traveling for business or pleasure, domestic or international, a Medjet membership should be an important part of your travel portfolio before you leave home. Check out the Medjet website at medjet.com or just tap on the Medjet logo and you’ll be able to get a look at Medjet’s services, rules and regulations, pricing, and an overview of the organization. And remember, any opinions expressed in Sunday Morning Coffee content or comments belong to the author and not the sponsor. Safe travels with your Medjet membership! — Roy Berger