22 Players, One Ball

Don Maynard had delivered the Jets to that epic Orange Bowl event, catching the big touchdown passes from Joe Willie against the Raiders but emerging from the AFL title game with an injured leg. The Colts were oblivious to the sore hamstring, so Namath and Weeb Ewbank came up with a plan.

Reduce the future Hall of Famer to an animate prop in a drama that would flip the sport upside down. “I didn’t catch a single pass,” Maynard recalled by phone Tuesday, “but I really had a great game.” Maynard later retired from the NFL as the league's all-time leading pass-catcher.

Forty-one years later, his story resonates in the days before the Jets and Colts play for a berth in Super Bowl XLIV. So much has changed about the NFL since these franchises last met for a title, including, of course, the home port of the Colts, who were trucked off to Indianapolis under the cover of darkness more than a quarter-century back.

But this much remains the same: Teams win championships, not individuals. For the 2009 Jets to reach the South Florida destination of the 1968 Jets, they’ll need the kind of all-for-one, one-for-all commitment made by Maynard at the expense of his personal place in Super Bowl lore.

“Early in that game I got 5 yards behind everybody,” Maynard said. “Joe threw it, and it was just 2 or 3 inches too far. But it scared the Colts enough for them to double- and triple-team me the rest of the way, leaving everyone else open.”

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