Bubba Smith comments on possible Super Bowl III fix (2002) 

He bet on his team to lose in SB 3. It was payback time.

Not even field goals? 😂

@@silversurfer231 Lou Michaels missed chip shots. See my comment above

How do you know?

He just did they got their ass kicked

16 to 7 is an ass kicking? In baseball. Wrong sport dude.

The $3 million dollar bet was from an advance he received from the NFL for agreeing to move the Colts to the AFC after the merger.

Every time

Absolutely. If u watch it it's so obvious. 4 int. I think 3 in the end zone. A missed fg, fumble etc....

Agree

​@@hansjuker8296I

Very good points by you, I actually don't blame Colts TE#84 Tom Mitchell for that pass ricocheting off of him because a Jet DB#42 had deflected it right before that. But that was because Earl Morrall erroneously telegraphed the pass. Yes, the plain truth is Earl Morrall was not looking off defenders and was telegraphing passes at that point in his career. He got better at that part of his game by 1972 in Miami, but back in 1968 he really was not there yet regardless of his NFL MVP award. We know it was no fluke that the AFL won the Super Bowl because the AFL came right back and did the same thing the next year in convincing fashion. Colts were just going through frustration years, such as that 1965 playoff game at Green Bay when I think it was just an honest mistake by the official when they called the FG good and it was luck that went the Packers' way on that call. But we know luck is always going to be a part of the game and the Packers going on to win 1965 NFL championship was no fluke. But I have to admit it would have been unbelievably frustrating as a Colt fan watching that 1965 playoff loss at Green Bay, or going undefeated the entire 1967 season until the final week of the regular season and then not even making the playoffs! Then the Super Bowl III devastating loss, but it goes both ways. Dallas was devastated by losing SB 5 to the Colts especially with Dallas saying they recovered that fumble by their Duane Thomas down at Baltimore goal-line when Dallas was looking at a 20-6 lead or atleast a 16-6 lead, and apparently the Colts (perhaps) were awarded the football that they may have not recovered. Colts eventually came back and won. In 1958 NFL Championship Game that the Colts also won, we know there was controversy over whether or not Frank Gifford had made it on that 3rd & 4 with two minutes remaining.

Bubba Smith, brings up a very good point.. Johnny Orr was the primary receiver!! An Earl Morrall never looked at him never even looked his way🤔 and then throws a horrible pass down the middle that was easily intercepted what was he looking at,and thinking? Receiver wasn't open for one And he under throws him 🙄

At this point u would have to be a complete dumbas to go against a player who was actually in the game.

Very good points. And then there's the fact that Johnny Unitas threw an interception, too, not just Earl. Also, in a team sport with 22 guys per side plus special teams' players participating, plus Shula and other coaches, paying off ONE guy-- the quarterback -- is supposed to do the trick? That's a crucial position, true, but again, they brought in the ailing Unitas, and he did them little good. And if you listen to the Jets talk about that game, many of them felt that Baltimore was going to be somewhat of an easy mark for them, based on the films they saw prior to the game. In their eyes, this was not in any way a game where Baltimore should have been favored at all. All due respect to Bubba, who was a great player and whom I loved mostly as Al Bundy's nemesis, Spare Tire Dixon, in that great episode of MARRIED WITH CHILDREN, but that's an awful big accusation to make with ZERO evidence. Rosenbloom dancing at a party he had planned is somehow evidence that he got what he wanted in throwing a game, when he didn't need the money in the first place? No, it's not evidence of anything. And in fairness to the undeniably great Bubba, how did HE do in this game? Oh yeah-- badly. He was almost useless. Dave Hermann was blocking his behind very well for all four quarters. So maybe, just maybe, great players like Bubba were shut down by . . . a superior team. Oh yeah, Morrall on his best day was no Namath. And Namath was not the greatest thing since sliced bread, either, #100 on the NFL's all-time 100 players list here on RU-vid, with a lot of QBs ahead of him on that list. But he was far superior to Morrall. The merger of the two leagues was the reason for an allegedly fixed SB III game? Uh, no. That merger was already underway and a fate accompli well before this game was ever played.

That pass was so high, no wonder it bounced off Tom Mitchell's chest. Rotten throw!!!

How about that! And Joe Robbie stole Shula and gave him 10% ownership of Miami for showing up. Suddenly Earl is cut and is his backup again. What other head coach in NFL history got that deal????? NONE!!!!

Yes.

The game wasn't fixed and frankly, there aren't any good arguments supporting it. Morrall just didn't play very well. If SB3 was fixed, so was SB5, a game Morrall won. In that game, BOTH Morrall and Craig Morton played bad enough to lose. Morrall didn't have anything to do with 2 missed FGs by the Colts in first half, which would have had the score at 7-6 at halftime instead of 7-0. Johnny Unitas came in during the 3rd Quarter and he was ineffective 2. The Colts lost due to their poor play and 5 TOs, including one pick by Unitas. Morrall was a career backup with ONE good year and only 4 out of 20 seasons spent as a starter. He is nowhere NEAR the HOF. Face it: the Colts came in WAY overconfident and likely didn't prepare properly. That was Shula's fault. I don't know what Rosenbloom bet on and I don't care. Morrall would never have tanked the most important game of his life up until that point as he likely thought he had a real future to start SOMEWHERE in the league if not for the Colts. Earl Morrall died in 2014, 3 years after Bubba Smith. Smith never confronted him with this allegation. Would you have if you truly thought a teammate threw a game? I would have. Smith was grandstanding. He had a mediocre NFL career with maybe one or two good years and nothing after that (possibly due to injury). He had to stay relevant with his so-called acting. I liked Bubba, but this fixed theory is truly nuts. If Shula wasn't involved, it didn't happen. And even you admit Shula wasn't involved. Shula could have, and probably should have, replaced Morrall earlier. That would have eliminated the possibility of him throwing the game. Besides, what happens if Morrall gets hurt during the first or second series? What happens if he says, "screw it; I'm playing football; Rosenbloom can kiss my ass." What is Rosenbloom going to do then? There's no way Rosenbloom is going to take that risk, that of losing his money and being exposed. The rest of the ownership would have taken his franchise away from him. Some of you people watch WAY too many TV shows and movies. But they aren't real world. (Stupidity and not strategy rules the real world: trust me. If you were to allege Rosenbloom did something totally stupid and tried to cover it up and this happened, then yeah, I might go for that. But not this.)

Morrall in the HOF. No freaking way. He was a career journeyman. Joe Namath doesn't even belong in there. His pass completion percentage is right at 50%. Good QB, but not HOF. I think membership to that club is rigged too. Why is Colts MLB Mike Curtis not in there? What a joke.

Even if the game was close, AFL would have earned cred. Colts were the best NFL passing offense, but the AFL was a passing league, with pre Coryell offenses. Jets were seasoned against the pass. Plus they had Weeb, who trained Unitas and most of Shula's coaching staff. People always overlook Weeb's role. Bubba blaming the offense, when Snell ran up your a*s.

You make some good points but even rosenblooms wife and children said he was tied in with gangsters and that there were multiple million dollar bets against the colts days before the game. In an economy like 1968 there might have been, well I don’t know how many, but couldn’t have been slot of people willing to just throw million dollar bets at a sports game at that time.. you combine that with the nfl trying to expand and trying to get people to take the afl seriously and all of it points to a fix. Regardless of what happened on the field, which only helps the case. If you think rich people care about integrity you are sadly mistaken my man. Sports are about as safe as medicine when it comes to that.

If don shula believed moral was in on it he wouldn't have brought him to miami.

Wow, did YT tell you they were doing that?

That is so true. Usually a Super Bowl team that wins can hang around for a few years as a real contender. The Jets went back to mediocority very quickly after that win.

Both NFL teams lost to superior AFL teams. Just that the world wasn't ready for them.

Yes, something was up that just wasn't quite right. Just like the 2020 election, something went wrong somewhere and put to rest quickly. I have learned more about this game over the years, I am sort of surprised there is not a documentary or something more in depth about it although I did read a chapter in a sports conspiracy book about it. Bubba is the only one from that game that I have ever heard comment about the suspicion, at least so far.

Ridiculous conspiracy theory man, if that was the case they would've done it in the first or second super bowl. The reality is is that colts were just outplayed by a jets team that had the number 1 ranked defense in the Afl. If you look at that game they forced the colts into making bad throws and got like 4 pics. Matt snell was tearing up the colts weak side and George seauer and Don manyard made big catches. Jets won the super bowl fair and square.

Unitas has more INTs than TDs and he is a HOFer.

Joshuacruz ppl like yo u are why the world is full of dumbasses

@@scottodonnell7121 the starter had three interceptions.

Are you sure about that? Rozelle was the GM for the Rams when Carroll owned them and it was Carroll who brokered the deal to have Rozelle replace Bell when he retired.

@@MCPGCGR I know it for a fact he was a degenerate gambler but all the principles are now dead.

You mean the field goal that was about 10 feet wide but called good? Yeah that was terrible.

What? I need to see this lol

I’ll never understand how they got away with that one

You are extremely naive my boy.

Game was fixed

@@daveparker5541 def fixed games today are fixed back then must’ve been way to easy inside the 20yardline 5 times and no pts as a 19/12 favorite? Yea fixed

You sound like a Jets/Joe Namath fan. The Game was fixed. New York team, the Mob territory??? Come on, you are like the rest who are AFRAID to deal with and cannot handle the truth. Morrall looked like a deer in headlights, AFTER he went to Cleveland and destroyed the Browns, and he throws idiot like interceptions to who... Randy freakin Beverly??? Come on, it was FIXED. The AFL dies if the Colts, like they should have, stomp the Jets. Snell played good, but that still would not have been enough to beat a team hailed as the greatest of all time just two weeks before that game???? It was fixed, deal with it!!

Yes, the plain truth is Earl Morrall was not looking off defenders and was telegraphing passes at that point in his career. He got better at that part of his game by 1972 in Miami, but back in 1968 he really was not there yet regardless of his NFL MVP award. We know it was no fluke that the AFL won the Super Bowl because the AFL came right back and did the same thing the next year in convincing fashion. Colts were just going through frustration years, such as that 1965 playoff game at Green Bay when I think it was just an honest mistake by the official when they called the FG good and it was luck that went the Packers' way on that call. But we know luck is always going to be a part of the game and the Packers going on to win 1965 NFL championship was no fluke. But I have to admit it would have been unbelievably frustrating as a Colt fan watching that 1965 playoff loss at Green Bay, or going undefeated the entire 1967 season until the final week of the regular season and then not even making the playoffs! Then the Super Bowl III devastating loss, but it goes both ways. Dallas was devastated by losing SB 5 to the Colts especially with Dallas saying they recovered that fumble by their Duane Thomas down at Baltimore goal-line when Dallas was looking at a 20-6 lead or atleast a 16-6 lead, and apparently the Colts (perhaps) were awarded the football that they may have not recovered. Colts eventually came back and won. In 1958 NFL Championship Game that the Colts also won, we know there was controversy over whether or not Frank Gifford had made it on that 3rd & 4 with two minutes remaining.

Yea cuz he threw the ball at his helmet 100 miles an hour.. it wasn't supposed to intercepted but it wasn't thrown to be caught.. watch the game

If you look at the tapes, you'll see that he missed way more than just Orr. He played as if he forgot every play in the playbook. It was fishy AF.

So he just thought his wide receiver disappeared into another dimension? Pretty sure he knew where his receiver was supposed to be and there was no portal to the Bermuda triangle that got him.

@@ckobo84 he was the primary receiver and Morrall never looked at him!

Yes, the plain truth is Earl Morrall was not looking off defenders and was telegraphing passes at that point in his career. He got better at that part of his game by 1972 in Miami, but back in 1968 he really was not there yet regardless of his NFL MVP award. We know it was no fluke that the AFL won the Super Bowl because the AFL came right back and did the same thing the next year in convincing fashion. Colts were just going through frustration years, such as that 1965 playoff game at Green Bay when I think it was just an honest mistake by the official when they called the FG good and it was luck that went the Packers' way on that call. But we know luck is always going to be a part of the game and the Packers going on to win 1965 NFL championship was no fluke. But I have to admit it would have been unbelievably frustrating as a Colt fan watching that 1965 playoff loss at Green Bay, or going undefeated the entire 1967 season until the final week of the regular season and then not even making the playoffs! Then the Super Bowl III devastating loss, but it goes both ways. Dallas was devastated by losing SB 5 to the Colts especially with Dallas saying they recovered that fumble by their Duane Thomas down at Baltimore goal-line when Dallas was looking at a 20-6 lead or atleast a 16-6 lead, and apparently the Colts (perhaps) were awarded the football that they may have not recovered. Colts eventually came back and won. In 1958 NFL Championship Game that the Colts also won, we know there was controversy over whether or not Frank Gifford had made it on that 3rd & 4 with two minutes remaining.

Too many coincidences is not a coincidence.

The fact u you used the term conspiracy theory i know your a dumb sheep

@joshuacruz4244 You are 100% right. I've watched SB III, in its entirety, & there is ZERO evidence of the game being fixed. The Colts were only trailing 7-0 at the half, but what happened in the 3rd QTR is what everybody should take notice of. The Colts just flat out got smothered by the Jets in the 3rd QTR and that is where the game was really lost for the Colts.

You never know, but things seemed to be set in motion for an upset.

Bubba confronted Joe Namath once and told him it was a fixed game and a cheap win for the Jets. So Namath replied, well you were there too. So if there was a fix you must have been in on it because you didn't do anything all day!

No doubt

I know that there is suspicion of a conspiracy but I have never heard a lot of comments from players and coaches about it before.

💯

Cowboys fan here even I say Neil O'Donnell threw this game and handed it to us

I “Guarantee” it was. Seems awfully coincidental that the AFL needed a win to solidify the merger.

They so hurt 😂 true definition of cognitive dissonance

Exactly money talks and S***T walks. Plus no social media in 1969.

One of the Bucs defensive players who won the 2002 season Super Bowl vs the Raiders said on a radio show that the game is decided off the field and that it doesn't matter which team has the best players. Also, I have a very strong suspicion that a team called the Patriots with red, white, and blue colors didn't just happen to win the Super Bowl only a few months after 9/11.

You nailed it. As soon as Taylor Swift came into the picture, it was clear as day to me that the chiefs would go all the way. Same with the Rams Bengals a couple years back, I knew there was no chance the home team wasn’t going to win in their own city. Think of all the money the city wouldn’t have made in post game celebrations, and in LA that’s big big money. On a side note, I find it suspicious that chiefs offensive line went without a single penalty in the post season. And yeah I lost all respect for Kelce when he started hocking for big pharma.

Speaking of KC, it's curious how in SB IV the vaunted Minnesota purple people eaters defense that gave up far and away the fewest points in the NFL (133) laid down and got matriculated all over by the Chiefs, to further "legitimize" the power of and the parity that the AFL had with the NFL to validate the merger, in case anybody missed the storyline from the previous year's show. The superbowl champion Chiefs first NFL season the following year, 1970, they were a pedestrian 7-5-2, while the Vikings kept their (regular season) standards up with a 12-2 record.

You’re a bore

Your dad was a smart man. 👍

You are catching on

It would be great to have a documentary on this conspiracy.

@@rog9601 See 'Unofficial History of the NFL'

I know people who knew CR . He was a crook in highest degree.

​@@rog9601In My memory, one of the first Frontline PBS TV shows was about Rosenberg

​@@DG-zo6kcI have seen it. It's very interesting.

Mannings arm barely worked that entire season. The panthers dominated every team they played the whole year and then just forgot how to play in the Super Bowl. Not to mention cam Newton not going for the ball on that fumble.

@@Galilelo_Telescope Exactly.

I wish there was a documentary on this event or at least I have not heard of one. There is a book about sport conspiracies and this game is one of the chapters.

Yes, the plain truth is Earl Morrall was not looking off defenders and was telegraphing passes at that point in his career. He got better at that part of his game by 1972 in Miami, but back in 1968 he really was not there yet regardless of his NFL MVP award. We know it was no fluke that the AFL won the Super Bowl because the AFL came right back and did the same thing the next year in convincing fashion. Colts were just going through frustration years, such as that 1965 playoff game at Green Bay when I think it was just an honest mistake by the official when they called the FG good and it was luck that went the Packers' way on that call. But we know luck is always going to be a part of the game and the Packers going on to win 1965 NFL championship was no fluke. But I have to admit it would have been unbelievably frustrating as a Colt fan watching that 1965 playoff loss at Green Bay, or going undefeated the entire 1967 season until the final week of the regular season and then not even making the playoffs! Then the Super Bowl III devastating loss, but it goes both ways. Dallas was devastated by losing SB 5 to the Colts especially with Dallas saying they recovered that fumble by their Duane Thomas down at Baltimore goal-line when Dallas was looking at a 20-6 lead or atleast a 16-6 lead, and apparently the Colts (perhaps) were awarded the football that they may have not recovered. Colts eventually came back and won. In 1958 NFL Championship Game that the Colts also won, we know there was controversy over whether or not Frank Gifford had made it on that 3rd & 4 with two minutes remaining. But I am thinking Mad Bomber Lamonica's Achilles Heel was having to throw short, especially the swing pass (slight understatement). I am thinking Lamonica was the next best thing to great, but not truly great. Zone coverages were the downfall of Lamonica (especially with the Raiders' defense never running zone coverages themselves and always ran man coverages, which meant Lamonica could not practice against zone coverages. On NFL Films Lost Treasures when they highlighted, Steve Sabol apologized to the Jets and showed some soundbites of the Jets' sidelines showing confident the Jets were that day, as Dom Maynard said, "I'd like to play against this zone every week. Are you kidding me?" It is on "1960s AFL documentary NFL Lost Treasures" @26:35-40. Point being, the Colts running zone coverage defenses, I don't think Lamonica would have been able to beat it. But more to your point, Steve Sabol conceded the Jets were the better team.

Dude stfu the nfl is rigged been rigged since it inception. The nfl chooses who they want to win cuz its all about gambling and money. There not letting billionof dollars to go to chance amd ,ay the best team win

Agreed! Very good points. And then there's the fact that Johnny Unitas threw an interception, too, not just Earl. Also, in a team sport with 22 guys per side plus special teams' players participating, plus Shula and other coaches, paying off ONE guy-- the quarterback -- is supposed to do the trick? That's a crucial position, true, but again, they brought in the ailing Unitas, and he did them little good. And if you listen to the Jets talk about that game, many of them felt that Baltimore was going to be somewhat of an easy mark for them, based on the films they saw prior to the game. In their eyes, this was not in any way a game where Baltimore should have been favored at all. All due respect to Bubba, who was a great player and whom I loved mostly as Al Bundy's nemesis, Spare Tire Dixon, in that great episode of MARRIED WITH CHILDREN, but that's an awful big accusation to make with ZERO evidence. Rosenbloom dancing at a party he had planned is somehow evidence that he got what he wanted in throwing a game, when he didn't need the money in the first place? No, it's not evidence of anything. And in fairness to the undeniably great Bubba, how did HE do in this game? Oh yeah-- badly. He was almost useless. Dave Hermann was blocking his behind very well for all four quarters. So maybe, just maybe, great players like Bubba were shut down by . . . a superior team. Oh yeah, Morrall on his best day was no Namath. And Namath was not the greatest thing since sliced bread, either, #100 on the NFL's all-time 100 players list here on RU-vid, with a lot of QBs ahead of him on that list. But he was far superior to Morrall. The merger of the two leagues was the reason for an allegedly fixed SB III game? Uh, no. That merger was already underway and a fate accompli well before this game was ever played.

@@rog9601 Jets knew nothing. Only 4 Colts in on it. Rosenbloom, Shula, Morrall, and Lou Michaels the kicker. They put Unitas in for show and he couldnt throw with tendonitis. Sealed the deal .

🤡

It would be nice to know the full story on any possible fixing on this one.

The famous Baltimore Sun sportswriter John Steadman theorized that the Colts marching band, standing directly behind Orr and wearing colors very similar to the Colts unis, camouflaged Orr so Morrall never saw him. A bit far fetched but possible

The ONLY other theory I heard about was the sun was in his eyes. At that time of day, the angle of the sun caused Morrall to miss Orr completely. I'm not buying it.

@@stephaniegormley9982 Tom Matte supported that theory during "NFL's Greatest Games" version of Super Bowl III.

He just said he was in on it, doesn't mean he was the only one. Obviously a lot of money was probably involved and with multiple parties

Yes, the plain truth is Earl Morrall was not looking off defenders and was telegraphing passes at that point in his career. He got better at that part of his game by 1972 in Miami, but back in 1968 he really was not there yet regardless of his NFL MVP award. We know it was no fluke that the AFL won the Super Bowl because the AFL came right back and did the same thing the next year in convincing fashion. Colts were just going through frustration years, such as that 1965 playoff game at Green Bay when I think it was just an honest mistake by the official when they called the FG good and it was luck that went the Packers' way on that call. But we know luck is always going to be a part of the game and the Packers going on to win 1965 NFL championship was no fluke. But I have to admit it would have been unbelievably frustrating as a Colt fan watching that 1965 playoff loss at Green Bay, or going undefeated the entire 1967 season until the final week of the regular season and then not even making the playoffs! Then the Super Bowl III devastating loss, but it goes both ways. Dallas was devastated by losing SB 5 to the Colts especially with Dallas saying they recovered that fumble by their Duane Thomas down at Baltimore goal-line when Dallas was looking at a 20-6 lead or atleast a 16-6 lead, and apparently the Colts (perhaps) were awarded the football that they may have not recovered. Colts eventually came back and won. In 1958 NFL Championship Game that the Colts also won, we know there was controversy over whether or not Frank Gifford had made it on that 3rd & 4 with two minutes remaining.

I'd like to know more as I have not heard many players or coaches comment on it.

Unitas was 50% all season with chronic tendonitis of his throwing elbow. He was put into the game for show they had to he WAS NOT IN THE FIX. When he threw the interception lots of people suddenly got much richer and made it look legit.

That game meant a lot for the whole NFL - AFL I would not be surprised if there was something behind it.