General Forum

DON'T GET ME STARTED ON THOSE.

After I posted my opinion I thought about his Medicare commercials. His are the better ones in my opinion. (He had nothing to do with it, but I am now on Medicare.)

Say what you will about his football career, but OMG, those commercials are sooooooooo annoying!

Between him and Jimmy "JJ" Walker, I have had hours of lectures on "Medicare Part C benefits."

Stat-wise Namath is pretty pedestrian. Impact-wise he's much more significant. Pro football still wasn't that big of a deal, I don't even think the first few Super Bowls were sellouts. Namath was among a group of players that were "flashy" on and off the field that generated interest in pro football. Long hair, good-lookin', fur coats, and don't ever forget those panty-hose.

Joe Willie became Broadway Joe - and a marketer's dream.

Dumpsterdave wrote:

Stat-wise Namath is pretty pedestrian. Impact-wise he's much more significant. Pro football still wasn't that big of a deal, I don't even think the first few Super Bowls were sellouts. Namath was among a group of players that were "flashy" on and off the field that generated interest in pro football. Long hair, good-lookin', fur coats, and don't ever forget those panty-hose.

Joe Willie became Broadway Joe - and a marketer's dream.

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Exactly, a marketer's dream.  People can argue all day about the man's talent, success, etc.  But whatever Topps' collective opinion on any of that might have been, it wouldn't have stopped it from making his cards.  George Blanda had cards and he certainly wasn't the starting QB, nor was he as talented.  The point is that cards of Namath would have sold.  It was only his demands that stopped Topps from releasing them.

I have mine. 1974, 1975, 1976, 1977 & 1977 Mexican. Received as a gift, made by a friend, who makes his own cards for his personal collection, of his favorite college team. As most players don't have any cards. He doesn't sell any of them. They are strictly for personal use. I have them marked as "Custom Cards" in my collection. 

I love the 1976 design.

There is a RCOTD coincidence list, is there a Random Forum Thread Coincidences thread, as I just posted in General about how a simple search for Joe Namath cards in the last 6-7 years of Panini's lock on NFL cards comes up empty for year-by-year stat listings! 😳👀 🤣😉

Here how big he was in the zeitgeist of his time,  Namath is one of the few athletes of his time to have an "action figure," and twice!  One with a short cropped hair cut, and a few years later a longer, shaggy looking do on the head sculpt.

And Mego even went as far as to have a full line of  wardrobe accessories for the Namath dolls!