In 1968, the Baltimore Colts and the Dallas Cowboys easily won their divisions by a decisive margin. However, the other two divisions went down to the last week of the season. The Browns would narrowly edge out the St. Louis Cardinals to take the Century Division by only 1/2 game, while the Vikings would edge out the Chicago Bears by a single game in the Central Division. In the first round of the playoffs, the Browns would defeat the Cowboys 31-20 and the Colts would defeat the Vikings 24-14 to set up the NFL Championship Game between the Baltimore Colts and the Cleveland Browns. The game would be played on December 29, 1968 at Cleveland Municipal Stadium, in Cleveland, Ohio. The game turned out to be a complete mismatch, as the Colts would dominate the Browns 34-0, and take the NFL Championship, and the right to play the New York Jets in Super Bowl III. Super Bowl III was the third AFL-NFL Championship Game in pro football, the first to officially bear the name "Super Bowl". The game, played on January 12, 1969, at the Orange Bowl in Miami, Florida, is regarded as one of the greatest upsets in American sports history. The heavy underdog AFL champion New York Jets defeated the NFL champion Baltimore Colts by a score of 16–7. This was the first Super Bowl victory for the AFL. New York entered the game with their primary deep threat, wide receiver Don Maynard, playing with a pulled hamstring. But his 112-yard, two touchdown performance against the Oakland Raiders in the AFL championship game made the Colts defense pay special attention to him, not realizing he was injured. Using Maynard as a decoy—he had no receptions in the game—Joe Namath was able to take advantage of single coverage on wide receiver George Sauer, Jr.. (After studying the Colts' zone defense, Ewbank had told his receivers, "Find the dead spots in the zone,
hook up, and Joe will hit you." The Jets had a conservative game plan, emphasizing the run as well as short high-percentage passes to minimize interceptions. Meanwhile, with the help of many fortunate plays, the Jets defense kept the Colts offense from scoring for most of the game. Namath finished the game having completed 17 of his 28 passes. He is the only quarterback to win Super Bowl MVP without throwing a touchdown pass. Snell rushed for 121 yards on 30 carries with a touchdown, and caught 4 passes for 40 yards. Sauer caught eight passes for 133 yards. Beverly became the first player in Super Bowl history to record 2 interceptions. Morrall had a terrible day—just 6 of 17 completions for 71 yards, and was intercepted 3 times. Despite not being put into the game until late in the third quarter, Unitas finished with more pass completions (11) and passing yards (110) than Morrall, but he also threw one interception.
Matte was the Colts' top rusher with 116 yards on just 11 carries, an average of 10.5 yards per run, and caught 2 passes for 30 yards. The Colts were minus-4 in turnovers throwing four interceptions, all of which were deep in Jet territory.