My brother took me to a Titans game against the Houston Oilers in 1962 at the Polo Grounds. True enough, the stadium was pretty empty. After the game the fans were allowed onto the field while the players were walking to the clubhouse. I walked right next to George Blanda. It was a great thrill for a nine year old.

Mad respect for the guys who went from playing for nothing to winning it all.

Imagine sitting in the Polo Grounds in 1962, watching the NY Mets (120 losses) & the Titans. If someone would've told you both teams would be sitting on top of the world in their respective sports by the end of the decade you'd think they were a danger to others. Yet it happened.

Gotta love The Polo Grounds! Never had a polo game played there. LOVE listening to Sammy Baugh!

Remember where we come from I'm a 2000's jets fan I learned our history and I respect it when God says He's ready for us to shine We gone shine as long as we keep that Titans heart and faith in God 🙏🏾

R.I.P. #13 Don Maynard 🏈 "Mr. AFL" God bless our pro football heroes from a by-gone era.

RIP James Larry Grantham (1938 - 2017) 0:45

Boozer and Snell were a great team! I really miss the two man running combos of that era. The evolution to the single running back system opened up a more exciting passing game, but many of us old timers really miss that old grind-it-out running football !

Being an old AFL guy, I was gratified to see old AFL ex Dallas Texan DT Paul Rochester manning the DT slot for the Jets against the Baltimore Colts in that 1968 Super Bowl game.

CONGRATS LARRY GRANTHAM, DON MAYNARD, 1969 WORLD CHAMPS !! from Titans to Jets,what a neat story!!

The New York Titans football jerseys were super awesome, a classic football gem!!

I was a Colts fan and was really unhappy when the Jets won, but listening to how happy the ex-Titans were and what they had gone through makes me feel good. They deserved it.

I am a Jets fan of 57 years. Still waiting for Super Bowl 2. The first one was great to see. The second one I hope comes before I go to the next world, will be even better.

Their dark blue w/old gold numbers jerseys were beautiful.

The Titans of New York were better than people gave them credit for. The New York media considered the New York Giants the beginning and the end and basically ignored the Titans.

Emerson Boozer was a college teammate of E Street Band member Clarence Clemons. Matt Snell played for Woody Hayes.

As a 10 year old Pop Warner football player from New Jersey, one of my fondest memories was our team going to a Titans game at the Polo Grounds, at the time horribly decrepit and our seats, located in the upper deck, were covered with pidgeon s**t. We didn't sit there (there were plenty of empty seats) and being resourceful kids, we ended up on the field talking to the players who gave us their chinstraps. Good times!

Thanks for the video. I knew about the existence of the NY Titans but was not aware that they were of danger of being bankrupt or the fact that they went 7-7 in each of the first 2 seasons. Thanks for the video.

This story was absolutely incredible. I had no idea about the Jets early history. Amazing.

This is FABULOUS! So little info is available about the Titans, but here's a goldmine from those who lived it! THANK YOU.

I watched that game in Maryland but wanted the Jets to win in the worst way. That was great!

They once had a press release stating that there were 50,000 fans in attendance at the old Polo Grounds. A sportswriter remarked that if there were 50,000 fans in attendance, 45,000 came dressed as empty seats.

That running game absolutely was the reason the Jets won. Matt Snell 👏 awesome. Broadway was an INT machine. But you can’t deny the Joe Namath affect on Pro Football. Oilers fan here. Go AFL !

Sammy always put a 😃 on my face!! RIP pal.

I am a Tom Landry-era Dallas Cowboys, and old-line NFL fan... but I certainly enjoyed watching the AFL too. I STILL can't believe the Colts lost to the Jets.😅🏈

Matt Snell should've got the Super Bowl III MVP award and even Joe Namath concurs with that. The final score was 16-7 but it really wasn't even that close. The Jets led 16-0 until the Colts scored a garbage time TD in the 4th quarter. The Jets defense and Snell were definitely the difference in the game. I'm a Bills fan so I hate the Jets but I was pulling for them in that game because I was more of an AFL fan than an NFL fan. I thought the AFL was much more entertaining to watch than the NFL. I was a Cleveland Browns fan living in upstate New York but I became a Buffalo Bills fan once the AFL came along and then my Bills won back to back AFL Championships in 1964 and 1965...beating Sid Gillman's San Diego Chargers both times...20-7 in 1964 and 23-0 in 1965. Those Bills defenses were great. They had to be to shut down the Chargers offense...which was the best in ALL of pro football during the 60's in my opinion. I would've liked to see the 1964 Buffalo Bills take on the 1964 NFL Champion Cleveland Browns in a World Championship Game. I guarantee the Bills would've given them one hell of a scare at the very least. The 64 Browns really weren't any more talented than the 64 Bills were other than having Jim Brown on their roster. Jack Kemp was a better QB than Frank Ryan and Elbert Dubenion was a better WR than Gary Collins. Cookie Gilchrist was a monster at RB. He was bigger than alot of the offensive and defensive linemen of that era but alot faster and more elusive. Cookie is an extremely underrated player in pro football history. He was nicknamed the Jim Brown of the AFL. He was a really great runner

Great stuff! Matt Snell’s new Mint Green Caddy from Sonny “As in Money” Werblin is the topper of toppers. Wish the NYJ had Sonny or an owner like him today and not that airhead Woody Johnson.

Love the blue and gold!

My uncle Fran Rogel played 8 years for the Steelers then onto the Titans in his sun setting years. I have have his Titans bubble gum card from those days

I once had a pretty decent set of football cards of the old AFL of the 1961 season. I had a few cards of the Titans which one of them was QB Al Dorow. Had a few other ones such as Bill Mathis the Rb, Don Maynard, the WR, Nick Mumley, DE, Lee Grosscup, QB, Butch Songin, another QB, Curley Johnson, the RB (whose son John was a classmate of mine), Art Powell, a very good Wide Receiver, and Tom Saidock the big DT.

Those Titan/Jet names: Maynard, Mathis, Snell, Boozer, Sauer, Namath, Elliot, Hill, Grantham...my youth. The only 'heroes' I ever had in the realm of sports.

Grew up a jet fan.Watched the super bowl in great lakes. boot camp.My company commander let us watch the game

Thank you so much for sharing this video I'm a long time Jets fan and anytime I can see anything from the good ole days is cool for me.

We can only imagine how good Snell and Boozer could have been without those devastating knee injuries in 1967 ...

Real Football MEN! ✝️👊🏻

Howard Cosell used to call the Jets owner “Sonny, as in money, Werblin”

this was fucking amazing i never knew this 🙌🏾

New York then had two bald headed qbs: Y.A. Tittle and Al Dorow.

The very first football game I ever saw was the Titans. I was in the Cub Scouts and the Polo Grounds was empty. The hot chocolate vendor sat with us because we were buying up his hot chocolate. It was the only time I saw the historic Polo Grounds. Thank god

The Raiders by 1962 were almost bankrupt as well. Bills owner Ralph Wilson very quietly purchased half the team for a short time until a new ownership group came in. Technically Wilson wasn't supposed to do that but the league looked the other way to ensure its survival. First thing the new Raiders owners did was hire Al Davis as Head Coach and GM. Sammy Baugh must have had a million stories about his football days, and all of them great ones.

Did it for th love of th game.

Sammy Baugh was still a firecracker until his death. He actually did a hell of a job coaching the Titans. Too bad they didn't keep him around to be the QB coach for Namath.

Coogan's Bluff which is mentioned is the title of a 1968 film with Clint Eastwood.

I liked their uniforms.

David "Sonny" Werblins purchase of the New York Jets clinched the merger of the two Leagues. Once the dead weight of Harry Wismer and the Titans was lifted, New York became a viable market for the American Football League. The natural showman, transformed Joe Namath into "Broadway Joe" and Namath became the biggest drawing card in the game. The resulting publicity for the AFL became a Firestorm. How ironic that four of the Titans would be on a Super Bowl winner by the end of the decade. Nothing mirrored the rags to riches saga of the American Football League like the long forgotten New York Titans. In Wismers words " A Titan is bigger than a Giant." Once Werblin bought the team that became a reality. Namaths 400,000 contract is the greatest in the history of Professional Sports. A League minimum salary now, that helped transformed an entire League.

Great !!!

their original field had to be checked by the team for broken glass before practice or a game by the team

Tough, gritty, questionable ownership. Just like the titans of today.

the very last remark (by Mr Snell) "my car was better than wnat Joe got" referrs to (then) the super Bowl MVP getting a car from (I think) Sport Magazine---but Snell got a Caddy from the owner---better than the Dodge awarded by Sport Mag

Not a bad team for the money or lack thereof that they received.

I presume that in the years1960-64 B.N. (Before Namath), people who went to New York Titans/New York Jets games probably did so because they couldn't get tickets to New York Football Giants games.

TITANS r BIGGER than GIANTS!

Houston Astros: "I was just running the rats out!!!!"

Boozer was every bit the phenomenon that Gayle Sayers was, but unfortunately, like Sayers, suffered an injury that altered his career.

No disrespect to Joe but Matt should have been the superbowl MVP

"There's no shame to the pioneers"!

I went to Catholic school in Manhattan. For whatever reason the school had free tickets to Titan games. I went to most of those games at the Polo Grounds. With my friends or many times by myself. Still a diehard Jets fans because of that

🏈🏈🏈🏈👍

They didn’t show that Snell hit on Rick Volk.

I love these old clips but some of the commentary seems to get embellished over time. Players used to hitchhike home from practice, come on man.

I’m a Steelers fan and we were an awful team during this time period not many remember lmao.

Future Superbowl Champions

It was the Jets offensive line that won Super Bowl III. If you watch the game, you will see this is true. They blew the Colts off the line.

That's John Huarte next to Namath in that photo.

I wanted to see the picture shown in the preview of the field and the houses behind the seats. It isn't here.

Only half of this about the New York Titans.

I grew up in St. Louis, and the old Football Cardinals drafted Joe Namath the same year as the Jets, out of Alabama. Hnmmm... New York and millions, or cheap-ass Bill Bidwill and the mediocre Cardinals? Tough call. You're laughing, but it actually was at the time, because the Cardinals of the NFL had the reputation of the better league. It was Namath himself in SB III that pur the AFL on the map. Lombardi's Packers destroyed the Chiefs and Raiders in the first two SBs. Wonder who would've won if Lombardi had his team in SB3? But he stepped down for health reasons after SB2. We'll never know.

new Jersey new York giants

new Jersey new York jets

NY AOT