1968 American Football League Championship Game
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| Date | December 29, 1968 | ||||||||||||||||||
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| Stadium |
Shea Stadium, Queens, New York City, New York |
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| Attendance | 62,627 | ||||||||||||||||||
| TV in the United States | |||||||||||||||||||
| Network | NBC | ||||||||||||||||||
| Announcers | Curt Gowdy, Kyle Rote | ||||||||||||||||||
The 1968 AFL Championship Game was the ninth annual AFL championship game, played on December 29 at Shea Stadium in Queens, New York City, New York. It matched the defending champion Oakland Raiders (12–2) of the Western Division and the host New York Jets (11–3) of the Eastern Division, who were slight favorites. The Raiders had hosted a tiebreaker playoff game the week before against the Kansas City Chiefs (12–2) to determine the Western Division champion, while the Eastern champion Jets were idle.
The Jets defeated the Raiders 27–23 to win the championship and the chance to play the Baltimore Colts in Super Bowl III.
After Jets quarterback Joe Namath threw an interception that enabled Oakland to take a fourth quarter lead, he led the Jets 68 yards in just 55 seconds to score a go-ahead touchdown pass to Don Maynard with 7:24 left in the game. Then New York's defense stopped Oakland on their three remaining drives to hold on to victory, avenging their regular season loss to the Raiders in the infamous Heidi Game six weeks earlier.
A 28-yard punt by Oakland's Mike Eischeid gave New York the ball on the Raiders 44-yard line on their first possession, and they took advantage of the short field with a 4-play scoring drive. Namath completed two 14-yard passes to Maynard on it, the second one a touchdown to give the Jets an early 7–0 lead. Meanwhile, Raiders quarterback Daryle Lamonica completed just one of his first 13 pass attempts. His first completion was a 36-yard pass to Billy Cannon, but the Raiders ended up with no points on that drive when George Blanda hit the cross bar attempting a 45-yard field goal. New York then drove to a 33-yard field goal by Jim Turner, giving them a 10–0 lead in the final minutes of the first quarter.
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