| • Science | • People | • Locations | • Timeline |
The team that is currently the Indianapolis Colts can be said to have had a long trip to get to where they are today. Officially the NFL considers the Colts to have began play in 1953 in Baltimore. That team had previously been the Boston Yanks 1944-48, New York Bulldogs 1949, New York Yanks 1950-51 and the Dallas Texans 1952. Meanwhile, there was another team called the Baltimore Colts who played one season in the NFL 1950. That team had started out in AAFC in 1946 as the Miami Seahawks and had played from 1947 to 1949 as the Baltimore Colts in the AAFC.
In 1953, Carroll Rosenbloom became the principal owner of the new NFL Baltimore Colts. In 1958, coached by Hall of Famer Weeb Ewbank, the Colts defeated the New York Giants 23-17 in the NFL championship game, an overtime contest sometimes called "The Greatest Game Ever Played." The Colts repeated as NFL champions in 1959, beating the Giants again, 31-16. In the early 1960s the Colts continued as an elite NFL team although they lost the NFL championship game in 1964 to the Cleveland Browns, 27-0.
In 1968, after a 13-1 season, they gained a measure of revenge against the Browns, defeating them 34-0 in the NFL championship game. The 13-1 regular season and the trouncing of the Browns led NFL-based media to call the Colts "the greatest pro football team of all time". The Colts went into the third AFL-NFL World Championship Game against the American Football LeagueThe American Football League was a professional league of American football which operated from 1960 to 1969. There were three earlier, unrelated, and unsuccessful football leagues with the name of "American Football League", one in 1926, one in 1936- 193's New York JetsThe New York Jets are a National Football League team that plays its home games in East Rutherford, New Jersey, but is based on Long Island. Founded: 1960 (charter American Football League (AFL) member; joined the NFL in the 1970 merger) :Formerly known a as 17-point favorites, with NFL icons like Pro BowlAmerican football competitions The Pro Bowl is the National Football League's All-Star game. The game is the last game of the season. It's officially called the AFC-NFC Pro Bowl . The game has been played at Aloha Stadium in Honolulu, Hawaii since Februarers Bobby Boyd (db), Mike Curtis (lb), John Mackey (te), Tom Matte (rb), Fred Miller (dl), Earl Morrall (qb), Willie Richardson (wr), and Bob Vogel (ol).
The result of the game was one of the greatest upsets in sports history as Joe NamathJoseph William Namath (born May 31, 1943) was an American football quarterback for the American Football League's New York Jets in the 1960s. He is best known for predicting his team's unlikely victory in the third AFL-NFL World Championship Game, over Do and Matt SnellThough New York Jets owner Sonny Werblin made history with his 1965 acquisition of Joe Namath, Werblin’s first coup over the NFL was the 1964 signing of Ohio State‘s powerful fullback Matt Snell (born 1941). In an example of the lack of scouting, foresigh led the American Football LeagueThe American Football League was a professional league of American football which operated from 1960 to 1969. There were three earlier, unrelated, and unsuccessful football leagues with the name of "American Football League", one in 1926, one in 1936- 193 champion Jets to a World Championship over the NFL's Colts, 16-7. Ironically, the Jets were coached by Weeb Ewbank, who had previously led the Colts to two NFL titles.
Rosenbloom, Art Modell (Browns), and Art Rooney (Steelers) facilitated the NFL merger with the American Football League, by joining the ten AFL teams in the AFC. After the NFL merged with the AFL in 1970, the Colts moved to the American Football Conference (AFC) and won the AFC championship against the Oakland Raiders 27-17. Baltimore went on to win the first post-merger Super Bowl (Super Bowl V) against the NFC's Dallas Cowboys 16-13, on a Jim O'Brien field goal. Since there was only one league after 1969, the Colts' 1970 Super Bowl win was the NFL championship, as were all Super Bowls thereafter.
On July 13, 1972, Rosenbloom traded the Colts to Robert Irsay for the Los Angeles Rams, but the players remained in their same respective cities. The Colts made the playoffs four more times in the 1970s - a wild card in 1972 and three consecutive AFC East titles in 1975 through 1977 (led in these latter years by the NFL's best defensive line, known colloquially as the "Sack Pack"), but then endured nine consecutive losing seasons beginning in 1978, a year which saw the club get shut out in its first two games - a fate which has befallen no NFL team since. In 1981, the defense was the main problem: The Colts allowed an NFL-record 533 points, and also set an all-time record for fewest sacks (13) and a modern record for fewest punt returns (12). The Colts finished 0-8-1 in 1982, only nine games having been played that year due to a 57-day players' strike; no NFL team has since neglected to win a game in an entire season.
Faced with the aforementioned competitive difficulties and wanting a new stadium, team owner Robert Irsay moved the team to Indianapolis in Mayflower trucks in the middle of the night on March 29, 1984, after the Maryland legislature threatened to give the city of Baltimore the right to seize the team by eminent domain. Since 1987, the Colts have had mixed success at best. They have appeared in the playoffs seven years since then, with their best advance to the AFC championship game in 1995, when they lost to the Pittsburgh Steelers 20-16, and in 2003, when they won the AFC South Division title, defeated the Denver Broncos in the wild-card playoff, and advanced to play the Kansas City Chiefs in a divisional playoff, winning 38-31. In the AFC Championship game, they were defeated 24-14 by the eventual Super Bowl champions, the New England Patriots; the defeat prevented Tony Dungy from becoming the first African-American head coach ever to lead a team to the Super Bowl.