The New York Jets have lost a Super Bowl hero.
Former running back Matt Snell, the first player to rush for more than 100 yards on Super Sunday, has died, the team confirmed March 10. He was 84.
The third overall pick out of Ohio State in the 1964 AFL draft – Snell was also selected by the New York Giants that year, prior to the institution of the common draft in 1967 – Snell rushed for a career-high 948 yards in his first season, when he was named AFL Rookie of the Year.
But he’s best known for his heroics in Super Bowl 3, which capped the 1968 season, when he rushed for 121 yards on 30 carries and scored the only touchdown of the day in the Jets’ monumental 16-7 upset of the Baltimore Colts – still widely regarded as the most important game in NFL history as it gave the AFL credibility a year before it merged with the NFL.
Jets superstar quarterback Joe Namath, who famously guaranteed a victory ahead of the Jets’ landmark win over the heavily favored Colts, was named Super Bowl 3’s MVP and did a masterful job managing the game. But while the Hall of Fame passer’s game management that day and bravado will be long remembered, New York likely doesn’t win without Snell’s performance.
The 1968 Jets are still the only team in franchise history to reach the Super Bowl.
Despite being limited by injuries later in his career, Snell rushed for 4,285 yards during his nine seasons, all with the Jets. Though he spent most of his career in a platoon with Emerson Boozer, Snell, a member of the Jets’ Ring of Honor, still ranks fourth on the franchise’s all-time rushing list – behind Hall of Famer Curtis Martin, Freeman McNeil and Boozer.