Don Maynard, the Hall of Fame wide receiver who teamed up with Joe Namath in the pass-through attack that propelled the Jets to their upset 1969 Super Bowl victory, died Monday at an assisted living facility in Ruidoso, New Mexico. He was 86 years old.
His son Scott said the cause was a combination of health problems, including dementia.
Maynard arrived in the NFL with the 1958 Giants as a little-known half-back and safety from Texas Western College, appearing at training camp in a cowboy hat, matching western outfits, cowboy boots, and long sideburns. The Giants already had Frank Gifford, Kyle Root and Alex Webster in their backfield, so Maynard has seen limited activity this season.
He got his kickoff (touching the ball down into the end zone) in a thrilling 1958 NFL Championship game in which the Giants were beaten by the Baltimore Colts in overtime to a sudden death, but he didn’t hold the ball or pass it that afternoon. Giants cut it off the following summer.
By the time Maynard played another championship game, the Jets 16-7 defeated the much-favoured Colts in the NFL at Super Bowl III on January 12, 1969 — a memorable victory that brought the NFL credibility long-sought — he It has become one of the most dynamic football receivers.
“Maynard is one of those skinny, hungry Texans who can run forever,” Jets coach Weeb Ewbank once told Sports Illustrated.
Ewbank had previously coached Raymond Perry, future Colts Hall of Fame recipient, who ran great passing trails to offset only the average speed. “Raymond was usually dealt with the moment he caught the ball,” Eubank said. “Give without a step and go.”
When Maynard retired, having played 13 of his fifteen seasons with the Jets, his 633-yard receptions for 11,834 yards set professional football records. He has 88 touchdown passes, averages 18.7 yards per catch, and has played in four Pro Bowls. He was inducted into the Professional Football Hall of Fame in Canton, Ohio, in 1987, the second player, after Namath, to be inducted as a Jet.
Maynard, who is 6-foot-1, 180 pounds, was the first player to sign with the future Jets franchise when he entered the NFL League as the Titans in 1960, and quickly became a frontrunner in the league, working with quarterbacks who came and went. . When Namath was signed by the Gates in 1965 after leading the University of Alabama to a national championship, Maynard finally had a quarterback who could consistently fire up passes to keep up with his races on the field.
When the Jets played for the Oakland Raiders at Shea Stadium in December 1968 for the AFL Championship and Super Bowl berth, Maynard played what he considered his greatest game.
With hamstring pain, he had six passes for 118 yards and two touchdowns in Gates’ 27-23 win. He had a 14-yard touchdown reception in the first period, and his 6-yard scoring catch in the fourth quarter provided a margin of victory.
His most exciting game came when he beat Raiders defensive linebacker George Atkinson in a 52-yard pass from Namath in the decisive push of the game.
“When Nama threw that ball late in the game, it hit me at around 10am,” Maynard told Pro Football Digest. “But the wind caught, my head held high, looking up at the sky, and I turned my whole body to follow it. The ball went from 10 o’clock to 12 o’clock to 2 o’clock, kept turning and hanging on, and out of bounds at the 6 yards line.”
He called this reception “the greatest trick I’ve ever done”.
“Don told me he might be able to get past Atkinson,” Namath said after the match. He did it with almost one move, then got a kickoff pass from Namath for the match-winning touchdown.
The Jets used Maynard, who has not yet fully recovered from his hamstring problem, as a decoy in the Super Bowl. Namath threw only three passes, all of them incomplete. But the Colts minor team focused on Maynard, allowing receiver George Sauer Jr. Opens for eight catches covering 133 yards.
Donald Rogers Maynard was born on January 25, 1935 in Crospeton, Texas, a small town about 40 miles east of Lubbock. He played football in high school, but his first sport was track and field, where he focused on sprints and hurdles.
Maynard played for three seasons at Texas Western (now the University of Texas at El Paso), then was selected by the Giants in the 1957 NFL Draft as a future ninth-round pick. After one year with them, he played one season with the Hamilton Tiger Cats of the Canadian Football League, then joined the Titans, coaching future Hall of Fame quarterback Sammy Bowe, who was Maynard’s coach at Blue Gray College. All star game.
After 13 seasons as a jet-setter, Maynard was traded to the St. Louis Cardinals. He played one season for them and another in the World Football League before retiring.
He was a financial planning consultant after his playing days.
In addition to his son, Maynard is survived by his wife Anna Maynard; Daughter of Terry Perrin; and five grandchildren.
When Maynard joined the Titans, he adopted the same style he had as a junior rookie for the Titans.
“Don was the first I saw,” linebacker Larry Grantham, another of the original Titans, told Sports Illustrated. “He had those long sideburns, and he was sitting on one of those old New England stone walls in cowboy boots, Levi’s, a big western hat and a belt with a huge copper buckle. The whole thing was unreal. I mean, where were the rodeos?”
Alex Troup contributed reporting.