One of the things that Joe Namath pointed out in his interview with Newsday today was how even fans in South Florida have been starting to root for the Jets.

“I believe we even have the Dolphin fans pulling for us,” he said. “Begrudgingly, but then again, yeah, we’re pulling for the AFC East, pulling for the Jets. There are a lot of New York, New Jersey, Connecticut people down here that love the Jets.”

The Dolphins came the closest to beating the Colts in the first 14 weeks of the regular season when they limited Peyton Manning to only 15 minutes of possession. They almost won that game.

“Almost,” Namath said. “That’s in horseshoes that counts?”

“There’s something very basic and we’ve seen it many times this year too: It’s a 60-minute game,” Namath continued. “Sometimes it’s a little bit longer. Forty-five minutes of terrific football is wonderful. Hey, we saw what happened to the Dolphins and they wound up losing. The bottom line is losing. You have to get 60. At least.”

A few other nuggets from Broadway Joe:

* Namath likes the new Jets coach. “Rex Ryan knows what the hell he’s doing,” he said.

* Even though he was a quarterback, Namath admitted that scoring points is not the most important aspect of the game. “Defenses have over the years come out on top when it’s come to championship play,” he said. “Ours happened to be a championship defense too (in Super Bowl III).”

* Namath said he’s rooting for the Jets to win for the fans, particularly the ones hoe knows personally. “I’m thinking about the people that I know, that I get affected by and I affect, and I want to see them happy,” he said. “I want to see the Jets fans happy. They’ve stuck with the Jets for a long time and they’re going to continue to stick with the Jets no matter what happens on Sunday. But yeah, I want to see them happy.”

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