The 1970

Baltimore Colts The Baltimore Colts were a professional American football team that played in Baltimore from its founding in 1953 to 1984. The team now plays in Indianapolis, as the Indianapolis Colts. The team was named for Baltimore's history of horse breed ...

season A season is a division of the year based on changes in weather, ecology, and the number of daylight hours in a given region. On Earth, seasons are the result of the axial parallelism of Earth's tilted orbit around the Sun. In temperate and ...

was the 18th season for the team in the

National Football League The National Football League (NFL) is a professional American football league that consists of 32 teams, divided equally between the American Football Conference (AFC) and the National Football Conference (NFC). The NFL is one of the majo ...

(NFL). Led by first-year head coach

Don McCafferty Donald William McCafferty (March 12, 1921 – July 28, 1974) was an American football player and coach who, in his first year as head coach of the Baltimore Colts, led the team to a victory in Super Bowl V, and became the first rookie head coac ...

, the Colts finished the season with a regular season record of 11 wins, 2 losses and 1 tie to win the first

AFC AFC may stand for: Organizations * Action for Children, a UK children's charity * AFC Enterprises, the franchisor of Popeye's Chicken and Biscuits * Africa Finance Corporation, a pan-African multilateral development finance institution * A ...

East East or Orient is one of the four cardinal directions or points of the compass. It is the opposite direction from west and is the direction from which the Sun rises on the Earth. Etymology As in other languages, the word is formed from the fac ...

title. The Colts completed the postseason in

Miami Miami ( ), officially the City of Miami, known as "the 305", "The Magic City", and "Gateway to the Americas", is a coastal metropolis and the county seat of Miami-Dade County in South Florida, United States. With a population of 442,241 at ...

with a victory over the Cowboys in

Super Bowl V Super Bowl V was an American football game played between the American Football Conference (AFC) champion Baltimore Colts and the National Football Conference (NFC) champion Dallas Cowboys to determine the National Football League (NFL) champion ...

, their first Super Bowl title and third world championship (

1958 Events January * January 1 – The European Economic Community (EEC) comes into being. * January 3 – The West Indies Federation is formed. * January 4 ** Edmund Hillary's Commonwealth Trans-Antarctic Expedition completes the third ...

1959 Events January * January 1 - Cuba: Fulgencio Batista flees Havana when the forces of Fidel Castro advance. * January 2 - Lunar probe Luna 1 was the first man-made object to attain escape velocity from Earth. It reached the vicinity of E ...

, and 1970). The Baltimore Colts would not return to a championship game again. In February 1970, head coach

Don Shula Donald Francis Shula (January 4, 1930 – May 4, 2020) was an American football defensive back and coach who served as a head coach in the National Football League (NFL) from 1963 to 1995. The head coach of the Miami Dolphins for most of his ca ...

departed after seven seasons for the

Miami Dolphins The Miami Dolphins are a professional American football team based in the Miami metropolitan area. They compete in the National Football League (NFL) as a member team of the league's American Football Conference (AFC) East division. The team p ...

, now in the same division, and offensive backfield coach McCafferty was promoted in early April.

NFL Draft

Personnel

Staff/Coaches

Final roster

Preseason

Regular season

Schedule

Game summaries

Week 1

Week 2

Week 3

Week 4

Week 5

This was the

Super Bowl III Super Bowl III was an American football game played on January 12, 1969 at the Orange Bowl in Miami, Florida. It was the third AFL–NFL Championship Game in professional American football, and the first to officially bear the trademark name "Su ...

rematch and it was truly a rematch but this time it favors the Colts as they opened up a 19–0 lead and never looked back. The Jets did mount a challenge led by

Joe Namath Joseph William Namath (; ; born May 31, 1943) is a former American football quarterback who played in the American Football League (AFL) and National Football League (NFL) for 13 seasons, primarily with the New York Jets. He played college fo ...

's 392 yards passing, but he also had 6 interceptions as the Colts gain some revenge on this day.

Week 6

Week 7

Week 8

Week 11

Week 12

Week 13

The Colts clinched the division title with the win.

Week 14

* Earl Morrall 18/33, 348 Yds

Standings

Postseason

The team made it to the

playoffs The playoffs, play-offs, postseason or finals of a sports league are a competition played after the regular season by the top competitors to determine the league champion or a similar accolade. Depending on the league, the playoffs may be eit ...

with the best record in the AFC. The Colts hosted both AFC playoff games that they played in. (It wasn't until the 1975 season that playoff teams were seeded by record; the fact that the Colts hosted both playoff games was just due to the rotation set up with the

AFL–NFL merger The AFL–NFL merger was the merger of the two major professional American football leagues in the United States at the time: the National Football League (NFL) and the American Football League (AFL). It paved the way for the combined league, w ...

.) The team won both AFC playoff games as well as

Divisional

The Colts hosted the Cincinnati Bengals in the divisional round. The Colts relied on their defense, which had carried them all season, to best the Bengals 17–0, holding Cincinnati to only 139 total yards.

Conference Championship

The Colts next hosted the

Oakland Raiders The Oakland Raiders were a professional American football team that played in Oakland from its founding in 1960 to 1981 and again from 1995 to 2019 before relocating to the Las Vegas metropolitan area where they now play as the Las Vegas Ra ...

for the

AFC Championship Game The AFC Championship Game is the annual championship game of the American Football Conference (AFC) and one of the two semi-final playoff games of the National Football League (NFL), the largest professional American football league in the world. ...

. The Colts jumped out to an early lead over the Raiders, 10–3 at halftime. Oakland came back to tie it up early in the 3rd quarter. The Colts would respond with a

Jim O'Brien Jim O'Brien may refer to: Sports Basketball * Jim O'Brien (basketball, born 1950), American coach for Emerson College, Ohio State and Boston College * Jim O'Brien (basketball, born 1951), American player for the New York Nets and Memphis Sounds *J ...

field goal and a second Bulaich touchdown.

Johnny Unitas John Constantine Unitas (; May 7, 1933 – September 11, 2002) was an American football quarterback who played in the National Football League (NFL) for 18 seasons, primarily with the Baltimore Colts. Following a career that spanned from 1956 ...

extended the lead with a 68-yard touchdown pass to Ray Perkins that made the score 27–17. The Colts would seal the win with an interception in the end zone.

Super Bowl

The Colts made it to the Super Bowl for the second time in franchise history and played the

Dallas Cowboys The Dallas Cowboys are a professional American football team based in the Dallas–Fort Worth metroplex. The Cowboys compete in the National Football League (NFL) as a member club of the league's National Football Conference (NFC) East divis ...

for the NFL championship. In the 2nd quarter,

threw a pass that was tipped twice before John Mackey caught it for a 75-yard score. Later in the quarter Unitas was injured and Earl Morrall completed a sloppy and turnover-filled game: the Colts committed a total of 7 turnovers, the Cowboys 4. Following an interception by Mike Curtis, Jim O'Brien kicked the game-winning 32-yard field goal, giving Baltimore a 16–13 lead with 5 seconds left in the game, and the victory."Baltimore Colts 16 vs. Dallas Cowboys 13, Sunday, January 17, 1971"
Pro-Football-Reference.com. Retrieved 2014-Oct-04.