Jake Gyllenhaal To Play Joe Namath, Star Predicts Trouncing Of Studios in Strike

Written by: Tony Lazlo, CC2K Staff Writer

I don't know if I can get behind this one. Jake Gyllenhaal has been cast as Joe Namath in a biopic of the football legend's life.

Here's the scoop: Variety is reporting that the project found legs at Universal once screenwriter David Hollander came up with a good script and a bunch of suits decided that Gyllenhaal was athletic enough to play the Hall of Fame quarterback.

I'm sure Gyllenhaal is a fine athlete, but he still looks like a kid to me. Hell, he's a grown man, he still looks like a kid, and he's getting cast in gritty prestige pictures like Rendition with Reese Witherspoon, who also looks like a dang kid.

I guess I'm just getting old.

Anyway, it sounds like the movie will focus, naturally, on the New York Jets' triumph in Super Bowl III over the Baltimore Colts. For you non-football-maniacs out there, the Jets came from the much-maligned American Football League, which had sent two hapless representatives to the first two Super Bowls to get trounced by teams from the longstanding National Football League.

Namath predicted the Jets would win Super Bowl III – and they did, in convincing fashion. All of this led to the merger of the leagues and the development of the Byzantine game of American football into a popular TV sport.