1958 NFL Championship Game
The 1958 NFL Championship Game was the 26th NFL championship game, played on December 28 at Yankee Stadium in New York City. It was the first NFL playoff game to be decided in sudden death overtime.[9] The Baltimore Colts defeated the New York Giants 23–17 in what soon became widely known as "the Greatest Game Ever Played".[16] Its legendary status in the pantheon of historic NFL games was again confirmed by a nationwide poll of 66 media members in 2019, who voted it the best game in the league's first 100 years.[17][18]
See also: 1958 NFL playoffs
Baltimore Colts
(Western)
(9–3)
December 28, 1958
Johnny Unitas (Quaterback; Baltimore)
Colts by 3½ points[1]
64,185[3]
Joe Boland, Bill McColgan (NBC)
Bob Wolff, Bailey Goss (WBAL)
Les Keiter, Bob Cook (WCBS)
It marked the beginning of the NFL's popularity surge and eventual rise to the top of the United States sports market.[11][18] A major reason was that the game was televised across the nation by NBC. Baltimore receiver Raymond Berry recorded 12 receptions for 178 yards and a touchdown. His 12 receptions set a championship record that stood for 55 years until it was broken by Denver Broncos wide receiver Demaryius Thomas in Super Bowl XLVIII.
Background[edit]
Both teams finished the 1958 season with a 9–3 record. For the Giants, it was their fifth consecutive winning season, a stretch that included an NFL Championship in 1956. In contrast, 1958 was only the second winning season in Colts' history since the team's founding in 1953.
Baltimore started off the season winning their first six games before losing to New York, 24–21, in week 7 of the regular season. However, Colts starting quarterback Johnny Unitas was injured at the time and did not play in the game.[19] Three weeks later, Unitas returned to lead the Colts to a critical come-from-behind win against Hall of Fame (and ex-Colt) quarterback Y. A. Tittle and his San Francisco 49ers. Trailing 27–7 at halftime, Baltimore stormed back with four unanswered touchdowns to win, 35–27, clinching the Western Conference championship; several Colt players such as Unitas and Moore cited the victory as their best of the year.[20] This allowed them to rest their starters for the final two games of the regular season, both on the road in California.
New York started the season 2–2, then won seven of their last eight games, including a critical 19–17 win over the defending champion Detroit Lions on December 7. In that game, New York fell behind late when the offense lost a fumble that was returned for a touchdown. Later on, however, the Giants stopped Detroit punter Yale Lary on a fake punt attempt and drove for the go-ahead score. They then secured the win by blocking a Lions field goal attempt as time expired in the game. In the final game of the regular season, the Giants defeated the Cleveland Browns with Pat Summerall's game-winning 49-yard field goal on the final play (the longest field goal made in the entire season among all NFL kickers).[21] The win enabled them to tie the Browns for the conference title, and though the Giants had won both games against Cleveland in the regular season, the rules of the time required a tiebreaker playoff game on December 21. At Yankee Stadium in 20 °F (−7 °C) weather, the Giants defeated the Browns for a third time in a shut out, building a 10–0 lead at the half, which was the final score.[22]
After clinching their conference title on November 30, the Colts rested key players in the final two games, road losses in California. While Cleveland and New York played the Eastern tiebreaker game, Baltimore had the week off and entered the championship game as 3½ point favorites to gain their first league title.[1]
Players in the Hall of Fame[edit]
Seventeen individuals (including coaches and administration) who were involved in this game are members of the Pro Football Hall of Fame.[34] Along with those named above, Giants offensive coordinator Vince Lombardi and defensive coordinator Tom Landry were later inducted as head coaches.
Aftermath[edit]
Baltimore Colts[edit]
Baltimore head coach Weeb Ewbank led the Colts to a second straight championship game win over New York the next season. He was fired from the Colts after the 1962 season (7–7), and moved to the AFL's New York Jets, formerly Titans, in 1963. In the 1968 season, Ewbank led the AFL champion Jets to victory over the Colts in Super Bowl III, also considered a monumental victory in the history of pro football.
Unitas led the Colts to the Super Bowl V championship after the 1970 season and remained with the franchise through 1972.
New York Giants[edit]
The Giants head coach was Jim Lee Howell, and he was aided by two coordinators who went on to greatness themselves. The defensive coordinator was Tom Landry, who left the team in 1960 to take over the expansion Dallas Cowboys. He led them to two Super Bowl championships in the 1970s, and was the runner-up in two NFL championship games (1966, 1967) and three Super Bowls in his three decades as head coach. The offensive coordinator was Vince Lombardi, who left the team following the game to take the head coaching position with the Green Bay Packers in January 1959. Lombardi led the Packers to five championships in the 1960s, including the first two Super Bowls, and had the Super Bowl Trophy named after him after his death. In order to advance to both of those Super Bowls, Lombardi's Packers needed to defeat Landry's Cowboys in the 1966 and 1967 NFL championship games.
New York's fortunes would take a turn for the worse after this game. They made it to the NFL championship game four times over the next five seasons, but lost each one, including a loss to the Colts in 1959. They would not win their next playoff game until the 1981 postseason.
Legacy[edit]
Popularity of pro football[edit]
An estimated 45 million people watched the game on television in the United States.[35] This audience could have been even greater except that because of NFL restrictions, the game was blacked out in the greater New York City area.[36][37] Still, the impact from this game is far reaching. A year later, Texas billionaire Lamar Hunt formed the American Football League, which began play with eight teams in the 1960 season. The growth of the popularity of the sport, through franchise expansion, the eventual merger with the AFL, and popularity on television, is commonly credited to this game, making it a turning point in the history of football. NFL Commissioner Pete Rozelle was said by Giants owner Wellington Mara to have attributed professional football's surge in popularity to the game, because it "happened just at that time, in that season, and it happened in New York".[18]
Two-minute drill[edit]
The drive by Baltimore at the end of regulation, with Unitas leading the team quickly down the field to set up the game-tying field goal, is often cited as the first instance of a "two-minute drill", for which Unitas became famous.
Overtime games[edit]
The game is, to date, one of only three NFL championship games—the others being Super Bowl LI and Super Bowl LVIII—ever decided in overtime (the 1962 AFL Championship Game also went into overtime and eventually double overtime). In Super Bowl LI the New England Patriots beat the Atlanta Falcons, 34–28, just 3:58 into the overtime period. In Super Bowl LVIII, the Kansas City Chiefs defeated the San Francisco 49ers, 25–22, with three seconds left in the overtime period.
As Unitas later stated, the players had never heard of overtime before the game. "When the game ended in a tie, we were standing on the sidelines waiting to see what came next. All of a sudden, the officials came over and said, 'Send the captain out. We're going to flip a coin to see who will receive.' That was the first we heard of the overtime period."[11] An NFL preseason exhibition game played three years earlier in Portland, Oregon, had been settled by a sudden-death overtime, but this was the first time an NFL game of any significance needed overtime to determine a winner.[38] Sudden death overtime had been approved for the NFL championship game in 1946 but never used before.[39]
50th anniversary[edit]
Writer Mark Bowden, at the urging of his editor Morgan Entrekin, set out to write a book about the game in 2006, looking ahead to the 50th anniversary. Bowden credited Sports Illustrated writer Tex Maule with the "best game ever" phrase which he chose for his book title. Eagles' coach Andy Reid helped him analyze the film footage he was able to secure. Bowden said that while many who played in the game whom he interviewed (particularly Giants) maybe quibbled with the "best" characterization, they, "to a man, remark[ed] on how radically the popularity of the game jumped after that season." Bowden dedicated his book to David Halberstam. Halberstam's book The Fifties provided source information and context for The Best Game Ever, and Halberstam's sports books also were inspiring to Bowden. When asked about any insight writing the book had given him, Bowden remarked in part, "I wonder, if you got a group of New York Giants from 2006 or ’07 together 50 years from now, whether you would get the same sort of hilarity and knee-slapping comradeship that you find still exists among these [surviving 1958-game-veteran] players."[40]
ESPN presented this game to a national audience on December 13, 2008. This presentation is a two-hour documentary which includes restored footage with colorization as well as a living room approach which included players past and present and fans. This was put together by ESPN Films and NFL Films. Expert Jeffrey Muttart was asked to reconstruct the controversial call on the field, and after research and utilization of today's technology, he denied the Giants' first down (therefore, the call made by the officials was correct).
In popular culture[edit]
The game plays a role in a 1991 episode of The Adventures of Pete & Pete titled "Space, Geeks and Johnny Unitas." A new kid in school gets Big Pete and Ellen fascinated by the possible universal significance of Johnny Unitas and the 1958 game. At one point, Big Pete questions a confused Art Donovan (himself) about Unitas' accomplishments in that game.[41]