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 game to be decided in sudden death overtime. The Baltimore Colts won their first championship in franchise history over the New York Giants 23–17 in what soon became widely known as "the Greatest Game Ever Played". 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.
It marked the beginning of the NFL's popularity surge and eventual rise to the top of the United States sports market. 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. The game also proved to be the only league championship decided in overtime until Super Bowl LI, 58 seasons later. It remains one of only three overtime championship games, along with Super Bowl LVIII, which occurred 65 seasons after the 1957 championship and eight seasons after Super Bowl LI.
Background
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. Three weeks later, Unitas returned to lead the Colts to a critical come-from-behind win against Hall of Fame 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. 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 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 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.
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.
Game summary
The two teams combined for six turnovers in the first half, with the Colts converting two fumbles by the Giants into touchdown drives to take a 14–3 lead at the half. After averting a three-score deficit thanks to a goal-line stand in the third quarter, the Giants rallied on consecutive touchdown drives to take a 17–14 lead early in the fourth quarter.In the last two minutes of the game, Johnny Unitas led the Colts on a drive which concluded on a 20-yard field goal with only seven seconds left on the clock to tie the game at 17–17. In the ensuing sudden-death overtime, the Giants went three-and-out after quarterback Charley Conerly came up short on a third down run. After getting the ball back on a punt, the Colts again drove down the field – this time for a touchdown, to win 23–17.
First half
The game got off to a rough start for both teams. On Baltimore's first drive, New York linebacker Sam Huff forced a fumble while sacking Johnny Unitas. Defensive back Jimmy Patton recovered the ball at the Colts 37. One play later, Baltimore took the ball back when defensive end Gino Marchetti forced a recovered fumble from quarterback Don Heinrich. But all the Colts managed to do with their next drive was lose another turnover when a Unitas pass was picked off by Lindon Crow. After forcing a punt, Unitas completed a 60-yard pass to Lenny Moore at the Giants' 26-yard line. But Baltimore's drive was halted at the 19 and Steve Myhra's field goal attempt was blocked by Huff.On the Giants' next drive, Heinrich was replaced by Charley Conerly for the rest of the game. New York then drove to the Colts' 30-yard line, featuring a 38-yard run by Frank Gifford.
On third down, Conerly threw a pass to wide-open fullback Alex Webster, but he slipped before the ball arrived and it fell incomplete. Pat Summerall then kicked a 36-yard field goal to put New York on the board. In the second quarter, Baltimore defensive end Ray Krouse recovered a fumble from Gifford to set up a 2-yard touchdown run by Colts running back Alan Ameche. On their next drive, New York got a big scoring opportunity when they recovered a fumbled punt from Jackie Simpson on the Colts' 10-yard line. But a few plays later, Gifford fumbled again, and Baltimore lineman Don Joyce recovered on his own 14. The Colts subsequently drove 86 yards in 15 plays, including a 16-yard scramble by Unitas on 3rd and 7, to score on Unitas' 15-yard touchdown pass to Raymond Berry, giving them a 14–3 halftime lead.
That fumble by Gifford and the fumble later were forced by defensive back Milt Davis of the Colts—despite playing with two broken bones in his right foot—and both led to touchdowns for the Colts.
Second half
Early in the third quarter, Baltimore reached the New York 1-yard line. But on third down, Ameche was stopped for no gain, and the Colts turned it over on downs after Ameche was tackled trying to go wide at the 5-yard line on a great play by linebacker Cliff Livingston, on a fourth-down halfback option play. It was a huge reversal of momentum.The Giants then went 95-yards in just four plays, scoring on Mel Triplett's 1-yard touchdown run to cut the lead to 4, with a score of 14–10. The drive was highlighted by an unforgettable 86-yard pass play from deep within the Giants own territory at the closed end of the stadium: Quarterback Charlie Conerly threw to Kyle Rote downfield left-to-right across the middle where Rote then broke an arm tackle at about mid-field; then Rote fumbled when hit from behind at the Colts 25, but Webster, who was trailing the play, picked up the ball and ran it all the way to the 1-yard line where he was knocked out of bounds.
The Giants took a 17–14 lead early in the fourth quarter with Conerly's 46-yard completion to tight end Bob Schnelker setting up his 15-yard touchdown pass to Gifford. It was the first time in an NFL Championship Game that a team came from behind to take the lead after trailing by more than 10 points. On both of Baltimore's next drives, they moved the ball into scoring range but came up empty both times. First, they drove to the Giants' 39-yard line, only to have Bert Rechichar miss a 46-yard field goal. Then they got the ball back on the New York 42 following a fumble recovery by Joyce. But after driving to the 27-yard line, Unitas was sacked twice in a row, moving the ball back 20 yards and pushing the Colts out of field goal range.
Faced with fourth down and inches on their own 40-yard on their ensuing drive, New York decided to punt with a little over two minutes left in the game. The Colts took over at their own 14-yard line and Unitas engineered one of the most famous drives in football history—a 2-minute drill before anyone called it that. After starting the drive with two incompletions, Unitas made a critical 11-yard completion to Moore on third down. Following one more incompletion, he threw three consecutive passes to Berry, moving the ball 62 yards to the Giants' 13-yard line. This set up a 20-yard tying field goal by Myhra with seven seconds left to send the game into sudden-death overtime—the first overtime game in NFL playoff history.
Overtime
received the opening kickoff for the Giants and muffed the catch, but recovered it on the Giants 20-yard line. Even in his autobiography You Can't Catch Sunshine, Maynard stated that he was not only disappointed in the botched attempt, but also at the commentators for saying he fumbled the ball due to their lack of knowledge of football and its terminology by not knowing the difference between a fumble and muffing the ball. After a three-and-out series, the Giants punted. On their ensuing drive, Baltimore drove 80 yards in 13 plays on a tired NY defense. Ameche made several critical plays on the drive, catching an 8-yard pass on 3rd and 8 from the Colts 33, and later rushing 22 yards to the Giants 20-yard line. Berry also made a big impact, catching two passes for 33 yards, including a 12-yard reception on the New York 8. Following a 1-yard run by Ameche and a 6-yard catch by the tight end Jim Mutscheller, Ameche scored on a third-down 1-yard touchdown run with 6:45 left to win the game, 23–17.During overtime, when the Colts were on the eight-yard line of the Giants, someone ran out onto the field of Yankee Stadium, causing the game to be delayed; rumors have stated that it was an NBC employee who was ordered to create a distraction because the national television feed had gone dead. The difficulty was the result of an unplugged TV signal cable, and the delay in the game bought NBC enough time to fix the problem before the next play.