This week (Dec. 28) in 1958, the Baltimore Colts played the New York Giants in what was then (pre-Superbowl) the National Football League Championship. It is called “The Greatest Game Ever Played,” although that was as much because of the game’s repercussions as the actual contest.
Still, it was quite a contest, featuring future Colts Hall of Famers Johnny Unitas, wide receiver Raymond Berry and running back Lenny Moore. Future Giants Hall of Famers included linebacker Sam Huff, defensive end Andy Robustelli and running back Frank Gifford.
The game went back and forth, and with just over two minutes left the Colts had the ball on their own 14-yard line trailing 17 – 14. And then Unitas went to work, hitting Moore for 11 yards and a first down, then Berry for 23 yards and another first, then Berry again for 15 yards, and again for 22, until, with seven seconds left, the Colts were on the Giants’ 13-yard line, and Colts’ kicker Steve Myhra kicked the game-tying field goal.
Leading to football’s first overtime championship game, professional or college, and after the Giants, who won the toss, went three-and-out, Unitas led the Colts on a game-winning drive capped by a one-yard touchdown by fullback Alan Ameche.
So it was a great football game, but it was also the game that changed professional football forever. Before that game college football was the 800-pound gorilla, with the pro game an afterthought. In fact, even though this game was for the championship, and played in New York, the game didn’t sell out, and it was played at Yankee Stadium because the Giants didn’t have a stadium.
But after that game, America took notice. Johnny Unitas became a national icon. The handsome Frank Gifford became a celebrity. Sam Huff was the subject of a CBS television special, “The Violent World of Sam Huff,” and a Time magazine cover story. And two assistants on the Giants sideline that day, defensive coach Tom Landry and offensive coach Vince Lombardi, would become legends as head coaches of the Dallas Cowboys and Green Bay Packers respectively.
So the “Greatest Game Ever Played” paved the way for pro football’s unparalleled popularity, but that popularity expanded exponentially in 1967, in the famous “Ice Bowl” (−36 °F, factoring wind chill), played at Green Bay’s Lambeau Field. There were now two leagues, the NFL and AFL, and in the game’s last seconds, Packers quarterback (and future Hall of Famer) Bart Starr, scored on a half-yard plunge and Lombardi’s Packers defeated Landry’s Cowboys 21 – 17, to win the 1967 NFL League Championship. Two weeks later the Packers defeated the AFL Champion Oakland Raiders to win their second straight Superbowl, Superbowl II.
