On this day in history, December 28, 1958, the Colts defeated the Giants for the NFL title in the “greatest game ever played.”

The Baltimore Colts stunned the New York Giants 23-17 in “sudden death” in the NFL Championship Game at Yankee Stadium before a mesmerized nationally televised audience on this day in history, December 28, 1958.

The event has entered into American sports lore as “the greatest game ever played”.

The title’s dramatic tilt helped popularize professional football at a time when it ranked behind baseball and college football—even boxing and horse racing—in the national sports consciousness.

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“The game captured the collective attention of the nation and as a result professional football exploded across the country in the ensuing years,” writes the Pro Football Hall of Fame.

“In the mid-1960s, professional football became the nation’s favorite sport and has remained on top ever since.”

The nationally televised spectacle was highlighted by two spectacular late workouts engineered by an unheralded 25-year-old Colts quarterback named Johnny Unitas.

The sports thriller capped off a long Christmas weekend for millions of Americans logging on to professional football for the first time.

The 1958 NFL Championship is known in American sports lore as “the greatest game ever played”.

They witnessed the first overtime game in the history of professional football; one of the first nationally broadcast NFL games; and an incredible galaxy of footballing legends on and off the pitch.

Among them: the New York Giants with Frank Gifford, Sam Huff and Pat Summerall; and Colts icons Raymond Berry, Art Donovan and Lenny Moore.

A total of 17 future Hall of Famers participated in the game as players, coaches or managers.

The Giants coaching staff included assistants Tom Landry and Vince Lombardi.

New York Giants star Frank Gifford (#16) in action, rushing against the Baltimore Colts, Bronx, New York, December 28, 1958.
(Hy Peskin/Sports Illustrated via Getty Images)

No star shone brighter than that of Unitas, who emerged from the game an American legend.

A sand gunslinger playing for $7 a week just three years earlier, he walked the Colts from their own 14-yard line in the final two minutes to set up a 20-yard tying field goal with seven seconds left. in the regulations.

“It was one of the most dramatic two minutes in the history of any sport,” Upton Bell, former NFL executive, broadcaster and football historian, told Fox News Digital.

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“People at that time knew you couldn’t organize a score in two minutes.”

Bell’s father, the late Bert Bell, was the commissioner of the NFL at the time.

Without “sudden death”, the 1958 NFL Championship Game would have ended in a 17-17 draw.

The elder Bell had convinced team owners a few years earlier to adopt a “sudden death” format in the event of a tie in the league title game.

In “sudden death”, the first team to score wins. Without it, the 1958 NFL Championship Game would have ended in a 17-17 draw.

Philadelphia’s Bert Bell, right, who was named the new National Football League Czar in 1946, succeeding Elmer Layden, is congratulated by New York Giants coach Steve Owen during a meeting of officials the league.
(Getty Images)

“I don’t think a lot of people realized historically at the time what sudden death meant,” said Bell, who was in the stands for the game.

“A lot of players on the pitch didn’t understand. People around me were ready to go home, thinking the game ended in a draw.”

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The Giants failed to score in the opening of overtime.

Unitas then led the Colts for 80 yards on 13 plays for the game-winning score.

About 45 million Americans gathered around the television for the final minutes of an unprecedented sports drama.

They saw Colts running back Alan “The Horse” Ameche smash across the goal line from one yard out for the game-winning score.

About 45 million Americans gathered around the television for the final minutes of an unprecedented sports drama.

The massive viewership shattered all known television ratings for football that had come before it.

Chaos ensued on the pitch, as the feeling of witnessing history rushed over the 64,000 fans in attendance.

Unitas completed 26 of 40 passes for 349 yards – startling numbers in those days. His teammate Berry caught 12 passes for 178 yards.

Berry’s 12 receptions set an NFL Championship/Super Bowl game record for 55 years.

Baltimore Colts quarterback Johnny Unitas is mobbed by supporters as he walks to the locker room after leading the Colts to a 23-17 win over the New York Giants in the first overtime of ‘death sudden” in the history of national football. Unitas set a record 349 passing yards in a title game.
(Getty Images)

The previously unknown sports term “sudden death” entered the American vernacular that day, Bell said.

It is still commonly used in all sports to describe a contest that ends on the next score by either team.

Commissioner Bell, a pioneer in professional football, broke down and cried after the game, realizing he had witnessed a historic moment for a league that has often struggled to survive since its founding in 1920.

“A master cinematographer could not have lit the scene more dramatically.”

The game benefited from low ambient lighting and the very different white jerseys of the Colts and the dark blue jerseys of the Giants.

It gave the game a stark and exciting palette that showed up on black-and-white television.

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“Many of the viewers who were just starting to tune in weren’t regular watchers of professional football, and they were seeing something radically different from the traditional college games played on sunny fall afternoons,” wrote author Mark Bowden in his 2008 book, “The Best Game Ever: Giants vs. Colts, 1958, and the Birth of the Modern NFL.”

He added, “It felt more like mortal combat from a dark underworld. A master cinematographer couldn’t have lit the scene more dramatically.”

Tom Brady and the New England Patriots defeated the Atlanta Falcons in overtime in Super Bowl LI in February 2017. He joined the 1958 NFL Championship Game as the only title contest for the league history to have been extended.
(Focus on sports)

Massive interest in the game fueled the creation of the rival American Football League the following year.

Eight AFL teams took to the field for the first time in 1960.

The two leagues merged in 1966 with the creation of the first AFL-NFL championship game, an event now known worldwide as the Super Bowl.

A juggernaut of American sports culture, the Super Bowl was made possible by the drama of the 1958 NFL title game.

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A 2019 poll of dozens of football pundits confirmed the status of the 1958 NFL championship contest as “the greatest game ever played”.

The second biggest game on the list: Tom Brady and the New England Patriots’ improbable 34-28 victory over the Atlanta Falcons in Super Bowl LI.

It was the only other NFL championship game that went to overtime.