Pro Football: Recalling The 1958 NFL Championship Game

This Sunday marks the 56th anniversary of the 1958 NFL Championship game, the game that “made” pro football.

On an unusually warm winter day in New York, the Baltimore Colts led by quarterback John Unitas and receiver Raymond Berry defeated the New York Giants in the NFL’s first overtime game.

Alan “The Horse” Ameche scored a touchdown from one yard out to end the game. Baltimore won (23-17) and from that point forward professional football boomed.

This Sunday NBC, which telecast that 1958 game in the afternoon, has moved the Cincinnati Bengals game at Pittsburgh vs the Steelers, to the night.

Quite possibly it will be very cold in Pittsburgh, but pro football, too big and popular, does things with no regard for the fans.

My fondness for the many great players (Roosevelt Brown and Frank Gifford were among the New York Giants’ greats in that game) in that 1958 game and even the extraordinary game itself, is tempered by what football has become.

Click here for a video tribute