The Glory Game: How the 1958 NFL Championship Changed Football Forever

by Frank Gifford; Peter Richmond

  It's funny to look back at the two coaches who led their respective teams in what is called the greatest game ever played. Was it us, or them, who just didn't get it? Did these two teams pull off their great seasons in spite of the coaches, or because of them? It's hard to say. In my many years as a player and as a broadcaster, I've often seen teams win big with a coach the players downright detest. And I've seen teams lose big for a coach with a great-guy label.

  By now, the Colt band had taken its bass drums and trombones back into the stands. The dancing girls in leotards with the reindeer horns on their heads had vacated the dusty, fast-chilling field. The defensive line had slapped new tape around bent thumbs and bruised forearms.

  We had thirty minutes of football left to get this thing right.

  In retrospect, the trouble to that point stemmed from the rigidity of both of our coaches' simple schemes and strategies, the philosophies that had gotten us here. On defense, Landry's cornerbacks were getting no help, and our pass rush had been nonexistent. On offense, after the first quarter, they were all over me. We weren't the type of team to feature one player, but toward the end of the '58 season, as injuries began to take their toll, I'd become more and more of a key in terms of rushing and receiving. This was obviously not lost on Ewbank and the Colts. Except for my 38-yard run, they'd been all over me in the first half.

  In the last few minutes of the break, Kyle approached Charlie and suggested that, just maybe, they could exploit something Kyle had seen: every time I ran wide, the Colt safeties were crowding to the line. Maybe we could take advantage of their eagerness.

  During halftime, one of the things we talked over was the problem we had had with the running game. Kyle and Charlie discussed the possibility of using more play action in the passing game. Charlie soaked it all up, cracked his ankles a few more times, and prepared to go out and play thirty of the best minutes of his career.

  Time to go, men."

  That was Jim Lee, at the door. Then, it was back down the tunnel, up the dugout steps-no introductions this time, no ceremony, no Bob Sheppard from On High. As we came up from the dugout gloom, I noticed that even though it wasn't yet three o'clock, the temperature had dropped considerably, and there weren't any shadows crossing the field now. It was all shadow.

  No one spoke on the way back onto the field. Just the sounds of cleats. Everyone knew what he had to do, and we had two quarters-or so we thought-to do it. If before the game I'd sensed how beat up we were, how maybe we weren't primed to take on the sky-high Colts, as we came out for the second half the fatigue was gone.

  We had one last half of football to help prove that the first half Giants weren't the real Giants, that the Giants were not just a defensive team. And that I could hold on to the football.

  We weren't going to have to go through any Heinrich warmup. We weren't going to be hampered by a helpless Grier.

  This was still our title to take.

  CHAPTER 6 THIRD QUARTER

  It figured that, sooner or later, Sam would get in a fight that day.

  I'm surprised he didn't lay me out during halftime. But if he wasn't going to square off against me, you had to figure it would be against someone in a Colt uniform. Who could have predicted that the guy who threw the punch at Sam would have been a short man

  in an overcoat, wearing a fedora on top of his crew cut?

  During the first few minutes of the third quarter, the Colts had started to march again. Unitas had picked up right where he'd left off, mixing up the plays and throwing in some new stuff, including an 8-yard completion to Mutscheller. Now the Colts had the ball on their 32. Funny that Joe Boland would choose that moment to tell his radio audience, "Just getting the third period under way, and we're anticipating fireworks." He was more than right on.

  Johnny had just completed another perfect square-out to Berry to their 25-yard line, right on the Colt sideline, in front of the coaches. By now Sam had seen enough of the Johnny-to-Raymond pitch-and-catch. He'd had a half hour to stew about how easily the Colts had sliced through the defense at the end of the first half.

  He took it personally. And he took it out on Raymond. Karilivacz had Ray by the ankle, and Berry had already gone down, just in bounds-and here comes Sam, full speed, piling on.

  "Berry was dragging someone, and I hit him with everything I had," Sam told me, his voice rising. "That's football. What, you think I'm going to run thirty yards to get there and not hit anybody? I hit him legal. I didn't get a flag, right? Anytime you don't get a flag, you're legal. That's what officials are for."

  Now here came Weeb, all five-foot-six of him, running right onto the field-and he swung his left fist at old number 70. "That little asshole, he hit me right in the jaw," Sam said. "It surprised me. I think I called him a sonofabitch."

  Artie remembers that when Weeb turned around, after the officials had stepped in, none of the Colts were behind him to back their coach up. End of confrontation. Weeb's temper dropped dramatically when he realized he was about to go on-on-one with a man who once knocked out Jimmy Brown.

  Play resumed, and Sam hadn't calmed down any. On third down, Dupre took a short pass, got by Harland-and then here came Sam, who nailed him, on the 35, short of the first down. We'd stopped them. No, Sam had held them.

  I remember seeing a sign on a locker room wall somewhere once. It read: "Expect Nothing. Blame No One. Do Something."

  That was Sam Huff on that series. He'd done something. He'd made Weeb lose his cool. Advantage, Giants. It wasn't much, but it was something.

  Maynard fielded Ray Brown's punt, and we took over on the 21.

  There's no question Sam had pumped up the defense, and the crowd. Unfortunately, he didn't play offense. We were now playing with a completely makeshift offensive line. Stroud was playing right tackle, replacing Youso, and a rookie, Bob Mischak, a West Point guy who hadn't played a great deal that season, was in at right guard.

  I had no doubt that Stroud could handle the shift. Jack was the consummate pro, and then some. He was a physical-fitness freak, with not an ounce of fat on him, and way ahead of his time in that regard-lifting weights when the rest of us had never even seen a weight. Jack was also a pioneer in another way: he supplemented his diet with something other than beer.

  "He was always drinking these mixes with bananas and protein and all this crap," Youso told me. Frank had been Jack's roommate in training camp that year. "Jack would talk real slow-a real manly man. And he was real strong. He always had these big springs he'd pull on to get stronger. He was always pulling on these springs. Me, I couldn't stretch them four inches.

  "He was also a great guy to have by your side. I'll never forget the exhibition game in Los Angeles that year. They had a linebacker (and a friend of mine) named Les Richter. One play, after the play was over, Richter came in late and really whacked me.

  Jack went over to him, looks at him, and says, 'It's over for you, Richter.' Richter says, 'Come on, let's just play football.' Jack hit him anyway."

  But with our makeshift line, we went nowhere on this drive.

  I gained nothing on a run, and lost three on a flare pass out in the left flat. On third down, Artie came through the right side of our line and sacked Charlie. Chandler had to punt from our end zone, and while e got off a good kick-Don always did-the Colts took over on their 41.

  It was now put-up-or-shut-up time: The Colts had a short field, and one more touchdown would more or less seal the outcome. If the defense was ever going to save us, this had to be the time.

  On first down, Johnny, with plenty of time, found his big, quiet tight end Mutscheller in the middle-wide open. Mutscheller was primarily the safety's responsibility. But Patton, the strong safety, was playing up short, thinking, Stop the run. Mutscheller found the seam, and made a terrific 31-yard catch on a pass that Johnny had thrown a little too high. And Patton made Mutscheller pay. To this day, Mutscheller, the unassuming insurance broker, recalls the play vividly-well, the first half of it, anyway; after
that, Jim's memory became a little foggy: "The way the play was designed," Jim told me, "we hoped the action in the backfield would pull Patton way over to the right side. I went down and did a 'Z-in,' a slant. The pass was high. As I caught it, I had both feet off the ground, and Patton caught me just right. I landed right on my head. I stood up in the middle of Yankee Stadium, and said, 'Where am I?' I just walked off the field-I was kind of goofy."

  On the next play, a running play that Katcavage and Huff stuffed at the line, Mutscheller, wandering around the sideline, heard Ewbank say, 'Who's in there for Mutscheller?' The answer came from somewhere on the bench: "Rechichar"-Weeb's favorite whipping boy. "Get him out of there!" yelled Weeb. And Jim went back, trying to clear the cobwebs.

  In the meantime, Unitas got another first down with yet another hook to Berry, who once again took advantage of the cushion Karilivacz was giving him. Now they had it on the 15, and we were in deep trouble. Or, as Boland put it, "Unitas has hit on thirteen of eighteen forward passes, and the boy is very definitely on the beam."

  Photographic Insert

  With Charlie (right): my best friend, our quarterback, our leader.

  (United Press International)

  Colts defensive tackle Artie Donovan in a rare moment of reflection.

  (Darryl Norenberg/NFL)

  Colts quarterback Johnny Unitas and Raymond Berry coolly take in all the action from the sidelines.

  (NFL/NFL)

  Apparently, our vice president, like millions of other fans, put aside all pressing business for three and a half hours on December 28, 1958.

  (Courtesy of the author)

  At the 1978 touch-football reunion in Central Park, when the Colts beat us again. Back row, left to right: Dick Modzelewski, Ray Weitecha, me, Charlie Conerly, referee Sonny Jurgenson. Left to right: Gino Marchetti, Artie Donovan, Johnny Unitas. (Courtesy of the author)

  An aging foursome gathers for a mini-reunion in 1986. Left to right: Alex Webster, Kyle Rote, Charlie Conerly, and me.

  (Courtesy of the author)

  Well, he didn't look much like a "boy" to any of us at this point. Right now he looked like a ten-year veteran, engineering a picture-perfect drive. We had to hold them. We didn't have the offense to recover from a 21-3 deficit. The Colt offensive line was simply manhandling our front four. And if John was going to pass, it figured that he'd go outside to Berry, as poor Carl tried desperately to figure out how to cover him.

  Johnny passed, all right-not to Berry, but to Moore. Lenny had been hanging out there on the right, split wide, all day. Ewbank had figured that if Lenny was hurt, the best role he could serve would be to take Lindon out wide, stretching the defense, and assuring that he would be man for man with Crow.

  Now it was time. Johnny took a quick three-step drop. Lenny broke from the line of scrimmage on a slant into the middle. They hadn't used it before, and they'd never use it again. This time it worked perfectly, with Lindon's tackle saving a touchdown at the four-yard line. No way you can blame Lindon. He had to respect Moore's speed. He was close to his man, but Johnny's pass was right on. Had we known that Lenny was hurt, Lindon could have played him closer, but as it was, it was hard to fault Crow. He was man for man with one of the game's greatest on this play, and he lost the duel.

  Then the next series of downs was over, Joe Boland would compare our guys to "the Greeks at Thermopylae." Having been pushed around for what seemed the whole afternoon, we stood tall-and wide. We went into a goal-line defense: Rosey Brown came in, replacing Svare. Rosey, of course, was our best offensive lineman. But he was also our finest athlete, and this was our version of a big-body goal-line defense-nothing like today's short-yardage goal-line defenses, but then again, neither could you compare our paltry 35-man roster with today's 53.

  Exactly seven and a half minutes remained in the third quarter. By now, the temperature had fallen drastically. Even from my vantage point thirty-five yards away on the sideline, you could see the breath of the linemen as they lowered into their stances. When the temperature drops below freezing, subtle changes occur: the ball feels harder, and the field gets trickier. "It had become crusty,"

  Ray Brown recalls. "Not icy in the sense of slipping down, but crusty. Your cleats would break through the turf, where there was turf, and if you fell, it was hard."

  Looking back, at this point we did have one advantage: from this close in, Johnny's arm was somewhat neutralized. His receivers couldn't make quick cuts. It was our line against their line, with everything on the line-literally. If we'd won the game, these four plays would have gone down in history. Yet another what-if.

  Robustelli was having a tough day against big Jim Parker, to say the least. So on first down Andy lined up out a little farther outside than usual at right end. As our lightest defensive lineman, he was quick enough to cut off a sweep, and strong enough to help inside. Youso was lined up where Andy usually played, and Rosey Brown took his place at the tackle spot, with Sam in the middle.

  The ball had been spotted somewhere between the 3 and the 4, at the right hash, with the wide side to the left-and that's where they went. The give was to Ameche, going left-right at Youso. At the snap, Parker blocked down on Rosey, pushing him inside.

  Dupre came out of the backfield, laying such a hard block on Youso that Frank's head snapped back. Berry pulled a brilliant move: instead of trying to block Robustelli up high, he hit the turf and rolled, sideways, right at Andy's feet, forcing him back far enough so that all Andy could do was grab at thin air as Ameche ran past.

  Now Ameche had a hole. Karilivacz was coming in, but too late. It looked like a sure touchdown, until, out of nowhere, Emlen Tunnell, our safety, sliced through the chaos from the other side of the field and wrapped Ameche up around the waist, slowing him long enough for Sam to make his way through the traffic to finish the tackle, just outside the 11-yard line.

  it's high time we talked about Emlen Tunnell. In a well-thoughtout game plan, Baltimore, like most teams, always factored in Emlen on any and all pass patterns. He needed to be isolated and out of the play; he was a constant danger to break it up or pick it off. Before his career was over, Em had an incredible seventy-nine interceptions, second highest total in league history. He had multiple concussions during his career, and he gave out more than his share. After some plays in which he'd make a great hit, Em would take a long time getting up, but he always did. Even in scrimmages in training camp, if you were a receiver, or potential receiver, you wanted to know where Em was-to stay away from him. "He was a great, great, great ballplayer," Rosie Grier says now, lest there be any mistaking it. The Hall of Fame agreed, inducting Tunnell in 1967, his first year of eligibility.

  Em was the first friend I ever had on the Giants. How could you not like a guy who walked into the Giant offices on Columbus Circle one day in 1948, right off the street, and asked for a job? He was given a tryout, and then a contract. From the very first day, the Maras loved Em. Tim, the patriarch, was particularly fond of him. While his career began as almost an afterthought, Emlen Tunnell became a Giant legend, one of the greatest to play the game.

  So how come, when people talk about the greatest defenders of all time-like Sam, who got the credit he deserved-so few people mention Em? Chalk it up to the Tom Landry system-a system that called for team play, rather than freelancing. And, in retrospect, Tom's system worked: How many great names do you remember from Tom's Dallas defense? Very few. Tom wasn't looking for stars-only players who could play his defense.

  Off the field, Grier remembers, "Em was as wild as you can get. Not wild fighting. Never yelling and drinking, but always looking for a good time. He was never out there picking on people-he just enjoyed life, and having fun."

  Em was a great philosopher. And an even better storyteller. No matter what the theme of our conversation, he'd come up with some story to relate to it, some philosophical ramble. Most of the time, you could nod off for a while, come back-and he'd still be telling the story. It would always make you laugh-l
ike his conversation with our old coach, Steve Owen, during a game against the Rams in Los Angeles. Elroy Hirsch had beaten Em on a pass from Norm Van Brocklin for a long touchdown. As Em left the field, Steve Owen hounded him: "Why did you let that man get behind you?"

  Em stayed quiet. Owen persisted, with his usual dip of snuff cascading down his chin: "Why? Answer me!"

  "Listen, Coach," Em said. "How much you think they pay Van Brocklin? Maybe $25,000, hunh?"

  "What's that got to do with it?"

  "And how much you think they pay Hirsch? Maybe $15,000, right? Or more?"

  By now Owen was angry, eyes bulging, spraying the snuff.

  "Why didn't you stop that touchdown?"

  "Listen, Coach," said Em. "Van Brocklin gets $25,000. Hirsch gets $15,000. You pay me $8,000. And you expect an $8,000 man to stop a $40,000 forward pass?"

  How can I be sure that that's the way it went? Because that's the way Em told it on my radio show. And I always believed Em's stories. Well, I believed they made for good radio, anyway.

  In the first great play on this goal-line stand, Emlen had set the tone: if the Colts weren't going to let him near the ball, he was going to go find it. Now the ball was on the left hash, second and goal, a yard and a half to go. This time, Johnny decided to take matters into his own hands. So did Sam. On Unitas's sneak, Art Spinney, the all-pro guard, tried to plow the way for Unitas-the man Spinney once referred to, simply, as "the meal ticket."

  At the snap, the center Nutter fired out at Sam, and Spinney went straight at Rosey. Nutter managed to turn Sam around backward, but Sam shoved himself into the pile, just long enough to turn the play back, and long enough for Modzelewski and Katcavage to collapse inside-Mo managing to grab Johnny's ankles, Kat reaching over his man and grabbing Johnny up high.

  From the sideline, all we saw was a mass of humanity-but no signal. No touchdown. When referee Ron Gibbs unpiled everyone, he put the ball on the 1-foot line.