The Best Game Ever: Giants vs. Colts, 1958, and the Birth of the Modern NFL

by Mark Bowden

  Down on the field, Weeb was wearing his lucky suit under a long wool overcoat buttoned to the top with the collar turned up to his ears. His dark fedora was pressed down low on his forehead. He watched his team loosen up and paced the sideline waiting for the game to start. When he noticed two old men sitting on the Colts’ bench who didn’t belong there, he waved for a cop. He didn’t know it, but one of the two men was his rowdy defensive lineman’s father, the locally famous Arthur Donovan, and the other was a plainclothes New York City police captain, John Brady, an old friend of Fatso’s, who was responsible for security at the stadium that day. Donovan had invited his father to watch the game from the sidelines. His father had run into Brady, and the two were relaxing on the empty bench, passing a bottle of whiskey back and forth, waiting for the pregame festivities to end.

  Weeb demanded that they be removed. The cop saw that one of them was his commander.

  “Coach,” he said, “You go before they do.”

  Back in the locker room, Weeb got the team together. He always scripted the first three plays of the game, and after that he left the game to God and John Unitas. He was convinced that the Giants had the locker room bugged. He looked under the benches and then pointed at the ceiling to let the players know that he knew that they were being overheard. Then he mouthed the first three plays.

  That business concluded, the head coach loosened his vocal cords and gave the motivational speech of his life. Pro football players have heard just about every possible variation on the locker room pep talk, so there is little a coach can say that will surprise or effect them, but on this day Weeb truly rose to the occasion. He praised his players for their achievement, one by one, and cataloged the disrespect other teams and coaches had shown for their talent.

  “Nobody knows you guys, and we’re in a good place to get known, New York City, so we’re going to have to win this game,” he told them. He pulled out some handwritten notes from his pocket. “Nobody wanted you guys,” he said. Then he went around the locker room, singling out most of the starting players. To John: “Pittsburgh didn’t want you but we picked you off the sandlots.” To Milt Davis: “Detroit didn’t want you, but I’m glad we got you.” Most of his players had been cut or rejected somewhere along the line, and Weeb cited every slight. Cornerback and kick-returner Carl Taseff had been cut by Cleveland. To Big Dadddy Lipscomb: “The Rams didn’t want you. We picked you up for the one-hundred-dollar waiver price. You’ve come a long way. When you start rushing the passer more you will become one of the greatest tackles the game has ever seen.” To Bill Pellington, the linebacker: “The Browns cut you after one scrimmage; you had to hitchhike to your first practice with us!” To Raymond: “Nobody wanted you in the draft. You are a self-made end.” Even for his first-round draft picks and stars, those who had gotten an easier ride, he found soft spots. To Ameche: “I caught hell for taking you first in the draft. There was a guy at Maryland they wanted me to take. I didn’t take him and that made a lot of people mad. Then on your first play you went seventy-nine yards for a touchdown against the Bears and they got off my back quick!” To Lenny Moore: “You can be as good as you want to be. That’s what they said when we drafted you, but the idea was presented that we might have a hard time getting you to practice.” To Jim Parker: “They didn’t know where you could be used as a pro. They said you couldn’t play offense and were so-so on defense. But we sure used you.” To Marchetti: “In ten years of pro coaching, you are the finest end I have ever seen. They said you are the greatest end in the league and that you just couldn’t get any better, but you continue to get better every week and you will today.”

  The coach also talked about himself. He noted that he had not been the Colts’ first choice for the head coaching job when they had gone looking in 1954, and they all knew how close he and his staff had come to being fired after the 1956 season. The message was, they were a team of self-made men, playing against the glamour boys of the NFL, the only team that had beaten them in a game that mattered that season. In a ghostwritten column the Giants’ Conerly produced for a wire service, he had said after that game that the Giants had “out-gutted” them. The article had been posted in the Baltimore locker room all week.

  Linebacker Don Shinnick led the team in the Lord’s Prayer, and then they set off for the field like men with a score to settle, not just with the Giants, but with the world.

  * * *

  In 1958, the NFL was not full partners with television the way it is today. Today’s gridiron is miked and wired for dozens of cameras that record the action from every conceivable angle. The pace of the game has been altered to allow for television commercials and commentary. For this championship game, television was strictly an observer, its cameras, microphones, and commentators consigned to the press box on the periphery. NBC had just five stationary cameras, one of which was trained on an easel that held flash cards to display down and distance. The others viewed the action from afar. There were no slow-motion replays, overhead cameras, or close-ups. There were no microphones to capture the sounds on the field. The action did not stop for TV commercials and the referees did not wait for broadcasters to return from commercial breaks to whistle the ball back in play. As a result, the game moved faster. On the radio broadcast, Boland and his partner McColgan just stayed silent as the distant sound of the national anthem filtered up from the combined Baltimore Colts and Wayne (New Jersey) High School marching bands down on the field. The effect for a viewer or listener was much like sitting in the grandstand.

  New York won the coin toss, and Bert Rechichar, the Colts’ kickoff man, thumped the ball with the hard toe of his cleats, high and deep into the Giants’ end zone, where rookie Don Maynard caught it—A tremendous boot! said McColgan—and the championship was underway. Maynard opted not to run it out, so New York’s offense started on its own twenty.

  Early in the season, Lombardi had begun using both of his veteran quarterbacks, Conerly and backup Don Heinrich, in every game. It was, and remains, unorthodox. Heinrich started the game, and would stay in until the coach decided it was time to insert Conerly. Usually this was after two or three offensive series, but once he kept Heinrich behind center until the third quarter. The “starting” quarterback would bide his time, watching the game with Lombardi, noting wrinkles in the opposing team’s defense. Conerly never liked doing it this way. He felt he learned more, and more quickly, about his opponent when he was in the game. He didn’t understand why Lombardi did it, and the coach never bothered to explain. Heinrich disliked the practice, too, and would sometimes complain bitterly and profanely when Lombardi yanked him. But for the opening drive, it was once again Heinrich who trotted out to run the offense. His first attempted pass was batted down by the leaping Marchetti, who, at six-five and with very long arms, was a formidable obstacle.

  Both offenses sputtered. When Baltimore took over for its first drive, it pulled one of the surprises that Weeb had mouthed to them in the locker room. It was a trick play. The offense lined up with only one blocker on the right side of the line; the rest of the down linemen, four of them, were all stacked to the left. It was a bizarre, lopsided arrangement, and it had the desired effect. Giants defenders scrambled to figure out where to play. John capitalized on their confusion by starting the play on a quick count. Out-of-position New York defenders responded with a chaotic rush, but an effective one. Ameche missed the quick count and got a late start leading Lenny Moore on a sweep around the left end, and a number of Colts missed their blocks entirely. Tacklers swarmed all over Moore for a three-yard loss. The Colts returned to a more conventional formation after that, and on their third play from scrimmage, a quarterback keeper, Huff tackled John and forced a fumble.

  Heinrich trotted out and returned the favor, bobbling the snap and losing the ball. Marchetti pounced on it. Then John attempted a little swing pass to tight end Jim Mutscheller that Karilivacz read all the way.

  —Intercepted by Karilivacz at the Giants’ forty! He’s acros
s the forty-five to the forty-seven, where it will be Giants ball, first and ten. L.G. Dupre made the tackle. The forward pass thrown by Unitas intercepted by the former Syracuse University star . . . so it’s New York’s ball.

  It looked more like amateur hour than the NFL championship. Three of the first four drives had ended with turnovers. Twice, Baltimore handed New York the ball with less than half a field to score, but Lombardi’s offense could not move it. Al Barry, the left guard New York had picked up from Green Bay at the beginning of the season, was struggling. He always had a hard time blocking Lipscomb, who was about six inches taller and fifty pounds heavier. Over the years Barry had tried every trick he knew, legal and illegal—holding, tripping, cut-blocking—to knock him out of the way, and had only mixed success, but enough to make Big Daddy angrier and angrier. Once, the furious Colts lineman had sought him out after a game to vent his disgust. Barry had begged forgiveness. “Big Daddy, you are such an amazing athlete, how do you expect somebody like me to block you? I have to do those things.” At the beginning of this game, Lipscomb had hailed Barry as they untangled themselves after an early play. The Giants’ blocker had spent a week in the hospital with an injured foot, and news of it had made the papers.

  “How’s your foot?” asked Lipscomb.

  “Pretty good, thanks,” said Barry.

  “Which one is it?” asked Lipscomb, with an evil grin.

  Lombardi’s offense had yet to move the ball ten yards to sustain a drive. After Karilivacz’s interception they ran three plays and gained only five yards. Don Chandler punted for the second time, and the Colts tried again from the fifteen, deep in their own half of the field.

  On the first play, John heaved a bomb down the right sideline to Moore, who was shadowed step for step by right cornerback Lindon Crow. Crow was from a big California family, and had grown up playing football with his four brothers. He had been a pro for eight years, and in three of them had made the Pro Bowl, the league’s all-star game. The Giants had obtained him from the Detroit Lions in 1958 to help shore up their secondary line. Landry had coached him in the Pro Bowl at the end of 1957, and had made acquiring him a priority. It had been one of the team’s major upgrades going into this season. But Crow, like every other cornerback in the league, was no match for the lanky speedster from Penn State. On most plays, Landry had two defensive backs keying in on the Colts’ right flanker. But whenever safety Jim Patton had to watch for the run, it left Crow lined up one-on-one with Moore, as on this play. Because most of Moore’s patterns—Landry had, of course, counted them—were to the inside, he instructed Crow to anticipate that by lining up two or three steps inside him, toward the center of the field. It was a gamble based on the odds, which favored Crow, but it left him flat-footed when Moore instead broke to the outside and sprinted downfield. Crow recovered well, and when the pass hung up a little too long, he actually overtook the receiver. Moore had his eye on the ball over his left shoulder all the way. He slowed and jumped slightly behind Crow to catch it, then turned inside and opened up his long stride. The cornerback tried to pivot and grab him, but his feet slipped out from under him and he went down. When safety Jim Patton caught up, running from the center of the field, Moore put a move on him and broke for the goal line, but Patton pulled him down.

  —Lindon Crow was defending on the play but Moore made a great catch. A fifty-five-yard pass play from quarterback John Unitas to the speedy halfback, Lenny Moore, and the Colts come up with the first big play of the afternoon. They now have the ball on the Giants’ twenty-five yard line, first and ten.

  The Colts couldn’t make much headway from there, however, and after failing to get a first down, the team’s big erratic kicker, Steve Myhra, trotted out to try a thirty-one-yard field goal. It was on the outer edge of his range.

  Myhra was a Midwesterner whose family owned a tractor franchise. He had grown up with money, so the pro paycheck didn’t mean as much to him as it did for most players. As a result, he played with a cheerful, devil-may-care attitude that endeared him to his teammates but that rubbed Weeb the wrong way. He kicked in the way most football place kickers did at that time, by lining up directly behind the ball and booting it with his toe. It was good enough for extra points, which were close in, but he lost accuracy rapidly the farther away from the goal line the ball was placed. Weeb had coached Lou Groza, the Cleveland kicker considered the NFL’s best. He once observed that when Groza kicked the ball ten times in practice from the same spot in the dirt, his footprints for each kick traced the same precise pattern. Myhra’s footsteps after ten kicks, Weebs complained, looked like “chicken scratchings.” To Weeb, Myhra was just a bad place kicker, a position he had not yet been able to upgrade—few teams then had place kicking specialists like the Giants’ Pat Summerall. Most booters were on the roster because they were versatile; Myhra usually doubled as linebacker, where he was playing in this game, filling in for the injured Dick Szymanski. His uniform was already covered with Yankee Stadium dust and muck. His kick was well short of the goalposts, but the Giants had jumped offside, so he got another chance from five yards closer. Baltimore seemed poised to score the first points of the game.

  —The signal is being called. It’s spotted. It’s blocked! It’s blocked by Sam Huff and Carl Karilivacz, and the Giants take over. Sam Huff, number seventy, came driving through to block it.

  Huff had an easy time of it. He was standing full upright before the kicker as the ball left his toe. Donovan, the Colts defensive star, who was a blocker on kicking downs, had turned the wrong way and been knocked, as he would later put it, “on my fat ass.” Huff came breezing through so unblocked that he would have had time to shake Myhra’s hand before batting away the kick.

  It was beginning to seem like neither team could score.

  Lombardi chose this moment to pull Heinrich and send Conerly into the game. The old pro got a roaring ovation from the crowd as he trotted out—The old master, said McColgan—and promptly steered the Giants to their first points. The big play came on a sweep by Gifford around the left side. New York stacked its strength on the right side, and then Conerly made a quick pitch to his halfback, who had lined up on the weak side. The lateral got the fleet Gifford around the end very quickly. Rote came across to trip up the Colts’ right-outside linebacker, Myhra, and a lunging block by the big New York right guard, Jack Stroud, sent two more pursuing Colts sprawling. Gifford cut back, dodging through tumbling white uniforms and almost losing his balance before sprinting down the left sidelines.

  —He gets yardage! He’s at the thirty-five, the forty, the fifty, the Baltimore forty, the thirty-five, and he’s down at about the thirty-one-yard line! Bill Pellington makes the tackle. Gifford doing some fancy running, circled his own left end, cut back, and goes all the way down to the Colts’ thirty-one-yard line. A good block thrown by number sixty-six, Jack Stroud, who is back in there this afternoon after being out with rib injuries.

  The Giants failed to move the ball much further in three plays, so Summerall came out to kick a thirty-six-yard field goal, and New York took an early, slender lead.

  That’s how the first quarter ended. In its four offensive possessions so far, the Colts’ vaunted offense had turned the ball over three times, and had managed only one first down. The Giants’ offense had done little better, managing only one first down. Neither team looked much like a champion. The difference in the game so far had been blocking on the two field goal attempts.

  —It has been a defensive battle so far, which is what most experts figured it would be.

  The Giants opened the second quarter with another blunder. From deep in their own side of the field, Conerly tossed a flare pass to Gifford on his left, and the star running back started around the end with Lipscomb in pursuit. Still in his own backfield, Gifford spun away from the tackle, but the move gave the Colts’ other tackle, Ray Krouse, a chance to catch him. Krouse hit him hard and knocked the ball loose. Lipscomb fell on it, and the big game had produced its fi
fth turnover.

  The stadium was quiet now. The gleeful sound of scattered Colts fans sounded small as John trotted out. Baltimore was just twenty yards from the Giants’ goal line. From here they just ran the ball, which they were doing with increasing success, alternating handoffs to Moore and Ameche, who pounded forward steadily until they were on New York’s one-yard line, from where Ameche plunged over the goal line. It took them just five plays.

  When Myhra’s extra point went through the uprights, the Colts were up 7-3. Two things of note had happened in that short drive. On the Colts’ first play from scrimmage, Lenny Moore had taken off with the ball around the left side. He dodged inside, avoiding one tackler, and was then snared by Huff, who caught him at an angle, wrapped both long arms around his midsection, and stood him up. Moore kept his balance but stopped running. The powerful middle linebacker pushed him a few yards backward, and then lifted him completely off the ground, inverted him, and slammed him down hard on his back. The running back got up with a sharp pain between his shoulder blades. He finished the drive, but on the sidelines told Weeb that he was hurt.

  “Man, when I lift up my arms it feels like somebody is sticking a knife in the middle of my back,” he said.

  “Can you run?” the coach asked.

  Moore said he could still run, but he wasn’t going to be able to catch the ball very well.

  “I want you to stay in the game,” the coach told him. New York was double-teaming Moore on the right side, which potentially opened up more chances for Raymond on the left. So far, Baltimore had not taken advantage. Raymond had yet to be thrown a pass. John had been biding his time, letting the plays he had worked out with his alter ego ripen like fruit on a low branch, which was one of his specialties. He had been setting up the Giants with all these running plays and deep passes to Moore. If the flashy receiver came out of the game, the Giants would surely double-team Raymond.