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The Indianapolis Colts and New York Giants battle on this week’s schedule of NFL games, and we’ll highlight a matchup of these 2 old franchises for this week’s Throwback Thursday feature. It was the 1959 NFL Championship. A rematch of the ’58 title game, won by the Colts in the first sudden death contest in league history that has been labeled “The Greatest Game Ever Played”. Would this contest provide the same dramatics?

It was played on December 27, 1959 at Baltimore’s Memorial Stadium, and to say it was decided in the final quarter would be an understatement. The Colts were defending champions, of course, but the Giants were also a proud franchise, having won the title as recently as the 1956 season and reaching the championship for the second year in a row. The biggest fireworks of the early part of this contest came in the first quarter on a 60 yard touchdown hookup from the Colts’ John Unitas to Lenny Moore. The rest of the first 3 quarters were a defensive battle, with New York managing a Pat Summerall field goal in each quarter to fashion a slight 9-7 lead going into the fourth. Finally, Unitas, who had basically invented the “2 minute drill” in the previous year’s title game, began to solve the Giants’ defense and engineered a pair of scoring drives to break open the close game. He finished one by scrambling 4 yards to paydirt on his own, then threw a 12 yard touchdown pass to split end and future Carolina Panthers’ owner Jerry Richardson for the second one as Baltimore gained a 28-9 lead. Kicker Steve Myhra added a field goal to total, while New York finally found the end zone late in the game as QB Charlie Conerly tossed 32 yards to Bob Schnelker to provide the final score of 31-16, giving Unitas and the Colts their second straight championship.

It was Deja Vu for the Big Blue, and part of a frustrating stretch of years for the Giants. After winning the ’56 title and faltering in 1957, they reached the league’s final game 4 more times in the next 5 years, only to lose all 4 games. After coach Weeb Ewbank’s Colts and Unitas defeated them twice, they ran into Vince Lombardi’s Green Bay Packers in 1961 and ’62 and absorbed 2 more losses.

Colts’ Unitas scans the field

Week 16 of the 2024 NFL schedule finds 2 old league rivals, the Chicago Bears and Detroit Lions, meeting with the clubs going in opposite directions. The Lions are quite possibly the best team in the league, while the Bears are struggling with a rookie quarterback and have already fired their head coach. Circumstances were different, but not completely, when this week’s featured Throwback Thursday game was played between the 2 teams. It was on November 11, 1951 at Chicago’s Wrigley Field, and the Bears, a powerhouse at the time, had won 5 of their first 6 games. Detroit was a good team looking for respect, sporting a 3-2-1 mark. However, the Bears ruled the series between the clubs, having beaten the Lions 11 consecutive times.

This record didn’t sit well with one Lion player in particular – their extremely competitive quarterback Bobby Layne. Layne’s 26 yard touchdown pass to Dorne Dibble gave the Lions a 7-0 first quarter lead. The Bears squared the score with a 54 yard Steve Romanik to John Hoffman pass to open the second stanza, but Layne caught fire for the rest of the half. He led a trio of scoring drives, first managing a short Doak Walker field goal, then finding Leon Hart, along with Dibble his favorite target of the day, on scoring throws of 17 and 9 yards. Detroit’s second quarter surge left them with a 24-7 halftime advantage.

Chicago switched to Johnny Lujack at quarterback in the second half, and he delivered the first score of the half when he tossed a 10 yard touchdown pass to Gene Shroeder. The Lions kept the heat on, however, upping their lead to 31-14 when Pat Harder rushed 3 yards to paydirt to close out the third period. Determined to continue their dominance over their Western Division rivals, the Bears scored next with a Lujack 7 yard pass to Jim Keane, but the Lions, just as determined to break the losing streak to George Halas’ forces, kept up the fight. Layne and Harder supplied the needed push. A Layne to Harder 15 yard touchdown pass and a Harder field goal completed Detroit’s scoring, giving them a comfortable 41-21 lead. Chicago’s George Gulyanics scored from 4 yards out to make the final margin 41-28, but Layne and the Lions finally earned a victory over the Bears after 11 unsuccessful tries. Detroit managed to surpass the Bears in the final standings for the ’51 season with a 7-4-1 record to Chicago’s 7-5. Unfortunately they still fell short of the Western Division crown to the Los Angeles Rams, who finished 8-4.

Detroit’s feisty QB Bobby Layne

The Denver Broncos and Indianapolis Colts clash on this week’s NFL slate of games, and for this week’s Throwback Thursday feature we will revisit a game played between these 2 AFC rivals on January 11, 2015. It was a divisional round playoff contest, and Denver’s Mile High Stadium was it’s location. The story line of this game was the clash of quarterbacks. Peyton Manning meeting his former team, now led by brash young gunslinger Andrew Luck.

Manning got the party started by leading a first quarter drive that ended with a 1 yard touchdown toss to Demaryius Thomas. The Colts fought back to take the lead 14-7 in the second quarter with touchdowns from Dan Herron on a 6 yard run and Dwayne Allen on a 3 yard pass from Luck. Denver’s Connor Barth cut that lead to 14-10 with a 45 yard field goal in the waning seconds of the half. The Indy defense clamped down on Manning in the second half, and upped their lead to 21-10 with the only score of the third quarter, a 15 yard Luck to Hakeem Nicks touchdown pass. Manning’s frustrations continued throughout the remainder of the game, and the only scoring the Broncos could muster was another Barth field goal. Adam Vinatieri matched that for the Colts, and that was all the scoring they needed to secure a 24-13 win and a trip to the AFC Championship game the following week, where the mighty New England Patriots awaited them.

The loss by Manning robbed  America of another classic battle between him and the Patriots’ Tom Brady. Instead it was Luck who got the privilege. Typically, Luck ran out of luck as he and the Colts were schooled by Brady and Bill Belichick in a 45-7 rout in the title game.

Dejected Peyton Manning after playoff loss to Colts

The NFL season is moving along quickly, entering week 14 already. This week, we honed in on a matchup between the Minnesota Vikings and Atlanta Falcons, who meet on this week’s schedule, to find a game to highlight for Throwback Thursday. It was the NFC Championship game for the 1998 season, played on January 7, 1999. It was a fairy tale regular season for coach Dennis Green’s Vikings, who were near perfect in finishing 15-1. Atlanta wasn’t far behind at 14-2, so that made for an evenly-matched contest in the title game. The first quarter was a wash as both teams scored, the Falcons on a short 5 yard pass from Chris Chandler to back Jamal Anderson, and the Vikings on a 31 yard Randall Cunningham to Randy Moss throw.

Minnesota, behind their raucous home crowd at the Hubert Humphrey Metrodome, took over the game in the second stanza. Gary Anderson sandwiched field goals around a 1 yard Cunningham QB sneak to pull ahead 20-7. Atlanta salvaged the period by cobbling together a drive that ended with Chandler finding Terance Mathis for a 14 yard score with 59 seconds left, shortening the deficit to 20-14. Morten Andersen, Atlanta’s kicker, provided the only third quarter scoring with a field goal, but in the final quarter Cunningham widened his team’s lead to 27-17 with a touchdown pass of 5 yards to Matthew Hatchette. Morten Andersen kicked another field goal to keep the game close, but with just a few minutes remaining, the Vikings had a chance to salt the game away when Gary Anderson entered to attempt a 38 yard field goal. Anderson had been perfect on every one of his three point tries in ’98, so this seemed to be a lock.

Of course Anderson missed the kick. This fueled the Falcons to drive to a tying touchdown with 57 seconds left on another Chandler to Mathis pass of 16 yards, almost mirroring the TD they scored with less than a minute left in the first half. The touchdown sent the game into overtime, where, after failed possessions by both teams, Morten Andersen booted a 38 yard field goal to send Atlanta on to the Super Bowl. A huge disappointing end and a lost opportunity for Minnesota, a franchise that bears the burden of also losing the Super Bowl 4 different times.

Gary Anderson watches his missed field goal