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