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

by Frank Gifford; Peter Richmond

  On second down, Charlie went to the man who got us here: Schnelker. Bob went down fifteen yards, and slanted in. He was open at the 45, the cornerback behind him and the safety coming in. But Charlie's pass led him just a little too much, and it was a little too low. It would have taken a near-spectacular catch by Bob.

  In the end, Charlie's last pass of that season and that game goes into the scorebooks as just another incompletion.

  On our final offensive play of the game, knowing they'd be coming with everything they had, Charlie rolled to the right, buying time, looking again for Schnelker, fifteen yards down the right sideline. But Bob was covered. Charlie had his arm already cocked when he decided not to risk the interception He had some room, and in a split second made the decision to run the ball. Pellington slowed Charlie down, and linebacker Don Shinnick moved in to finish him off, corralling Charlie up high, and pushing him back.

  Charlie went down a yard short of the first down-another almost forgotten play that would shape and mold this first-ever suddendeath play-off into a historic happening.

  "Don never played the play the way it was drawn up," Andy Nelson told me. "He played his own defense." Shinnick had led the pregame prayer for his team; maybe it had taken five quarters for it to be answered.

  Charlie had made the right decision when he tucked it in.

  Vince didn't have to tell him, "Don't turn it over down there." In the back of his mind I'm sure he was thinking that giving it back to the defense wouldn't be the worst thing in the world. After all giving up two consecutive long drives? That didn't happen to our defense.

  At that point, Berry says, he knew that Johnny was just getting warmed up. "You see, Unitas was not necessarily a normal quarterback," Berry told me. "He did not have a fatigue problem with his arm. He thrived on work. To Johnny, pressure was just a fuel for a fire that burned inside. He could throw and throw and throw after practice, and it never bothered him. This was a big factor at this point. He just never got tired. I think maybe Charlie, being much older, got tired. Johnny just got stronger."

  Today, Raymond swears he was feeling no pressure: "It was business as usual. I guess one of my unusual characteristics was my ability to focus. I had the mental gift of being able to tune out the entire world."

  The radio announcers wondered whether we'd go for it. We never considered going for it. We couldn't risk giving it up down here, on our 29. Chandler got off a tremendous, soaring punt-62 yards. Taseff returned it one yard, to the 20.

  The Colts had eighty yards to cover. But this time, with no pressure from the clock, Johnny could take the time to do what he did best: study the defense as he got to the line, and change the play if he saw the defense giving him something. He would do that a whole lot in the next few minutes.

  In the huddle, Ameche said years later, the first thing Unitas said was " 'We're going to go right down and score.' You could just feel the confidence."

  The second thing he did, of course, was call the perfect play.

  Tom had made a defensive change, lining Sam up outside right, to give Carl some help on Berry, and why not? Raymond had ten receptions-so far; we had to stop him. That gave us two linebackers out on Johnny's left, but it also took Sam out of anything up the middle. And when Dupre broke off tackle, and cut back in, he had nothing but daylight. By the time Youso and Sam wrestled L. G down, he'd gained 11.

  On the next play, Johnny pumped to Berry, turned, and threw a 60-yard bomb to Moore, sprinting down the right sideline. Hours earlier, Lenny may have told Johnny that he thought he could handle Lindon all day, but while Lindon had given up some receptions, he had always been close. This time, Lindon was with him every step of the way, and knocked the ball away. To my way of thinking, that day Lindon Crow played one of the best games at cornerback I've ever seen.

  A draw to Dupre got 2. Now, third down and eight. If we held them, we'd get the ball back with pretty good field position.

  We all have a play that haunts us. This one is Harland's. Johnny faded back and looked left toward Raymond, and Johnny's read showed him that both of the linebackers were staying with Berry, Svare, and Huff trying to help Carl. Johnny turned and flipped a flare to Ameche, circling out of the backfield. Harland recovered just a little too late, and came back to dive at Alan's feet at the 39.

  He grabbed Ameche by the ankles. But Ameche stretched it out as he fell, and landed on the 41. First down.

  "It's been fifty years," Harland told me, "and that's the thing I remember most about that game: that I was back too far when he dumped it off to Alan. I've never forgotten it."

  They now had good field position. John called a run to Dupre off right tackle, and Huff held it to 3. And on second, Johnny never had time to look downfield: Mo blew past Spinney and sacked Johnny back at the 37. Mo had saved his best for last.

  It was third and fourteen. Everyone knew what was coming and we were seemingly powerless to stop it. Maybe it was too much to expect a great effort from a defense that had put in a heroic effort for three weeks, back to back to back.

  Maybe our line was just beat, and now playing with personnel out of position. Whatever it was, Johnny had far too much time.

  He looked right, but Lindon had Lenny covered. So now Johnny looked now where he always looked when he was in trouble-for Berry. "By now," Raymond told me, "we'd been together three years. We knew what each other would do in any situation."

  Johnny scrambled to his left, as Robustelli had tried to spin inside on Parker, and Parker, using Andy's own momentum, had driven him deep inside. As Johnny ran left, he broke into the clear.

  With all the time in the world, he motioned with his left hand for Berry to go deep. But, as Raymond later admitted, he didn't have the gas left to go deep. He came back toward Johnny. Carl stopped, tried to come back-and slipped on the frozen turf, just long enough for Ray to look the ball right into his hands.

  How many times in that game had our guys slipped on our own home turf? Too many to count. Today, Raymond swears that his customary and precise pregame survey of the field had nothing to do with the fact that one of his biggest catches of the day took advantage of the frozen spot he'd checked out three hours earlier.

  Berry had picked up 21 yards.

  Now they were on our 42. And the next play was arguably the greatest Unitas audible of all time. He'd called a pass in the huddle. But Sam, anticipating another pass, had dropped off just a little, to help out in the coverage. John also knew that our line Modzelewski in particular-would be letting it rip; that Mo would be looking for his third sack.

  Johnny added it up, and changed the play with an audible, sending Ameche behind a trap block, right up the middle.

  "It was his best call of the game," Braase says now. Modzelewski remembers the play all too well. At the snap, he flew in, looking for that third sack. "Never did I expect him to have a running play, a trap on me," Mo told me. "Never. I got trapped, and Ameche broke it up the gut. If I was still coaching," Mo added. "I'd still tell my linemen to rush. But Johnny made a great call."

  With Sam out of position, Ameche ran untouched for 15 yards before Carl grasped a piece of Raymond's jersey to slow him down. Patton brought Berry down at the 19. The play had gained 23 yards.

  Years later, Unitas was asked about that trap play-the last play anyone had ever expected.

  "It was nothing magical," he said. "I didn't pull it out of a hat.

  The defense told me what to do."

  The Colts were in field-goal range at the 19, but with Myhra al- ways a concern as a kicker, they weren't about to try and win it with a field goal now. On first down, Johnny handed off to Dupre, but Sam nailed him at the line of scrimmage.

  But on second down, however, they broke our backs, and made the final outcome inevitable.

  It was Unitas to Berry again, and this time, with Berry split to the left, they came with a quick slant-in. At the snap, Ameche and Dupre flooded out left, taking the linebacker Svare with them. Sam stayed in the middle, dropping
back, trying to read Johnny, sliding to his right, looking for pass. Meanwhile, on the line, Parker rolled up Andy Robustelli, who was taking his pass rush inside.

  Robustelli went down, clearing a lane of sight for Johnny, and Johnny, reading it all in a fraction of a second, nailed Berry crossing across the middle. Berry took it to the 8 before Patton could drag him down. The play had taken great timing; Johnny had only a fraction of a second to sneak it in. This was to be Raymond's last catch-a remarkable twelfth reception.

  You could feel the wind come out of the crowd. On the sideline, I just felt helpless. I can remember feeling, 'It's over.' Strangely, I also felt almost a feeling of relief. We had given everything we had, not only in this game, but also in the must-win final weeks, and now, simply, that was it.

  Even Steve Myhra doesn't miss from the 8.

  Now, in a game full of unpredictable plays and unpredictable events, an even weirder thing happened. The television signal was focusing on a couple of guys on the field hoisting a big "Let's Win Colts" banner-when it suddenly faded to fuzz.. The rocking and stomping of the crowd had apparently unplugged a cable, and America went dark.

  All we saw was a guy running on the field, chased by five cops.

  Pat Summerall says that the broadcaster Lindsay Nelson once told him the guy was an NBC employee, a business exec, who'd been told to delay the game until they could get the signal back. I have my doubts. But it's a good story in a day of great stories.

  I do know that the delay gave Unitas time to talk to Ewbank on the sideline. Years later, Ewbank would say that his instructions to Johnny were clear: Keep running the ball, to get it between the hash marks and make Myhra's kick easier. I don't think John was listening to a word Weeb said.

  They lined up on the 8. The crowd had started to come out of the stands, ringing the field, setting the stage for what by now seemed an inevitability. On first down: Johnny called an off tackle over the right side for Ameche, but Lenny Moore completely missed his block on Katcavage, and Kat, with deep penetration, tripped Alan up. Sam finished him off after a one-yard gain. They'd put the ball between the hash marks.

  Myhra stayed put on the sideline.

  Analysts, players, and modern-day coaches are still talking about the next play. All Johnny had to do was run it once more on second down. Then Myhra could kick it on third, and if something went wrong-a bobbled snap, a penalty-they'd get another shot.

  As the Colts lined up, Johnny, once again, came with a surprise. Livingston, on John's right side, was lined up inside tight end Mutscheller's inside shoulder. Unitas would look for Mutscheller to get wide open on the outside, and as he faded back, he had plenty of time.

  Maybe no one thought he'd take a chance with a pass. Maybe we should have learned by then. When Cliff, after checking Mutscheller, came on the pass rush, he was too late.

  Unitas pumped to Moore in the end zone, but that was just to freeze Lindon. He never intended to throw to Moore. Then he went back to Mutscheller, who was completely alone out at the sideline.

  Jim caught it at the 1, for a six-yard gain just inside the sideline, slipped on the turf, and fell out of bounds. Finally, the home-field turf had given the Giants a break-too little, too late.

  "I nearly fainted," Ewbank said. "When the television cable went out, and they were fixing it, John came over and said, 'What do you think?' I said, 'Let's keep it on the ground.' I told him to give the ball to Alan, who was sure-handed, and keep it as much in front of the goalpost as we could. Myhra wasn't the most consistent kicker around, and if we had to go for the field goal, I wanted to give him every edge.

  "Well, dammit, John lobs it over a linebacker and right to Mutscheller. After the game John said that if Jim had been covered he would have thrown it out of bounds. That's one of the reasons why Johnny was so great: he believed in himself. But a coach doesn't think that way. You think, What if the rush gets him? What if he fumbles? What if it's picked off ?"

  Again, what if? But as Landry always said about his defense, there are no what-ifs-and not when Unitas made a call. Johnny had a defense he liked, he had an open receiver, and he had a good chance at a touchdown. To his way of thinking, going for the touchdown would be far safer than going with a chancy fieldgoal kicker.

  "Yeah, I was surprised he threw the ball," Buzz Nutter told me, "but I never expected us to kick the field goal there. We'd have kicked on fourth. I do know we've all been giving Mutscheller grief for fifty years now. He could have been the hero. Instead he falls out of bounds."

  Berry wasn't surprised about the play at all. Nothing John did surprised Raymond. "And don't forget that we'd had that field goal blocked early," Berry says now. "We knew we were going to win that game. We knew that Johnny was going to get it into the end zone.

  It may have been stupid thinking-driving eighty yards against the best defense in football? But we had such a confidence level right then that I don't think a field goal ever entered my mind."

  The pass to Mutscheller was hardly a gamble: As far as I'm concerned, Johnny throwing the ball to his wide-open tight end in the flat was as sure a thing as a run. Is that gambling? It's not gambling when you believe in yourself.

  No one said it better than Johnny, in the locker room a few minutes later, when reporters asked him why he'd taken such a risk. He answered their question with a question of his own: "Why shouldn't I have passed then? After all, you don't have to risk anything when you know where you're passing."

  Journal-American reporter Dave Anderson remembers it slightly differently. He remembers standing in front of Johnny's locker and asking Johnny about the pass, and watching Johnny pause as he considered the question. "Then he turned to me, with that cool expression on his face," Dave told me, "and just said, 'When you know what you're doing, you don't get intercepted.' "

  The final play in this game has been replayed so often that half of America knows it in their sleep. Third and goal from the 1. No sign of Myhra, of course. As long as the Colts had a chance to control the outcome of the game, without Myhra's erratic foot, there was no reason to try one on third; even if there's a fumbled snap or a penalty, it was still going to come down to Myhra's foot again.

  Johnny had a play left to burn.

  Our entire defensive line was set. It had been damaged by injuries, particularly the loss of Grier. But there was still the pride, still the leaders who had gotten us here-Andy, Mo, Sam, Cliff, Harland.

  They had made spectacular goal-line stands all season, and they were not just going to roll over.

  In the Colt huddle, Johnny, of course, was as cool as could be.

  He set the formation, gave the call-a 16 slant. Our defense was probably expecting the Colts to run left, where they'd had success all afternoon; Unitas sent Ameche right.

  It would have been fitting for this game to end with a moment of high drama: a head-butting pile at the goal line, the goalposts shaking, Ameche fighting and churning for an extra inch, Huff flying in, maybe a controversial spot. Instead, the final play of the longest game in NFL history was completely one-sided. If a single play can be a rout, this play was a rout.

  At the snap, the tight end Mutscheller blocked in on Cliff Livingston, and sealed off not just Livingston, but the whole left side of our line; Mutscheller drove Cliff sideways into Katcavage and Modzelewski, taking them out of the play.

  "That was the biggest satisfaction in my life, that block," Mutscheller says now.

  That left one Giant defender, Emlen Tunnell, facing one Colt, Lenny Moore. Lenny wasn't known as much of a blocker, and Emlen played free safety like a linebacker, but this was the block of Lenny's career: he barreled into Emlen and stood him up, driving him back.

  Ameche lowered his shoulder and ran through the wide-open hole-"so big," Alan would say years later, "that Artie could have run through it." Ameche had expected to meet a defensive surge. He met none. He tumbled into the end zone. No Giant had laid a finger on him.

  The Baltimore Colts, coached by Weeb Ewbank, are champi
ons of the professional football world."

  By the time Ameche hit the turf, the fans were already swarming the field. I was already heading for the locker room. But the drama was far from over.

  Andy Nelson stood watching, half in fear and half in awe, as fans shimmied up the goalpost, then tore it down. "If I'd know how much a splinter would have been worth," he says now, "I'd have stuck around and gotten one."

  The ball itself took a roundabout journey. Ameche, probably out of fear of the mob, had just left it on the ground. Buzz Nutter scooped it up and carried it inside, and gave it to the guard at the Colts' dressing room. Later, of course, he, too, had second thoughts about that ball: "Man, that would have been like a Babe Ruth home run ball. Of course, back then I guess maybe you'd have gotten twenty-five dollars for it."

  Marchetti remembers how agonizing it was to be lying on a gurney in the empty locker room and trying to figure out what the cheering meant: "Finally, Pellington opened the door, and lets out a shout: 'We're the world champs!' Then my leg felt better."

  One newspaper account called the Colt locker room "raucous."

  Andy Nelson remembers it very differently: "The locker room was quiet. Shinnick led the prayer. We were all pretty emotionally drained. There wasn't a whole lot of jumping around." All Artie recalls is that there wasn't any beer.

  Johnny, Dave Anderson has told me, was as cool as ever as he fielded questions from the reporters. It was just about then that word came down about the game MVP award: a Corvette. Near the end of regulation, goes the story now, the award-and the car-had been voted to Charlie. After the overtime, the decision was reversed: Johnny was named the MVP. There's no record of Johnny's response, but my guess is that Johnny had about as much use for a Corvette as Charlie would have. They were not Corvette guys. They were team guys. (When a representative of The Ed Sullivan Show offered Unitas $700 to stay in town and appear on TV, Johnny declined. He wanted to go home. Ameche took his place on the show.)

  No one was as drained as Raymond Berry, who told me he hadn't celebrated with his teammates. He'd sprinted off the field" But I wasn't really sprinting. It was like I was floating. It's such a high, I really can't describe it any other way." When he got to the locker room, he was overcome by emotions that, even today, he has trouble describing. He looked around, and suddenly felt the need to be alone.