The Greatest Game Ever Played
| Memorable Sports Moments |
   |
| Invite Your Friends to Rate |
Often marked as the start of the new, popular NFL, “The Greatest Game Ever Played” featured the untouchable Baltimore Colts and a star-studded New York Giants. It was also the NFL championship game of any kind to go into sudden-death overtime. The game featured 12 future hall of fame players, namely Frank Gifford, Sam Huff and Johnny Unitas and 2 future hall of fame coaches, the offensive coordinator for the Giants, Vince Lombardi and the Giants Defensive Coordinator Tom Landry. Just imagining that sideline is amazing and perhaps the only modern day equivalence would be Bill Walsh, who’s staff once featured Mike Holmgren and George Seifert and that still doesn’t really even come close.
The Giants drew first blood in the first quarter with a Pat Summerall field goal, but two Gifford fumbles led to two Colts touchdowns in the second quarter. The Colts came out in the second half firing, but fell short on a 3 rd and goal on the one and couldn’t convert the 4 th down on the Alan Ameche halfback option. The Giants drove 95 yards to score again, led by Gifford and the Gifford scored his first touchdown of the game in fourth on a 15 yard reception. The Colts received the ball with 2 minutes left on their own 14 and drove 73 yards, to the Giants 13 to tie the score at 17 at the end of regulation. The referees, slightly confused at the time, since overtime hadn’t really been used before, but was needed in this case, held a coin toss between captains to decide who got the ball. The Giants won the toss but were unable to convert. They punted and the Colts drove from their own 20 yard line to score the game winner on a 1 yard Ameche run.
