It’s a Sunday after Labor Day, which means the NFL is dominating living rooms and Facebook feeds again. Professional football passed baseball as America’s sport of choice years ago…but it wasn’t always so. In fact, the gridiron game’s surge in popularity can be attributed in large part to a game played 56 years ago on December 28, 1958.

The NFL was holding its 26th championship game in 1958, but television coverage of the sport had been spotty. NBC had picked up the rights to televise the league championship game three years earlier for $100,000, but was still looking for the breakout game that would justify the investment. They got it on this date, when the New York Giants and Baltimore Colts met at Yankee Stadium to decide the league title.

For a time, it looked like the Colts might take an easy win. Led by Johnny Unitas under center and paced by a big day from receiver Raymond Berry (his 12 receptions would be a championship game record until this year), Baltimore held a 14-3 lead at halftime and was looking to punch it in again from the Giants’ 1-yard line early in the third quarter. But the New York defense stood strong and stuffed Alan Ameche on third and fourth down, forcing the turnover on downs. The Giants needed just four plays to go 95 yards for the score, making it 14-10. New York took the lead 17-14 in the fourth quarter, and then punted to the Colts with two minutes remaining.

Unitas took over on his own 14-yard line and engineered a two-minute drill, long before the phrase came into common use. Berry came up big, moving the ball 62 yards on three consecutive catches and setting up a tying field goal with just seven seconds left. For the first time in the NFL playoffs, a game was going to be decided in overtime. Unitas later recalled that the players had never heard of the idea, and were standing around waiting to see what would happen before the officials walked out for the overtime coin toss.

In the sudden death period, New York took the ball first before going three-and-out. With Unitas handing off to Ameche and throwing to Berry, the Colts took advantage of New York’s fatigue, moving 80 yards up the field. It was all over when Ameche (nicknamed "The Horse") stuck his horseshoe-painted helmet out and plunged into the end zone from a yard away, giving the Colts the 23-17 win. But the country almost didn’t see the dramatic finish. Earlier in the drive, NBC’s television feed had gone dead thanks to an unplugged cable. When someone delayed the game by running out on the field, the network had time to resume the feed. Rumors later said it was an NBC employee who caused the distraction.

They called it “The Greatest Game Ever Played,” and up to that point it was a fair distinction. It was exactly what the NFL needed: An exciting game in a championship setting with the whole country watching. The league’s popularity continued to grow. Two years later, the flashier AFL would come on the scene, leading to the football wars of the 1960s, before the two leagues merged into a stronger mega-league with franchises all over the country. The bigger and better NFL needed a grander title for its championship game, and so audiences got the Super Bowl. But for all its pomp, the Super Bowl has never seen a game decided in overtime…which makes the drama of Giants-Colts in 1958 still unique in the league’s history.

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