1956 NFL Championship Game
In the 1956 National Football League Championship Game played at Yankee Stadium in New York City on 30 December 1956, the New York Giants defeated the Chicago Bears 47-7. It was the 24th annual NFL championship game.
The game was played on an icy field. To adjust to the conditions, the Giants opted to wear sneakers instead of traditional football cleats. The advantage the sneakers provided in footing was cited as a major factor in New York's romp. Twenty-two years earlier on an icy Polo Grounds field, the Giants had employed the same tactic and beat the Bears to win the 1934 NFL Championship in the famous "Sneakers Game."
The 1956 Giants featured a number of Hall of Fame players, including running backs Frank Gifford and Alex Webster, offensive tackle Roosevelt Brown, linebacker Sam Huff, and defensive end Andy Robustelli. Two assistants of Giants head coach Jim Lee Howell, Offensive Coordinator Vince Lombardi and Defensive Coordinator Tom Landry, later became NFL Hall of Fame head coaches with other franchises; Lombardi coached the Green Bay Packers to five NFL Championships during the 1960s and Landry coached the Dallas Cowboys to two NFL Championships during the 1970s.
The 1956 season marked the Giants first at Yankee Stadium and the team earned its way to the championship game by winning the NFL Eastern Division title with a regular season record of 8-3-1. The 1956 NFL Championship was the third in the history of the New York Giants franchise. It would be another thirty years before the Giants would win another championship.
Read more about 1956 NFL Championship Game: Scoring Summary
Famous quotes containing the word game:
“My first big mistake was made when, in a moment of weakness, I consented to learn the game; for a man who can frankly say “I do not play bridge” is allowed to go over in the corner and run the pianola by himself, while the poor neophyte, no matter how much he may protest that he isn’t “at all a good player, in fact I’m perfectly rotten,” is never believed, but dragged into a game where it is discovered, too late, that he spoke the truth.”
—Robert Benchley (1889–1945)