The best there was

In the annals of sports, where in each one in particular, be it basketball, baseball or others, there are those who are revered by their peers and sports journalists of all generations who award an individual as the greatest there is. In professional football, it stands to reason that now, during the current NFL season, I look back at the one person many consider “the best there was.” In the historical history of the NFL, even by today’s standards, an individual stands alone to exemplify what sportsmanship, true courage and determination despite overwhelming odds rose above and for eighteen years he reigned supreme as the best. quarterback who has never played the game. There are many who emphatically state that Johnny Unitas was the best there was. Even today, there are those who feel that Johnny U could command any team, read today’s complex defense playbooks, and literally take the entire game to a new level of excitement, skill, and daring.

With his signature flat haircut, Johnny Unitas rose to the highest level of professional soccer balls. Few, if any, sports stories are more dramatic or fuller than the Johnny Unitas story. He was, after all, a ninth-round pick for the Pittsburgh Steelers in 1955. Even though Unitas was eliminated before he threw a pass in a game he was still determined to play. For the rest of the year, Unitas substituted his construction job by playing semi-professional football for $ 6 a game. Back then, players were asked to play what is commonly known as Iron Man football. That is playing both defensive and attacking positions. Johnny Unitas excelled at all. But it was his passing ability that finally caught the attention of other professional scouts.

It was after the 1955 season that Baltimore Colts head coach Weeb Ewbank learned of an “outstanding prospect” on the sandy grounds of Pittsburgh. Ewbank hired Johnny for $ 17,000 on a team basis. Strictly scheduled as a backup, Unitas got his chance in Game 4 when the Colts starter was injured. And they say the rest is history! Over the next 18 seasons, “Johnny U” ran a record of game-winning feats that have stood as the benchmark by which all other quarterbacks are measured. Many of his achievements have remained intact for more than fifty years. another Johnny U. Sure, there were others like Bart Star, Dan Marino, Brett Favre, Tom Brady, but it was Johnny Unitas who put the NFL on the map and on the nation’s conscience.

Without question, it was his last-second heroic deeds in the 1958 NFL title game, often called “the best game ever played,” that made Unitas a household name and started the legend. The biggest game between the Colts and Giants ever played before a national television audience, it gave Unitas a chance to show off all of his wonderful attributes, confidence, courage, leadership, genius in the game and passing ability, all without the call of the playbook. by today’s coaches. Think of a Johnny Unitas as today’s quarterback. He once told Weeb Ewbank to sit down, relax, and enjoy the game. The confidence and determination shown under intense pressure in a collision sport like football in the NFL just showcased the true talents of Johnny Unitas.

As in any professional sport, the era has its way of slowing down one’s great ability, and in 1974, Johnny Unitas had to quit the game that he comfortably brought into the living rooms of the nation. A household name where all aspiring soccer players, especially young quarterbacks, tried to emulate. He always recovered from injuries that became a trademark of Unitas. A typical incident occurred in 1958, when he led Baltimore to the Western Conference title, he was beaten by Johnny Symank of the Packers in the sixth game and was hospitalized with three broken ribs and a punctured lung. Four games later, he led the Colts from a 27-7 deficit at halftime to a 35-27 victory over the San Francisco 49ers, a performance that rated higher than the celebrated title game of the season.

Unitas may have been overlooked as a young player, but he was always an energetic and confident leader. “Everything I do,” he said, “I always have a reason.” Even at the end of that championship game, he dismissed Ewbank’s instructions to keep the ball on the ground. “We don’t want an interception here,” the coach reminded him during a timeout. Two plays later, within the 10th, Unitas passed Jim Mutscheller to one. When asked about the risk of an interception, Unitas said: “If I had seen a danger from that, I would have thrown the ball out of bounds. When you know what you are doing, you are not intercepted.” Unitas threw 32 touchdowns in 1959 and the Colts again beat the Giants in the title game. In the 31-16 victory, Unitas ran for the lead touchdown and passed for 264 yards and two touchdowns.

His 3,481 yards passing led the NFL in 1963. The next season he was the league’s MVP when he led the Colts to the NFL’s best record at 12-2 and was the first in yards per pass attempt (9.26). . Winning another MVP in 1967, he had a 58.5 completion percentage, the highest in the league, passing for 3,428 yards and 20 touchdowns in the Colts’ 11-1-2 season. After being injured for most of the 1968 season, Unitas came back and led the Colts in their only scoring series in historic Super Bowl III, a 16-7 loss to the New York Jets. Two years later, in the Colts’ 16-13 victory over the Dallas Cowboys in Super Bowl V, he threw a 75-yard touchdown pass to John Mackey before sustaining an injury late in the first half.

Lingering injuries finally caught up with him and in 1972 the Colts under new coach Don Shula were forced to leave Unitas on the bench. The following January he sold him to the San Diego Chargers, for whom he played only one season before retiring. In his 18-year career, Unitas threw for 40,239 yards and 290 touchdowns in 211 games. What made Unitas special, Berry said, “was his uncanny instinct to make the right play at the right time, his cool composure under fire, his fierce competitiveness and his utter disregard for his own safety.” On September 11, 2002, as the rest of the nation remembered a national tragedy, Unitas was exercising at a physical therapy center in the Baltimore suburb of Timonium when he suffered a fatal heart attack and quietly went down in history. He was 69 years old. The best there was, now it was gone

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