page_title: 1958 NFL season
section_title: Highlights
hierarchical_section_title: 1958 NFL season / Regular season / Highlights
caption_attribution_description: English: NFL player Jim Brown of the Cleveland Browns on a 1959 Topps football trading card
context_page_description: The 1958 NFL season was the 39th regular season of the National Football League.
  The Baltimore Colts defeated the New York Giants, 23–17, in the first sudden-death overtime in an NFL Championship Game. The game became known to American football fans as "The Greatest Game Ever Played."
context_section_description: The 1958 season is regarded as a watershed year in which the popularity of professional football in the United States began to rival that of baseball in the public imagination. "Professional football was beyond coming of age in 1958," one writer enthused, "it was on an even plane with baseball as the game of the people." 
  Stadium attendance was robust throughout the league, with crowds in excess of 100,000 twice filling the Los Angeles Coliseum to see the Los Angeles Rams, while the Detroit Lions managed to sell a staggering 42,000 season tickets in advance of the 1958 campaign, ensuring home sellouts at Briggs Stadium. 
  At the other end of the attendance spectrum, the Chicago Cardinals faltered with the live gate, overshadowed again by the legendary Bears. The team ultimately moved two of their home games for 1959 to Minneapolis before permanently departing for St. Louis the following year. Similarly, the Pittsburgh Steelers were disappointed with their attendance in their new home at Schenley Field, which proved difficult to access and provided a particularly windy and inhospitable place to watch a game. The team sought to remedy its problems by opting out of its two year lease.
  Cleveland Browns running back Jim Brown electrified football fans around the league by gaining more than 1,500 yards on 257 carries, an average of 5.9 yards per carry. The powerful Cleveland runner smashed the previous NFL record of 1,146 yards in a 12 game season, set by Steve Van Buren in 1949. He also nearly doubled the total of the second leading ground-gainer of 1958, fullback Alan Ameche of the Baltimore Colts. Brown's 17 touchdowns scored similarly dwarfed the tallies of any other player, with Colts end Raymond Berry second on the list with 9 scores.
  Young wide receiver Del Shofner of the Los Angeles Rams led all receivers with 1,097 yards gained on 51 catches — a bountiful average of 21.5 yards per completion. Baltimore quarterback Johnny Unitas made use of a plethora of offensive weapons, connecting with halfback Lenny Moore for nearly 950 yards and wide out Ray Berry for nearly 800 more, leading the league with 2,875 yards passing. Unitas' interception percentage of 2.7% was also a league low among starting quarterbacks. San Francisco 49ers QB John Brodie led the league with a completion percentage of 59.9%.
  On the defensive side of the ball, defensive back James Patton of the New York Giants lead the league with 11 interceptions in the 12 game season, followed by Pittsburgh Steelers defender Jack Butler with 9. Quarterback sacks were not an official statistic in this era, but the league-low 183 points allowed by the New York Giants (15.25 per game) give testimony to the stoutness of their defensive unit.
caption: Cleveland running back Jim Brown set a league record with 1,527 yards gained and scored 17 touchdowns in a season culminating with a Most Valuable Player award.
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