On December 4, 1954, as reported by the Baltimore Sun, the Baltimore Colts played the Los Angeles Rams at the Los Angeles Coliseum. The Colts were down by two points and 80 yards from the end zone with just two minutes remaining in the game when quarterback Cotton Davidson made seven completions in a row. The Colts ultimately won the game with a field goal with a mere 12 seconds left on the clock. A week later, he performed an even more impressive set of seven passes, and an overall ten plays in a game against the San Francisco 49ers with the 49ers ahead 10-7, but the eventual field goal failed, the 49ers won, and that was unexpectedly the end of Davidson’s career with the Colts.
As he told the Sun, “I left town feeling good, knowing I was the only one of three quarterbacks coming back the next year. But when I got home, there was a letter from the Army saying they wanted me for two years. All I did in the service was play football and baseball at Fort Bliss. When I returned to the Colts in 1957, another guy was wearing No. 19.” The guy was Johnny Unitas, about whom Davidson said, “John was top of the line. We never had a cross word. I backed him up that season and you knew that son of a gun was going to be the guy.”
