#19

 

JOHN ELWAY

The book on John Elway was not completed until the 1997 season, the penultimate year of Elway’s career. The numbers had always been big and Elway’s physical talent had never been in doubt. He was a remarkable athlete who probably had more arm strength than any other quarterback except Dan Marino and his ability to make plays on the run and keep plays alive was comparable with Steve Young, who makes an appearance later in this list.

Elway proved to be one of the masters of the fourth-quarter comeback throughout his career, but there was one question that had dogged him since he came into the NFL in 1983 after a stellar career at Stanford University. Could he win the big game?

Throughout his career in the NFL, the Denver Broncos had been contenders in the AFC. They had won the conference title three times, but the Broncos had been overwhelmed by the New York Giants, Washington Redskins, and San Francisco 49ers, respectively, in the Super Bowl, with each loss worse than the one before. Careful analysis of what had happened in Super Bowls XXI, XXII, and XXIV revealed that the Broncos were overpowered on both sides of the line of scrimmage and that was the primary reason they lost contact with their opponents. But it was equally undeniable that Elway played poorly in each of those games.

That was clearly the case in San Francisco’s 55–10 rout of the Broncos in Super Bowl XXIV. Early in the game, Elway had open receivers to throw the ball to, but he just could not get the ball to them . . . and his attempts were not even close. He threw bounce passes, he threw the ball over their heads, and he just plain missed. At the same time, Joe Montana was razor sharp and he eviscerated the soft Denver defense with throws to Jerry Rice, John Taylor, and Roger Craig.

The disappointment on Elway’s face was unmistakable. All he ever wanted was to get another shot at a championship. His impressive yardage, touchdown, and regular-season-win totals meant little to him.

“I was obsessed with getting back to the Super Bowl,” Elway said. “I had been there three times and it had ended badly each time. I wanted to win a championship and so did everyone wearing a Denver uniform. It was important to all of us and it was very important as far as my career is concerned. Rightly or wrongly we are judged by how we do in the last game of the year and it was my desire to get there and finally walk off the field with a smile, feeling good about our performance. I was beginning to think that it might not happen.”

Getting to the Super Bowl is often out of a quarterback’s control. However, the numbers that he puts on the board are under his control. Here are some of the more notable numbers in Elway’s career:

• Nine-time Pro Bowl selection and six-time Pro Bowl starter

• One NFL MVP (1987)

• One Super Bowl MVP (XXXIII)

• 12 seasons with 3,000 or more yards passing

• 4,123 passes completed

• 300 TD passes

• 51,475 passing yards

• 32 rushing touchdowns

• 47 game-tying or game-winning drives in the fourth quarter

The last figure was probably the most notable number in Elway’s career until he led the Broncos to Super Bowl wins over the Green Bay Packers and Atlanta Falcons in the last two years of his career. His ability to lead the Broncos from behind became his signature in the 1986 AFC Championship Game against the Cleveland Browns. In that game, the Broncos walked into Cleveland’s ancient Municipal Stadium amid the howling fans in the “Dawg Pound” and the Bernie Kosar–led Browns. Both teams played superbly but the Browns had a 20–13 lead late in the fourth quarter when the Broncos got the ball back at their own 2-yard line following a botched kickoff return. With the Browns defense pinning its ears back and coming after Elway on almost every snap, he marched Denver down the field and hit wide receiver Mark Jackson with a game-tying touchdown pass in the final seconds to send the game into overtime. The Broncos won it in the extra session on a Rich Karlis field goal.

“The Drive” is where Elway’s reputation was first built, but it wasn’t cemented until a dozen years later when Denver defeated Green Bay in Super Bowl XXXII by a score of 31–24. In that game, Terrell Davis scored the winning touchdown late in the fourth quarter and Elway stood triumphantly on the sideline when the Broncos defense stopped Brett Favre on a desperation fourth-down pass. Elway came back on the field for one last snap, taking a knee in what he called “the happiest moment of my career.”

Broncos owner Pat Bowlen took the Vince Lombardi trophy and held it aloft after the win, hesitated for a moment and then told the crowd: “This one’s for John.”

That championship had seemed impossible a few years earlier as the Broncos lost much of their luster in the early 1990s. But when Denver hired offensive mastermind Mike Shanahan as head coach in 1995 and also drafted stud running back Terrell Davis from the University of Georgia, the arrow started pointing up for Elway. The partnership with his new coach was especially satisfying because Shanahan gave Elway the opportunity to open up the offense while providing him with a dominant running game. “It was just a great place to be in,” Elway said. “We could run the ball. We had a great ground game and nobody could sit back and just wait for the pass. That allowed us to open things up.”

After the Super Bowl win over the Packers Elway would line up for one more season and it would end with another Super Bowl win over the Falcons in Super Bowl XXXIII. “To wait so long to get that first Super Bowl was unbelievable,” said Elway. “With everything we had been through it was unbelievable to get it. But to get another one was sensational and I can’t think of a better way to end my career.”

It was the validation that he craved and cemented his status as one of the game’s all-time great players.