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Approaching history Denver's Lodish on verge of making sixth Super Bowl
Posted: Friday January 15, 1999 05:11 PM
DENVER (AP) -- With one more victory, in Sunday's AFC championship game, a Denver Broncos veteran would become the only player in NFL history to play in six Super Bowls. No, it's not John Elway, although he would become the first quarterback to start in five Super Bowls if the Broncos knock off the New York Jets in the AFC championship game. Defensive tackle Mike Lodish is among nine NFL players to have appeared in five Super Bowls, and he's one step away from No. 6. "I'll be a trivia question," Lodish said. Lodish went to four straight Super Bowls with the Buffalo Bills and added his fifth with the champion Broncos last season. "It's an honor," Lodish said, "and on Sunday I'll be thinking about all the great players who have made the league what it is and never had an opportunity to go to a Super Bowl. And here I am. I get a chance to go to six." The other Super-fives are Marv Fleming, Larry Cole, Charles Haley, Cliff Harris, D.D. Lewis, Preston Pearson, Charlie Waters and Rayfield Wright -- most of them better known than Lodish, a nine-year NFL veteran who has had extensive playing experience but who has been a full-time starter only one season (1996) and who has never been to a Pro Bowl. "After my fourth one, I thought, 'How many guys have gone to four in a row?'" said Lodish, Buffalo's 10th-round draft pick out of UCLA in 1990. "And I was one of 20 to go to four. And how many have been to five? "If we win this game, I think I'm the only guy who can say he dressed for six Super Bowls. That would be a miraculous honor. I could never ever expect to have had this happen to me. I couldn't have dreamed that this would happen." This, of course, is Lodish's favorite time of year. He never has lost an AFC championship game and knows what kind of effort is needed to get to the next step. "We're a mature enough team to know what it's going to take to win at this point in the season," he said. "We've got the talent to win, and we've got our confidence back." Like many Broncos players who dismissed the Jets early in the season but began to take notice when the Jets made a late-season surge, Lodish is impressed by the opposition. He said Jets quarterback Vinny Testaverde presents a different problem than Miami's Dan Marino, whom the Broncos contained in last week's 38-3 playoff victory. "I think any time you get an offensive line protecting your quarterback like they do, you're going to take some of the pressure off of him to make the play," Lodish said. "It's not like Vinny's got a quick release like Marino. They do a lot of play action, which slows the defensive line down. "Vinny has been making good decisions within their offense, and he's got good receivers in Keyshawn Johnson and Wayne Chrebet. We had some success against [running back] Curtis Martin when he was with New England, but it looks like he's running better in the Jets' scheme. "They're an excellent team."
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