Power of Caring
  presented by CIGNA

Seven on 7

John Elway has provided fond memories for SI's writers
Seven of them reminisce ...

Issue date: February 10, 1999 Special Collector's Edition: 1998 Denver Broncos

The Play of the Day

A single moment defined the Drive, but it was several years in the making

By Paul Zimmerman

One play from 20 years of watching John Elway? Oh, sure, why not? I can see it again as I close my eyes--well, one eye anyway, since I have the other on my game chart sitting here next to me, just to make sure I've got the yardage exactly right.

It all comes back now. Cleveland in the AFC championship in January '87, of course. The Drive, 98 yards to pay dirt, tying the game and setting up the overtime win that propelled the Broncos into the Super Bowl and Elway into the Land of Legend.

That moment of glory stands in sharp contrast to my first memory of Elway. Not the stuff of legend. I remember a skinny, white-faced Stanford freshman coming off the bench and looking scared and vulnerable, scrambling around at the end of a hopeless contest. When I saw him two years later, he had reached manhood. It was the 1981 opener of his junior year, against Purdue. Stanford would go 4-7 that season, and Elway would have to wait one more year for consensus All-America honors, but what a show he put on in Ross-Ade Stadium that day.

On Stanford's first series he gained 18 yards on a quarterback sneak to set up a TD. Huh? Eighteen yards on a sneak? Back then he was wild and free-wheeling and threw his body around. He would sprain both ankles in the game and have them retaped between series. Then he would return, rolling left, firing downfield, just as he would later do so many times for the Broncos.

The Boilermakers put tremendous pressure on him, and when he was sacked, it was serious--17 yards on one, 18 on another. Not that it mattered to Elway; it just fed his tremendous hunger for the downfield completion. At the end of the game Elway had driven the length of the field to the Purdue eight, where the clock ran out on him. The heavily favored Boilermakers won 27-19, but they didn't stop Elway. His final numbers read 33 for 45 for 418 yards. Against a heavy rush. On two bad ankles.

I remember turning to the guy next to me and saying, "I think I've just seen the greatest college quarterback of all time."

A little more than five years later I was in Cleveland watching him make history. Prior to the Drive that day, though, what had John Elway done in his four NFL seasons? There had been mop-up duty behind Steve DeBerg in a 31-7 wild-card playoff loss to Seattle in his rookie year and an indifferent performance in the divisional playoff loss to Pittsburgh a season later. But his fourth year, 1986, was a breakthrough. Elway was dangerous scrambling out of the pocket, feared as much for his running skill as for his ability to unload the deep cross-field pass on the go. Knowing this as they readied for that title game in Cleveland, the Browns had put a spy on him, linebacker Chip Banks, to cut down on his rollouts and contain his scrambles--"to force him back into the linemen," said defensive end Sam Clancy. "What we wanted to do was have him throw on the run."

With 5:32 left, it was a bad situation for the Broncos. Trailing 20-13, they started their drive on the two, after Ken Bell had butchered the kickoff. Snow in the first half had left the Cleveland Stadium turf muddy. Worst of all, even if they moved into Browns territory, they'd be facing that nasty wind off Lake Erie, plus, of course, the loonies in the Dawg Pound. Third downs had been particularly unfriendly to Elway; he'd cashed in only one of 12 opportunities heading into the Drive.

Elway had moved the ball past midfield but now faced third-and-18 on the Cleveland 48 after getting sacked by Dave Puzzuoli, who had been knocked to the ground and crawled his way to the quarterback's knees to drop him. Timeout Denver, 1:47 showing. The call was a square-in to Mark Jackson, left side, out of the shotgun. The snap hit the hip of Steve Watson, the flanker who had gone in motion. Uh-oh, I thought, fourth-and-25, if the Broncos even recover the fumble.

But Elway reached down with his right hand and scooped the ball, like a bear pawing a fish out of a stream, and without breaking his rhythm, hit Jackson for 20 yards and a first down. Half the people in the press box never even noticed that the ball hit Watson, that's how smooth Elway had been--with everything on the line, with the stakes higher than any the young QB had ever experienced. Five plays later the Broncos had their tying TD. Six minutes into OT they had their AFC title.

Elway called it "the luckiest play of the drive." Luck? I'm not so sure. I'd call it a superior competitor saving the finest play of his career for the most intense pressure situation he had ever faced. That's the play I remember now, and the one I'll still recall in 20 years when I think of Elway.