Doomsday In The Dome

The Cowboys earned their next three points by driving all of 32 yards following a punt. Starting at the Cowboy 43, Staubach tossed a screen pass to Preston Pearson for 11 yards, and Newhouse made a tough seven, but the Cowboys ultimately were stalled at the Denver 25. Herrera hit the 43-yard field goal early in the second quarter.

After this, the Cowboys turned a succession of opportunities into a succession of zeroes. By one way or another—which do you prefer, a fumble or an interception?—the Cowboys took over at their 40, and then at Denver's 40, 27, 28 and 35, and what they failed to accomplish with all of Landry's subtleties did as much as anything to keep Denver alive at the half, trailing only 13-0.

In the opening series of the third quarter, Denver forgot to fumble or give up an interception and quickly cut Dallas' lead to 13-3, when Jim Turner booted a 47-yard field goal. But just when the Broncomaniacs were getting their orange up, Staubach countered with the touchdown bomb to Johnson that put the Cowboys on top 20-3.

Still, Denver was not dead—yet. Rick Upchurch took Herrera's kickoff and returned it to the Dallas 26, a Super Bowl record of 67 wiggling, weaving yards. On first down a retreating Morton threw a screen pass directly into the hands of Too Tall Jones, but Too Tall obligingly dropped it. Nevertheless, this convinced Miller that it was not Morton's day.

Out came Morton and in trotted Weese, who runs better than he throws. At least he was an improvement over Morton, who wasn't throwing well and couldn't run at all. Four plays later Weese had the Broncos in the end zone, Rob Lytle covering the final yard for the touchdown, and Denver was back to within 10 points at 20-10.

End of rally. Newhouse wrote finis to Denver's special season when he lofted his 29-yard surprise to Richards to give the Cowboys their 27-10 victory and their second Super Bowl championship—both, incidentally, won in New Orleans.

All week long, people who fancied the Cowboys had kept trying to prove that Denver was not very good. Look how the Broncos came out of the gate, they said. Jim Bakken missed four field goals for St. Louis in the opener. Then the Broncos got Buffalo, Seattle and Kansas City, pure dogs. Four-and-0. Then Ken Stabler threw seven interceptions. Then they got Ken Anderson hurt when they beat Cincinnati, and after a loss to Oakland, they caught the Steelers arguing among themselves and partly banged up. By then, Denver had confidence—and a 7-and-l record. And when you think you're good, well, that's half of it.

The man who made the Broncos think they were good was Miller, who wound up the regular season with an orange telephone, an orange radio, an orange toilet seat, an orange shower curtain and an orange Christmas tree. "Winning is in the mind of the player," Miller said repeatedly. "We're, a team of destiny."

Mainly, the Broncos were a team of defense, especially at linebacker. One of them, Bob Swenson, talked about what had come over them all, since the good defense was there before Red Miller took over from John Ralston, who resigned last January.

"Red got us to go to the ball," Swenson said. "We're like a bunch of piranhas. After last year it had just gotten to the point where Ralston had to go, and everybody knew it. The team would go into a room to watch films, and as soon as the lights were out, about half a dozen guys would stretch out in the aisles and go to sleep. All of us owe a lot to those 12 guys who stuck their necks out to get rid of Ralston. Red's a great coach and everything, but just about anybody would have been an improvement over what we had."