Happy Days

That left Phillips. He was no mystery man—he was enormously popular among players. Approachable? This was a coach who, until recently, had a listed phone number. And he was even beloved by the Denver press, who tagged him Mr. Tuesday. In the NFL, Tuesday is a hole in the news week that Phillips often plugged. "He'd just fill your notebook for you," says one writer. But it wasn't just writers who were pleased when Phillips was finally named as Reeves's replacement.

"I was ecstatic," says Smith, who saw one of his kind—a defensive compatriot—ascend. Almost everybody realized that the atmosphere was going to lighten up. This was a guy, after all, who once led the team to a practice at the Indianapolis Hoosier Dome only to find locked gates. When a Bronco administrator reported back to him that no security guards could be found, Phillips scratched his head and said, "Is this where I'm supposed to get mad and start hollering? I'm new at this."

But beyond his charisma—"The best way I can describe Wade is that people just want to be around him," says Mecklenburg—nobody quite knew what he would bring to the job. Say what you want to about Reeves, he did win 100-some games. "And Wade," points out Bowlen, a little surprised at the high expectations in his camp, "hasn't won one."

Phillips wasted little time in establishing his football style. He announced a new offense—including the hiring of coordinator Jim Fassel, who was Elway's offensive coordinator at Stanford—that would make greater use of Elway's arm. And he invited the players to police themselves on minor matters (in the past, any Bronco who had gotten into off-field scrapes somehow disappeared during the off-season). Phillips, for example, truly doesn't care whether the guys take their hats off during team meetings, as Reeves's rules dictated. It's their heads, Phillips figures.

In addition, he had a hand in the off-season free-agency auction, helping Bowlen pick out a few prospects. To Elway's delight, that meant a $7.9 million investment in two offensive linemen—tackle Don Maggs (since injured while lifting weights) and guard Brian Habib. And 4.6 million more dollars were spent on a running back, Rod Bernstine, who is a fine receiver. Phillips says it's been no-brain stuff so far. "Maybe if I've got Earl Campbell," he says, "I develop a running game. But our best asset was John Elway. So I've got to improve the line, get backs to catch the ball and, until the line's improved, give John a five-step drop so he can get the ball off." Phillips believes that it's a shame not to have Elway among the leaders in touchdown passes. "I've coached against Marino and Kelly," he says. "John's as talented as any guy up there. He should be right there with them."

The league will know soon enough if this tactical tinkering can improve the Broncos. "We got in a Super Bowl with lots less talent than this," says Smith. The immediate effect of Phillips's hiring is a weird euphoria among the veteran players. Kartz says he has been able to measure it numerically; more players showed up for off-season weightlifting sessions than ever before. "People just wanted to be here," he says. "It was unbelievable. They were having fun."

"It takes a bit to get an old guy like me excited," says Smith. "But the attitude's looser. In the past, even when I didn't dress for practice, I'd have to come out with my helmet. Ridiculous. It was Dan doing things to be doing things. I never understood it. But now it's different. Everybody feels part of the team. Everybody's excited."

This all sounds unkind, the recollected horrors of the Reeves reign. But Mecklenburg points out that any coach who hopes to prosper in the age of free agency, in which the coach is as much a recruiter as an administrator, had better pay attention to reform in the workplace. Atmosphere matters, and word gets around. "Dan's way," he says, "is the way of the past."

And Wade's way? It will be the way of the future, everybody agrees, just as soon as he wins 100-some games.