Give Denver That Home Where
Buffalo Roams
By Tony Kornheiser
Tuesday, January 13, 1998; Page E01
At the moment the happiest people in America are Buffalo Bills
fans, because the Denver Broncos are in position to take them
off the hook. If the Broncos hold true to their Super Bowl form
-- and get croaked by the customary 30 points -- the Buffalo
Bills will no longer be the national joke by which pathetic Super
Bowl teams are measured. (Buffalo itself, however, will still be
the Armpit of the East, as we in Binghamton gleefully called it;
in Binghamton!) And noted co-dependent Buffaloons, like my
friend Tim Russert, will probably walk on water, which they
can do, as Lake Erie will be frozen until June.
If the Broncos lose the upcoming Super Bowl -- and who
among us believes they won't? -- Denver will surpass (is that
the right word?) Buffalo and Minnesota, and become the only
franchise to go 0-5 in Super Bowls. I should point out there are
10 franchises that have yet to qualify for the chance to go 0-1,
including sorry, no-account franchises like Atlanta, New
Orleans, the Houston-Tennessee Oilers and the St.
Louis-Arizona Cardinals, for whom 0-2 would be a Jean
Hersholt Lifetime Achievement Award.
The sad truth is that as bad as Buffalo has been in the Super
Bowl, Denver has been worse. While Buffalo lost four Super
Bowls in a row by an average score of 35-16, Denver's four
have been by an average of 41-12. John Elway's three Super
Bowls have been the Titanic, the Andrea Doria and the
Hindenburg. With Elway, Denver has been pasted by an
average of 45-13! And this includes the all-time Super Bowl
shaloompfing, 55-10, to the 49ers; Denver's first Super Bowl
loss, 27-10 to Tom Landry's Cowboys 20 years ago, was a
nail-biter in comparison. The Broncos have gone paws up,
usually by halftime, in every Super Bowl they've played.
They're as dependably awful as Up With People.
The Broncos' miserable Super Bowl performances have made
it easy to dismiss them again this year -- as the oddsmakers
already have. Although Green Bay's record over the last 20
seasons is a soggy 152-156-4, the Packers are universally
celebrated as "winners." The Green Bay Packers are to the
NFL what the New York Yankees are to baseball, and what
the Boston Celtics are to the NBA. Their legend was formed
more than 30 years ago under Saint Vincent Lombardi, and it
sticks regardless of how long they were capsized. On the other
hand, Denver is 187-124-1 over the last 20 years, and what
does it get them? Bupkus. It's too bad it didn't get them
Butkus, then maybe they'd have stopped somebody and won a
few Super Bowls.
(Might I interrupt this for a second to talk about last weekend's
figure skating? I'm glad Michael Weiss made the team, even if
he "two-footed the quad" -- get a load of me, trying to sound
like I know a triple Salchow from a triple word score. I don't
care how Weiss landed it, my feeling is that anyone who can
stay up in the air long enough to spin around four times is either
a fabulous skater, or the Fox 5 chopper. By the way, didn't it
work out just perfectly that our "Dream Team" of Michelle
Kwan, 57-pound Tara Lipinski and Nicole Bobek all made the
Olympic team? I haven't heard Dick Button so excited since he
first saw a "Hamill Camel." CBS ought to send a spray of roses
to 26-year-old Tonia Kwiatkowski for twice parking her can
on the ice, when a clean program could have sent
Kwiatkowski to the Olympics and sent one of the big three
home. As someone who rooted for Tonya Harding in
Lillehammer, I'm rooting for Bobek in Nagano, because I'm
partial to Olympic athletes who've been arrested for "home
invasion." It sounds like something you'd see on "The X-Files.")
Back to the Super Bowl: Based on what happened Sunday it's
hard to see Denver winning. The Packers' defense smothered
the 49ers, holding the 49ers to 33 yards rushing. Terrell Davis
has knocked out three straight playoff games where he has
rushed for more than 100 yards, but the Broncos' offensive line
is giving away significant tonnage to the Packers. Gilbert
Brown alone weighs more than half of downtown Denver. You
knows the Coors ads where you're instructed to say, "Hey,
beer man"? Gilbert Brown could eat the beer man and still have
room for the nachos man.
The Packers have risen to the occasion each time they've
needed to or wanted to this year. They went to New England
on a Monday night, and crushed the Patriots, 28-10, in a
rematch of their Super Bowl game. They cratered Dallas,
45-17, in a game they pointed for because they'd never beaten
Dallas under Mike Holmgren, and Dallas had knocked Green
Bay out of the playoffs three straight years from 1993 to 1995.
Green Bay is 9-1 this season against playoff teams. It seems
the bigger the game, the better Green Bay plays. Take Dorsey
Levens. You put him out there in a big game, and all of a
sudden he runs like Jim Taylor.
All of this puts enormous pressure on Elway, who has been the
centerpiece of the Broncos for so long he may as well come to
San Diego in a vase. Everybody who's not wearing a slice of
Gouda on his head is rooting for Elway to finally win a Super
Bowl. At 37, Elway has become something of a grand old
man. He has built up an equity of goodwill by fighting the good
fight at the same stand for his whole career, like Patrick Ewing
in the NBA.
It wasn't always this way for Elway. When he came into the
league he was regarded as a smug, spoiled pretty boy -- all
flashy arm and giant gleaming teeth -- for the way he
blackmailed the Baltimore Colts into trading his rights to
Denver. For a while those embarrassments he suffered in the
Super Bowl seemed a sort of comeuppance.
But Elway persevered in the classic American hero style of
Gary Cooper, and now he's seen as a valiant warrior who has
been somehow wronged. It wouldn't have turned for Elway
had he been one of those athletes who likes to call attention to
himself, like a Deion Sanders or a Rick Barry. Nobody bleeds
for a big mouth. But by dint of his quiet struggle Elway has
become venerable. The shame of it is that the Super Bowl is
where he's most vulnerable.
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