Super Bowl XXXIII memories

Saturday the 31st is the tenth anniversary of the Denver Broncos’ 34-19 win over the Atlanta Falcons in Super Bowl XXXIII.

The Broncos’ 1998 season was the stuff of legends, chock-full of memorable moments. They started with a Monday night win over the New England Patriots, a game in which Terrell Davis never really got untracked, but where John Elway boot-legged his way to a good passing night in a solid win. The next night my little brother and I were in the Tattered Cover in Denver getting Davis’ book, TD: Dreams in Motion, autographed by the man himself and Adam Schefter, who was then with the Denver Post and had, uh, helped write the book. Some people seemed genuinely concerned for Davis, who had failed to go over 100 yards the night before, though he could not have been cooler or less concerned about it. Plus there was one nerd there who actually said something to Schefter. Yeah, me. On the way home that night we heard that Mark McGwire had hit his record-breaking 62nd home run, which has nothing to do with the Broncos and isn’t considered all that cool any more, but there you go.

I was especially fond of our seventh game of the season, which came in Week Eight against the punching-bag-but-still-deplorable Jacksonville Jaguars. Before halftime a delay-of-game penalty gave Jason Elam a chance for a record-tying 63-yard field goal, which he made. Also—did I mention it was the seventh game of the season?—T.D. went over a thousand yards rushing for the year. (He finished with 2,008 in total.)

How about game 13, when we extended our record to 13-0 with a comeback win over the Kansas City Chiefs? Three weeks before, in the teams’ first meeting, Shannon Sharpe had goaded Chiefs linebacker Derrick Thomas into three of the Chiefs’ five personal fouls on a late drive. (I think the story at the time was that Sharpe was repeating the phone number of Thomas’ girlfriend.) If I recall correctly, Sharpe was silent the whole week leading up to the game. The Chiefs held him without a catch the whole game…well, if you don’t count his game-winning touchdown catch, after which he immediately shushed the crowd. John Elway hit 400 passing yards for the second time in his career that game.

The other game that stands out is the Chargers game (I can’t remember which one) which Elway started, but came out of after a few plays with a rib injury when he was tackled onto the ball. The NFL fined the Broncos for not putting the rib injury on the injury report, which is weird, because he started, and it’s not like benching John Elway gives you a huge competitive advantage. Whatever.

Anyway, the playoffs were a great run: a 38-3 dismantling of Jimmy Johnson & Dan Marino’s Miami Dolphins started things off. I could swear SI reported something about a $1,500 box on the sideline for keeping Marino’s helmet warm. Next up was the classic AFC championship, a 23-10 win over the Jets, where Testaverde started like 13-for-13, Elway was ice cold and getting tipped all over the place, Jason Elam hit some windy second-half field goals by aiming outside of the uprights, and Ed McCaffrey caught a deep bomb on a play when he and Rod Smith lined up on opposite sides of the field from where they were supposed to. It was Elway’s last real game at Mile High and he rose to the occasion in the second half.

Anyway, on to the Super Bowl. We as fans felt annoyed that we the Broncos weren’t playing the 15-1 Minnesota Vikings, and I’m sure Eugene Robinson feels the same way. The Falcons actually took the lead with a field goal on their opening drive, but the Broncos responded with a touchdown by Howard Griffith, a forgotten stud who had scored a TD in the conference championship three years in a row (two with us, one with Carolina). My favorite highlight was in the second quarter, when Morten Andersen missed a short field goal…and Elway followed it up with an 80-yard scoring bomb to Rod Smith on the very next play for a 17-3 lead. I spent most of halftime playing football in my friend’s cul-de-sac, trying to re-enact that very play. (I do believe I hit Jonesy for one, but I also threw a deep pick.)

In the fourth quarter, John Elway scored on a quarterback sneak to become the oldest player ever to score a touchdown in the Super Bowl, breaking the record he’d set the year before. Elway finished the game 18-for-29 for 336 yards with the touchdown to Smith and an interception that bounced off Shannon Sharpe’s hands. He was the game’s MVP.

Davis finished with a relatively-quiet 25 carries for 102 yards, his record seventh-straight playoff game over one hundred. Guy was the man. (Can you think of another truly clutch running back at the NFL level?) He finished the year with the most combined regular season and playoff yards ever, breaking the record he’d set the year before.

The game wasn’t nearly as entertaining or historic as the win over the Packers was the year before, but the Broncos won the friggin’ Super Bowl, so I really don’t care. Plus it “legitimized” the win over the Packers, which doesn’t make a ton of sense but that is how these things work. Therefore, anti-climactic or not, January 31, 1999 was one of the greatest days in Denver Broncos history.