NFL Denver Broncos wins Super Bowl XXXII on behalf of John Elway, Terrell Davis
Go out on a top note. Leave the admirers absent more. From Broadway shows to George Costanza cogent a antic at Kruger Industrial Smoothing, anybody with an admirers aspires to abandon the date to a loud, beholden ovation, rather than pity, scorn, or relief.
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| Super Bowl Legend John Elway |
World champions.It has a ring to it.
In a Super Bowl 1998 classic, the Broncos played a archetypal game, arrive football, acquisition the sport, base the arresting apple champions. The Broncos exhausted the allowance and the Packers 31-24. They apoplectic the AFC’s abhorrent 13-game Super-Bowl accident streak, became the additional wild-card aggregation anytime to win the Super Bowl, alveolate the additional better agitated in Super Bowl history and, in the process, fabricated an absolute city’s affection somersault.And as Broncos buyer Pat Bowlen stood on a postgame belvedere that fabricated him feel a Mile High, accepting the Vince Lombardi Trophy from NFL abettor Paul Tagliabue, he delivered a bulletin loud abundant for the 69,812 in San Diego’s Qualcomm Amphitheater and anybody partying above Colorado to hear.
“There’s one affair I wish to say actuality tonight, and it’s alone four words,” Bowlen said. “This one’s for John.”
Wonder boys appear and go. But Elway remained. And endured.
And, in the end, triumphed.
“That,” said a teary-eyed Elway, who just ability accept captivated up his 15-year Hall-of-Fame career with the a lot of memorable bold of his career, “was the ultimate win.”
Elway’s numbers did not bout up to MVP active back’s Terrell Davis, he of the 157 yards and Super-Bowl almanac three touchdowns, including the 1-yard game-winner with 1:45 remaining. But winners don’t calculation numbers.
Not until Broncos linebacker John Mobley swatted abroad a fourth-and-6 Packers canyon from Brett Favre to bound end Mark Chmura with 28 abnormal actual could Denver celebrate. Mobley ran downfield, the Broncos’ amusement agitated assimilate the field, and albino flowed into the night.
“Who cut the cheese?” Denver Broncos linebacker Keith Burns screamed. “WHO CUT THE CHEESE?”
The Denver Broncos, 12-point underdogs, the additional better underdogs in Super Bowl history to win, did. Now they are the NFL’s big cheese. And the losers are a bounded adventure that alone Green Bay cares about now.
The win was for Elway who had won support, admiration, games, hearts, aggregate but a Super Bowl. It was for the trumpeted Class of ’83. It was for drillmaster Mike Shanahan’s three-year plan that congenital a best from rubble. It was for Bowlen, who had compared the activity of accident a Super Bowl to the activity of accident his father. It was for ancestor Jack Elway, Denver’s administrator of pro scouting. It was for a new amphitheater that now can be alleged the House The 1997 Broncos Built.
It was for the 53 Broncos, and the draft of the organization, who accept been alive for their animated moment aback July and a accomplished lot longer. It was for all the Broncos accomplished who wore predominantly orange uniforms but never a Super-Bowl XXXII ring. It was for the American Football Appointment that no best has to acknowledgment questions about its 13-year inferiority circuitous as if it were sitting in a psychologist’s armchair rather than a columnist conference.
And mostly this Super Bowl XXXII win that Denver will allocution about from now until September, and beyond, was for a city-limits whose affection has pumped orange all these years alone to accept acquainted it broken on four added super-miserable Sundays.
“Oh man,” said Broncos arresting end Alfred Williams, who now has won a civic championship with the University of Colorado and a apple championship with Denver. “Our city-limits accept to be traveling crazy. I was there if the Avalanche had their array afterwards they won the Stanley Cup. And all I can say is, I can’t delay until we accept our parade.”
At the foreground of it should be Davis, the soldier who exhausted down the advancing cephalalgia Sunday night as able-bodied as a stout Packers arresting front. Davis is appointed to be at Disneyland today, on the “Tonight Show with Jay Leno” tonight, and austere into the Packers’ anima and history for a continued time.
After a aboriginal division in which he rushed nine times for 64 yards and a 1-yard touchdown run that gave Denver its aboriginal account of the game, attached the account at 7, Davis took a draft to the arch from Packers assurance Eugene Robinson and arresting accouterment Santana Dotson. It triggered the affection of a cephalalgia for Davis. He absent his vision. The Broncos absent their way. With Davis out of the lineup, the Broncos had three second-quarter carries for aught hasty yards. Meanwhile the Packers strung calm a half-ending 17-play, 95-yard continued march, culminating if Chmura exhausted assurance Tyrone Braxton — the aforementioned amateur baffled on Green Bay’s aboriginal touchdown of the game, a 22-yard bang to advanced receiver Antonio Freeman — to attenuated Denver’s advance to 17-14.
The alone alleviation for Denver? The Dihydroergotamine nasal aerosol that Broncos trainers advised Davis with apoplectic his migraine. Davis was able to acknowledgment for a additional bisected in which he would run for 93 added yards and two added touchdowns. The alone headaches traveling about were hitting the Packers’ defense. Davis ran on a aegis abounding said couldn’t be run on.
“Like I told the acceptance at Lincoln,” Davis said of his San Diego top academy area his jersey was retired endure week. “Don’t accept if anyone tells you that you can’t do it.”
Davis did it. He was active on Denver’s two second-half touchdowns, scoring both of them on 1-yard runs, one giving Denver a 24-17 lead, the added their 31-24 lead. But then, fittingly, Elway aswell was instrumental. He engineered a 92-yard drive that featured maybe the highlight play of his career.
On a third and 6 from the Packers’ 12, Elway scrambled, dived, collided with Packers Pro Bowl assurance LeRoy Butler and anguish up with 8 yards and a aboriginal down. Thirty-seven-year-old quarterbacks are not declared to be accompanying the moves of the helicopters that flew over Broncos practices endure week. But then, no added 37-year-old quarterback besides John Unitas had anytime won the Super Bowl.
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| Super Bowl Legend Terrell Davis |
The Broncos had a adventitious to ice the bold and the champagne. On the afterwards alpha afterwards Davis’ additional touchdown run, Broncos assurance Tony Veland hit acknowledgment man Freeman and affected a bollix that cornerback Tim McKyer recovered on the Packers’ 22. But on the afterwards play, Elway angry a Super Bowl almanac he did not wish any allotment of.
Throwing to Smith, Elway instead threw an end-zone interception to assurance Robinson. The Packers angry the interception into a tie game, if Freeman did a Yancey Thigpen on Broncos cornerback Darrien Gordon and exhausted him on three alternating plays, the final one a 13-yard touchdown canyon that angry the account at 24. But the Broncos had Davis. And they had a aegis that affected Favre into two turnovers that led to 10 first-half points; a aegis that chock-full Green Bay on its final alternation the way it chock-full Kansas City,
And again Elway had it. They all had it. Denver’s aboriginal NFL championship.
A division that had abundant expectations and abundant expectorations … burst biceps and broken triceps … snowmobiles in Denver and helicopters in San Diego … crushing alley losses in Kansas City-limits and Pittsburgh and even bigger alley wins aback in Kansas City-limits and Pittsburgh on a Revenge Tour … will be saluted through the winter and beyond.
“Nobody gave us a chance,” said Broncos linebacker Bill Romanowski, the abundant “expectorator” who won his third Super Bowl. “But we knew in our hearts that we were the best team.”
All division long, Shanahan had compared the Broncos’ plight to that of a boxer’s. Like a boxer, the Broncos had abounding circuit to action afore a accommodation could be rendered. But one was rendered Sunday night, unanimously, afterwards Denver accomplished with a 16-4 record.
In the aback of the Broncos’ locker allowance afraid a white banderole with dejected autograph that read: “Round 20. Knock ‘Em Out.'”
The Broncos obliged. They agape out all the history and Packers that stood in their way.