Remembering the First Time - Denver Broncos, Super Bowl 32 Champions

That play was what began my passion for the broncos. I was in high school and have been hooked ever since.

I was beside myself by the 4th quarter— thinking: oh football gods, please don’t let them get so close, play so tough, show so much heart, and fall short again. Then Steve Atwater knocked himself cold and I realized all was right in the universe.

My other favorite moment was when Denver had TD’s 9 yard run called back on that last scoring drive, and then ran the exact same play for 19 yards. Everybody knew it was coming, and it simply didn’t matter. It was a quintessential example of imposing one’s will on another, and it couldn’t have been more fitting considering the disrespect, the ridicule, and the running of the mouths coming out of the MSM and the Packer locker room leading up to the game . It was the football version of humping the Packer’s leg. Pure domination.

It still gives me chills to listen to Logan’s call on GB’s final play.

Anyone who is not a Broncos fan could not understand. But I was at a bar with some buddies watching the game.

I moved to an out of the way TV so I could focus during the last quarter.

When John Mobley knocked that pass down and John ran out on the field, I was crying like a baby.

Maybe this is sad, but to this day, when I see that replay on TV with Dave Logan making the call (and you can hear him choking up a bit) I get chills and a little misty.

I was about 8 years old when this happened, and it is by far one of the greatest memories I have of a Bronco game.

The single greatest three day weekend of my life.

Every time I got excited I had to find something to heave into. Atwater’s sack and fumble of Farve…Spew! Eddie Mac decleats the linebacker…Ralph! Elway’s helicopter…barely got my head up in time to see them get in, then it went right back down. When it was all over I spent the rest of the night curled around the toilet feeling absolutely miserable, but with a smile that wouldn’t come off.

John Elway’s helicopter is a big fish story. The day after the super bowl, he described it as a “three inch vertical leap”. In the America’s game video, he describes it as “a five inch vertical jump”.

In a few years, when he describes it, he’ll have a 36 inch vertical……

One of my cousins and I threw a Super Bowl party. My uncle knew that I knew the Broncos were going to win that game. Everyone else was rooting for the other team and most of the women had a crush on Favre. I stayed quiet and grinned the whole game, because in my mind the game was just a formality. Nothing was going to stop Elway this time. It was pretty satisfying for me to be the only one in the room who believed.

When the helicopter occurred (and he can call it any size leap that he wants!), I turned to one of them and said, “I don’t think that that these guys are going to let this one get away. I know Elway isn’t!” When Green Bay let us score (not that they had any choice), it was all over but the tears and champagne. Krug, NV, delicious. Almost as good as the taste of that victory.

Nothing represents a superbowl victory better than a giant life preserver overwhelming the side of a hat

My Dad is the biggest Broncos fan. My Mom had passed away from cancer a few months before. I was 12 years old. I don’t think my Dad had even smiled in months. When they won the Superbowl he jumped up and did the freakin’ moonwalk across the kitchen floor. Not the Neil Armstrong moonwalk, he did the Michael Jackson moonwalk. i didn’t know he had the the moves. He made up a victory song and had us go to the neighbors house and sing it at the top of our lungs. It was a bright moment at a really bad time.

I grew up in enemy territory…the fans there were either chef fans or cowgirl chumps. It was a hostile thing to be a Bronco fan in KS. I remember my prayer right before kick-off…“God, please just make this on at LEAST competitive. I can live with a loss as long as our guys can leave it out on the field knowing they did their best (unlike the other three I had watched).”

That Superbowl was the ultimate vindication. It was the first time I truly got how disrespected our franchise was. Leading up to it I would get so irritated listening to the talking-heads yammer on about how Favre and the Packers were going to be way too much for us to handle. I kept saying to all the haters in my town…“You just watch the Packers try to stop our running game…it AIN’T happening.”

I remember a sideline shot around half-time of the Packers…you could tell they were in disbelief that we were playing them the way we were.

The Helicopter: That was Elway saying to the world “You’ll make me lose this Superbowl over MY DEAD BODY!” I’m just echoing everyone here…I KNEW we were going to win when I watched him get that first down with his eyes the size of dinner-plates while running for the marker.

That whole team from 98 are heroes for our team. Eddie Mac, Sharp, Atwater, TD, the O-line, Braxton, Mobley, Rod Smith, Neil Smith, and on and on.

And I sure loved it the next year when we proved to everyone it wasn’t a fluke at all and just annihilated the Falcons.

As I read thru the thirty or so comments that proceed mine, I feel as if I’m experiencing
Super Bowl 32 all over again. I watched it at home with my wife and two kids ( due to
the pain of previous SB’s ). I resembled many of the above remarks. Yelling, screaming,
pleading…etc. which made it all so sweet in the end.
Thanks John, if their is anything that will help heal the rift amongst the fans, its bringing us all
together, and reminding us why were all here in the first place.
Rec’d

PS…I’ve Rec’d each and every comment…Thanx for the Memories…

I’m sitting here at work reading the comments and I am getting a little misty-eyed…my step-son was the same age watching this Super Bowl as I was watching the first one in 1977. I don’t know if he had ever seen me get so emotional over a football game before, but that game/season made him a fan for life (kind of like that miracle season of ’77 did for me)! Thanks for the memories!

Nine years old when the Colts left Baltimore, I went with the team “that Elway guy” had seemingly spurned the Colts for (9 year old logic). Usually competitive, and never boring, the team sucked me in and left me with incredible memories: The impossible comebacks (looking at you Drive II and Chiefs 19-6), the endless QB arguments with friends (“you put Montana behind the Denver O-line and see …”), the classics (The Drive, the snow game vs the Giants at Mile High, several MNFs vs the Chiefs/Raiders), broken pieces of furniture, and a hatred for Super Bowls and upstart Jags.

When Favre’s 4th down pass fell to the ground incomplete…I mean…it was…ah, hell. For 12 years I have failed to put into words the admittedly irrational vindication I felt that evening. That’s not going to change today.

Thanks to everyone for the great comments.

I became a fan January 11, 1987 while living in Pagosa Springs, Colorado. I was 8 years old. I am 31 now and have lived in California for 27 of those 31 years, just to give you an idea of how brief that stint was in Texas and Colorado in the mid 80’s. lol

I got harrassed and teased by all the 49er fans in the early 90’s and teased and harrassed about the 4 Super Bowl blowouts. My only comeback was, “At least they got there!” Lame, but it was all I had. Surprisingly(not), kids can be quite cruel and several hazings ended in “fights”..not really bad ones(no blood), but one was bad enough to get me suspended. Also lame since I tried repeatedly to walk away as I was more afraid of my step dad’s belted beatings than I was of some 7th grade kid of equal size and unequal brain. It all just hardened my fanhood.

January 25th, 1998 was two full years to the day of the birth of my daughter. She turns 10 years old at 7:07PM tonight(Pacific Standard Time). The irony of that is enough to make me smile. That first Super Bowl almost made me die a happy man. Either that or the anxiety attack almost caused me to pass out. I lived in San Diego at the time and from the balcony of my biological Dad’s condo I could see Jack Murphy Stadium(Qualcomm, bleh). I could hear the crowds cheer and see the fireworks.

I created an alter around the television(I should upload the pic someday) and knelt to pray to the football gods many times throughout the day. The orange throw blanket laid out in front of the teleivision and the full-size throwback football helmet purchased for me for Christmas a decade earlier from Fingerhut to the right of the TV. Football cards of many different Broncos arrayed on top of the TV. A Bronco clock set up against the cable receiver, while a football shaped pillow to the left of the TV, along with a myriad of other knick knack items. Me, wearing a faded Elway jersey I still own today, a Bronco hat, and Bronco sweatpants – while sporting Bronco socks. I purchased an official Super Bowl program as well. My 2 foot by 4 foot Bronco banner hung from my third story balcony, across the street another banner hung of similar size – this one in salute of the Packers.

My stress levels remained high all day long…nothing easy for the Broncos. I bite my nails with each passing second off the clock, half expecting the Broncos to fade away and the Packers to reassert their dominance. The brainwashing and propaganda beaten into my psyche the previous 10 years had taken its toll. The bonds of which finally began to break late in the third quarter with Elways magnificent diving leap into NFL lore. It was then that I began to realize that the Broncos were not mearly hanging with the better team, rather they were the better team and it was they who was reasserting themselves.

3:49 left on the clock, I knew Elway’s defining moments were at hand. The touchdown sent me screaming, alone in my condo, my dad had gone to less tense environments hours earlier. I, being intolerant of anything but my alter of Broncomania, had no room for disgruntled Charger fans. My voice was horse, screaming touchdown over and over again, hearing the lamenting of Packer fans across the way. Watching Favre streak down the field filled me with horror, then when Atwater blew up that third down pass I felt warm inside – knowing Farve was losing his battle against the clock.

The fourth down play sent me into disbelief…I couldn’t believe it had happened. I couldn’t believe the Broncos were going to become Super Bowl Champions. There was only one feeling that trumped all others in the minutes that followed. Vindication.

I know at least a few from my childhood thought of me when they watched that Super Bowl. I was the only Bronco fan in my school from 3rd grade to High School graduation. I know damn well someone out there thought of that crazy Bronco fan who would even wear Bronco parkas in the dead of Summer. To me, the definition of a fan is one who never wavers, never gives up hope, and who felt vindication upon their team achieving ultimate glory.

It’s been 11 years since our last title. So much turmoil, hopefully that turmoil will turn into greatness – that way the next generation can feel the vindication that I felt 12 years ago.

I rambled on for quite a while….in any case, January 25, 1998 was the greatest day of my life…up until that point. It now ranks about 5th or so. ;-)

and I can still recall that moment and the exact spot where I was standing. Finally the best QB in the NFL got the ring he deserved……and then got another one the next year to top things off.

I wouldn’t be surprised if other old-timers such as I saw it the same way because we lived through it. It takes only a few minutes to read about it. And the Super Bowl was one game. We watched that defense for an entire season plus the postseason . . . 17 games. A 27-10 score from one game is not going to take away from me the memories of an entire season of the Orange Crush . . .

this is the season where my fandom was realized. I was born in FoCo and had just moved up here to MT. My dad (and mom, by default :p) is/are/was/were? (a) huge CSU/Rockies/Broncos/Nuggets fan(s), and to some extent the Avs too (hey, they won their share of titles in that decade too :p). I went to the third ever Rockies game when I was three, and one of the first games at Coors when they moved there. But I was never really a local sports fan until the new unis caught my eye…and the players stole my heart.

Some background on unis—for some reason when I was younger, that’s what determined my sports allegiance. When I was four we went to a CSU-Utah game in FoCo (one of many I went to that I barely remember). Since my mom was still getting her doctorate, we were in the student section. I cheered for the Utes because I liked their unis (red) better. That didn’t exactly endear us to the rest of the section. In ’96 I cheered for the Seahawks (sorry Dad) because they looked cooler.

Then we came out with the new unis, and I bled orange and blue that season. Nothing like a super-bowl victory, and then another one, to completely erase the fickleness in a kid. Of course, that kinda makes the last decade+ of ‘mediocrity’ (1 13-3 season, an afc championship appearance, the best running game in football) pale in comparison, but I’ve tried to keep things in perspective. I just count myself lucky that four seasons of near-.500 records is considered hell freezing over for my team…I’d hate to be a Chiefs or Raiders fan :p.

Anyway my parents got me a SI subscription after the win, so it came with a commemorative video that went game-by-game through the whole season (VHS…damnit) and ‘super bowl’ edition of the mag…I had to watch that after our week 17 loss to the Chiefs just to get some goodwill back for my donkeys.

Ahh the Eddie Mac block, the Atwater blindside sack/forced fumble, the helicopter, TD, blind TD as decoy, etc. So many great moments in one game. Then the next season, to race with both the Falcons and Vikings towards undefeated years (and then, after losing to the Vikings, hearing how they’d dominate us in the SB), and then absolutely killing Reeves in the Super Bowl…..indescribable. Ahh, if I could go back and re-live those years I’d be one happy 7-8 year-old.

I even remember all the beers i got for free after the win…Good Times!!

I stayed up all night to watch to this, finishing at 5am. Today still replaying the game gives me chills. I remember the defense – all the blitzes, watching the confusion on Favre’s face and the enjoyment on the faces of the Broncos defensive players. I remember Atwater’s dropped interception and shouting how dare he laugh about such a crucial play.

The helicopter did it for me. Watching one man putting the entire team, the city of Denver on his back then leap with the most determined face I have ever seen into 3 Packers defenders, getting the first down and lesping up to get on with the game said it all. After watching that play there was a feeling deep within that said we were not going to lose that game, WE want it more!

Seeing Davis run in, especially after his migrane troubles earlier in the game was awesome. Then when Mobley batted the ball down my Dad congratulates me on the Broncos win – a large sigh of relief was taken!

I have never seen such a team effort as I did that night. It didn’t matter if it was Derek Loville playing out there, Howard Griffith blocking, it was a complete team effort. Yes on that night Elway was our leader but the whole team had something about it. Every man stood up, did his job and was accountable for the success that night. And it is true – the first time is the best!

Cried as a less young kid when they lost to Dallas in 1978, although that magical year was unbelievable. Dog piled with a bunch of friends, and a bunch of strangers, in the middle of a sports bar in Denver after The Drive win in Cleveland. Suffered through the loss to the NYG with college friends in a party we hosted. Watched the dismantlings at the hands of the Redskins and Niners in disbelief at parties in Seattle. Wearing Bronco gear. Including boxers on the outside of my pants. What a dork.

I was apprehensive going into the GB SB because of what had happened in the past. And because of the NFC’s long-standing dominance. Yet I knew, as everyone should have (but the national media pretty much didn’t) that this wasn’t the same Bronco team that had been crushed previously. Not even close. Shanahan was better than Reeves. Davis was much better than any RB the Broncos had in the previous SBs. Smith, Eddie Mac and Sharpe were much better than the 3 amigos. And that offensive line? As they say in today’s lingo, OMG! I still think, to this day, that the Bronco offensive line during that 3 year stretch may have been the best of all-time. Seriously. Actually, compare that team to the ones Elway had taken to 3 SBs, then come back and tell me that Elway isn’t the greatest QB to every play the game. Any other QB does not take those other 3 teams to 3 SBs. Period. Not Montana. Not Favre. Not Marino. Not P. Manning. End of debate. And ESPN can take all of their little polls and rankings and shove them right up their east coast biass. Not even one of the top 100 athletes of the century? What a joke. Sorry, I digress.

So even though I was apprehensive, I certainly went into the game thinking the Broncos had a chance. Now, this is all from memory, but iirc, the Packers scored a TD on their first drive and made it look painfully easy. My heart sunk a bit. “Here we go again,” was a thought probably shared by many long-time sufferers. But the Broncos responded with a great drive of their own. And from there, it was a game. Unlike any of their 4 previous appearances, a real heavyweight battle, eventually won by that offensive line, imo. When Mobley knocked down that 4th down pass, the mostly Bronco fan party at my house in Seattle erupted. Per our tradition, we dog piled in the middle of my family room floor. And seeing Elway raise that trophy? Priceless. I may have shed a man tear or two. Oh bloody hell, I did.