Broncos Advance; Giants Hang 49 on 49ers : Elway Hits the Winning Free Throw

Any football fan watching the Denver Bronco-New England Patriot playoff game here Sunday must have told himself: These teams are alike in just one respect. Neither one can beat the New York Giants.

Put together, they probably couldn’t beat the Giants.

The Broncos were only good enough to eliminate the Patriots, 22-17, because the Patriot defense quit playing on the play that won it.

This was a long pass from quarterback John Elway, who was operating on a sprained ankle, to wide receiver Vance Johnson, who caught it at the goal line 48 yards away as the Patriots stood around after jumping offside at the line of scrimmage.

Three minutes earlier in the third quarter, New England had moved into a 17-13 lead on wide receiver Stanley Morgan’s second touchdown pass from quarterback Tony Eason.

On Denver’s next possession, the Elway-Johnson pass won the game as Elway took a free shot after seeing that New England linebacker Don Blackmon had illegally encroached against the Denver line.

The Broncos scored their final two points on a fourth-quarter safety after Eason made the last of many mistakes, taking a sack in the end zone from Denver’s All-Pro defensive end, Rulon Jones, when nothing but a throwaway would have saved him to throw again.

Afterward, Denver Coach Dan Reeves credited Elway with two big plays on the big play, the bomb to Johnson.

“John had the option to draw them offside, and he did draw them offside,” Reeves said. “Then he had the presence of mind to go deep to Vance. On that play, Vance wasn’t the primary receiver. We rehearse that kind of situation all the time.”

What they can’t rehearse is the defense giving up on an offside play. It’s true that many football players tend to let up slightly when they see a penalty flag or when they’re in an obvious penalty situation. But it’s rare when the whole defensive line quits.

“Everyone (on the New England team) hesitated when Elway drew us offsides,” Patriot cornerback Raymond Clayborn said. “There was no pressure by our front seven whatsoever.”

“(Elway’s) cadence threw me off,” Blackmon said.

The upshot was that Elway stood back at leisure on his throbbing ankle and waited for Johnson to come open down the middle. Then Elway under threw the ball. As Johnson retreated for it, the Patriot covering him, cornerback Ernest Gibson, guessed wrong and kept going into the end zone.

“I had two primaries in that situation (third and five),” Elway said. “(They were the) fullback and tight end. And we were going to the other (right) side. But once I had them offside, I knew I had a free pass, and we don’t go short on a freebie. I remembered that Vance was on a go route, and let it go.”

And that’s how the Broncos made their way into the AFC title game, which will be played in frozen Ohio next Sunday at 9:30 a.m. PST. The Cleveland Browns also have one thing in common with the Broncos. Nothing they did against the Jets Saturday suggested that they can make it close with the Giants, who finally seem to have emerged Sunday as the NFL’s team of the year.

Reeves said Elway will play, and Elway agreed, although it was modern medical science that kept him going this time. The MVP here was either Elway or the MD who shot him in the ankle at halftime with some kind of pain killer. Bronco trainers wouldn’t say or didn’t know what kind.

When he wakes up today, Elway’s ankle will be so sore, no doubt, that he will be unable to practice. And he may not practice much this week. But the medics can be counted on to get him in there next Sunday.

He was hurt late in the second quarter as Patriot linebacker Andre Tippett, a karate expert, made a legal karate swipe at his legs from the backside, sacking him over to the sideline.

It had been a rousing first half. The Broncos led, 3-0, then the Patriots led, 7-3, then the Broncos, 10-7, before New England closed to 10-10 at the half. Next, the Broncos took a 13-10 lead, then the Patriots led briefly, 17-13, before Elway won it.

“We expected to win,” Eason said. “This was a very disappointing loss.”

The Patriots, who had earned the AFC title last year, dealt themselves out of a chance to repeat when they played too much unprofessional football at Mile High Stadium, where the temperature was in the 60s, ideal for football.

This is the only team that has a quarterback for a sideline signal caller, Steve Grogan, and Grogan called the better game.

His object was to get the ball deep to the best receiver on the field, Morgan, who was open repeatedly behind the Denver defense. But Eason usually couldn’t get him the ball, overthrowing Morgan nearly every time.

In retrospect, the Patriots probably wished they had used Grogan on the field as well as on the sideline. Certainly, in this team’s last game, the night it beat the Dolphins at Miami, Grogan was throwing with more success than Eason showed here.

In any case, the two Eason-Morgan touchdowns were as artistic as any seen anywhere this season.

First, on a first-down play, Grogan called for Morgan to run to the corner of the end zone, where Eason reached him with a 19-yard pass. Only it wasn’t as simple as that. To free himself from Denver cornerback Louis Wright, Morgan faked Wright in, then sprinted out.

The only other New England touchdown came on a first-down flea flicker called at an ideal time by Grogan. Morgan faked Wright outside, then went inside to complete a 45-yard play when Eason, who had taken a lateral from fullback Mosi Tatupu, nailed him at the goal line.

“Everyone giggled in the huddle when we called it,” Eason said. “Give all the credit to Steve (Grogan).”

“Louis (Wright) bit on it,” Morgan said. “I was trying to make him think it was a run. When I saw him take my fake, I just took off.”

Before and after, using all his skills, Morgan was regularly beating Wright and other Denver cornerbacks in this and other ways, but Eason couldn’t connect again. For the most part, Eason played nervously, which doesn’t help the cause in a playoff game.

The Patriots also used their timeouts poorly, and, among other things, against a mediocre rushing team, couldn’t stop the Bronco run. This was a year when the Patriots finished 13th in their conference against rushing plays and 24th in a 28-team league.

It says something about the 1986 caliber of the AFC that a team with that kind of defense could get to the playoffs.

Because of New England’s defenseless defense, the Broncos had more luck than usual running the ball, but, overall, they didn’t play a very artistic game.

On one bootleg run, for example, Elway was creamed at the one-inch line and, frustrated, threw the ball into the ground--drawing the mandatory five-yard delay-of-game penalty that cost the Broncos a probable touchdown, though they salvaged a field goal.

“I thought I’d scored. I was just spiking the ball,” Elway said.

But it didn’t look that way.

Elway’s best plays were his touchdowns. In the second quarter, demonstrating his style as possibly the most gifted of the quarterback ballcarriers, he scrambled 22 yards into the end zone.

For Denver’s only other touchdown, Elway, on his free pass in the third quarter, at least laid the ball out far enough for Johnson to score, though he had to come back for it.

“This is a heart-breaking loss,” said Morgan, the player of the game. “We didn’t get it done.”

Said Wright, the Denver player who couldn’t handle him: “You’re as good as your last game. Now we have a chance to win the championship.”

The AFC championship, he must have meant. The NFL championship is going to be won by somebody else.