Jackson, Nattiel Get the Job Done Nicely : Vance Johnson, the Amigos’ Leader, Watches Victory From Hospital Bed

The balloons and flowers that filled Room 315 of St. Luke’s Hospital were nice, but for the head Amigo it wasn’t like Mile High Stadium, where confetti rained down against the background of a cobalt blue sky and orange-colored Broncomania.

Vance Johnson desperately wanted to be there.

“I was sitting up here in the hospital bed going crazy,” Johnson said by phone after the Broncos’ wildly emotional 38-33 AFC championship win over the Cleveland Browns Sunday.

“There was a lot of screaming and yelling. My blood pressure was so high I thought they were never gonna let me out of here.”

The Broncos’ leading pass receiver missed the game with a hemorrhaging femoral artery in one leg--the result of a late hit by Houston Oiler linebacker John Grimsley in the divisional playoff game a week earlier that was worth a 15-yard penalty.

At first it was diagnosed as a deep bruise, but after Johnson tried to practice Thursday, the artery started to bleed again and he was sent back to the hospital.

Johnson said the whole thing was “very painful,” but it also hurt to have to watch on television, with only his mother there to comfort him and keep him somewhat under control.

It helped a lot that the other two-thirds of the Three Amigos--receivers Mark Jackson and rookie Ricky Nattiel--took up the slack. Each caught a touchdown pass from John Elway. Nattiel caught 5 passes for 95 yards and Jackson 4 for 134.

“I said they were both gonna have great games,” Johnson said. “There was always a lot of pressure on me being the head Amigo and having to make big plays. Those guys showed that they can make big plays, too.”

Jackson and Nattiel wore hand-wipes in their waistbands with Johnson’s number 82 written on them. Jackson also marked “Amigos” in vertical letters on one heel of his ankle wrappings and “The Vance” on the other.

“We wanted everybody to know we hadn’t forgotten the other Amigo,” Nattiel said.

Johnson saw the closeups on television.

“That was great,” he said. “It was great that they were thinking of me and trying to make me a part of it.”

He hopes he’ll really be a part of it when the Broncos play the Washington Redskins in Super Bowl XXII at San Diego Jan. 31.

“I’m gonna get out of here tomorrow,” Johnson said. “Right now the leg is OK as long as it doesn’t hemorrhage again. I’m gonna take it easy for a few days and then be ready to go in the Super Bowl.”

Jackson thinks Johnson may be rushing it.

“I went by (the hospital) yesterday evening,” Jackson said. “He’s definitely going to have to stay off his leg for a while. It was a major artery in his leg. A lot of people weren’t aware of that. They thought it was (just) a bruise. It could have been a career-ending injury.

“The thing that touched me, when I walked in the other day he was kind of teary eyed. The doctor had just given him the (bad) news.”

Johnson’s absence gave Nattiel, a first-round draft choice from Florida, a chance to start, and he not only scored the first touchdown of the day on an eight-yard pass from Elway but caught two more for 26 yards each on the Broncos’ winning, 75-yard drive climaxed by Elway’s 20-yard scoring screen pass to Sammy Winder.

“We were confident and relaxed before the drive,” Nattiel said. “I looked around the huddle. Guys were smiling. They didn’t look tense at all. John was fired up. We knew we could move the ball, and we knew it was time then.

“I was able to come up with a couple of catches, and Sammy made a great run off the screen.”

In last year’s AFC title game, it was Jackson who made the big catches, including the touchdown, on the Broncos’ celebrated 98-yard drive that sent that game into overtime leading to the Denver victory.

This time Jackson seemed to break the game open when he answered the Browns’ first touchdown with a third-down, 80-yard broken play to put the Broncos up, 28-10.

“John Elway, with his scrambling ability, can turn negative yards into--in this case--a touchdown,” Jackson said.

“The play was busted. I was coming from the other side of the field and saw him scrambling. I was trying to stay (past) the first down marker in hopes he would get it to me, but (all-pro cornerback Hanford) Dixon was all over me, so I just came straight back to the ball.

“All the time I was thinking, ‘If I break a tackle maybe I can get the first (down).’ I got it and Dixon slipped off me. Felix Wright was coming from the safety position. I managed to get around him and I think it was about the 30-yard line when a monkey jumped on my back. I ran out of gas about the 10.”

But Kosar kept bringing the Browns back, until they had tied the game at 31.

“That was kind of scary,” Johnson said from the hospital.

It was for Jackson and Nattiel, too.

Jackson said: “Ricky came up to me and said, ‘I guess this could be their drive.’ I said, ‘No, they couldn’t duplicate that.’ But, sure enough, Bernie was driving them down the field. I was praying for a turnover.”

The prayer was answered when reserve cornerback Jeremiah Castille stripped the ball from Brown running back Earnest Byner and flopped on it at the Denver two-yard line to snuff the final threat.

Nattiel’s opening touchdown was fairly routine--for Elway, anyway.

“They gave us a zone coverage,” Nattiel said. “Actually, I wasn’t the first look for John. The first look was the halfback out in the flat.

“They had that covered pretty well, so I just kept pausing in the back of the end zone. I managed to sneak behind the free safety and John managed to see me. But the key was that he had all day to find a receiver.

“I proved that I was able to do the job. I was kind of excited.”

Even with Johnson out, the veteran Steve Watson, once the club’s most reliable receiver, didn’t get a pass. The emergence of the Three Amigos, and a strike-game injury against the Raiders in which he broke six of his ribs, has shoved Watson into the background.

Jackson said they’re thinking about making him an honorary Amigo.

“I can’t say enough for the way Mark and Ricky played today,” Watson said. “They stepped right in and did everything they had to do.”

Watson re-started his season a few weeks ago and said, with a smile, “I should be full-speed in about two weeks.”

But will Johnson? He said he had one unlikely Amigo rooting for him: Grimsley, the guy who put him in the hospital.

“He called me two days ago,” Johnson said. “He apologized and said he didn’t want to hurt me.

“I don’t have a bad feeling for him. I’m glad we can be friends. God bless him for calling to tell me he was sorry.”

Johnson has to get well. The Three Amigos have places to go and things to do. Now that their Super Bowl stage has been secured, they are scheduled to make a video for MTV this week. Taco Bell indicated it would expand their regional commercial to a national pitch.

And look out, bordertown, here they come.

“Tijuana!” Jackson said. “Where else?”