SUPER BOWL XXII : WASHINGTON REDSKINS vs. DENVER BRONCOS : Pro Football / Bob Oates : Slim Favorites Elway, Broncos Have Slim Advantages

One curious thing about Super Bowl XXII is that the Denver Broncos have been favored by only a field goal or so over the Washington Redskins.

For several reasons, the Broncos have a can’t-lose look.

To begin with, there is John Elway, Denver’s shotgun quarterback. He plays the game out of harm’s way--10 yards behind center--but he throws so hard that his bullets seem to be coming from a platform on the scrimmage line.

Second, the Broncos have courteously provided Elway with a cast of seven remarkable receivers. Four are wide receivers, two are tight ends, and one, Steve Sewell, does everything but sell programs.

The cast divides roughly into large and small. The so-called Three Amigos average 5 feet 9 1/2 inches and 175 pounds. The Big Four average 6-4 and 225 pounds. Only five can play at a time but covering even five of them is like covering a tornado.

Third, and perhaps most significant, the memory of last year’s Super Bowl game, which the Broncos lost, has blessed them with an incomparable motivating force.

“When you get a taste of it . . . and don’t succeed . . . what a tremendous letdown it was to lose that game,” Bronco Coach Dan Reeves told reporters the other day. “That’s stuck with the players all year.”

In his San Diego office, Steve Ortmayer, the Chargers’ vice president of football operations who in his Raider days won some and lost some, said: “I know how the Broncos feel. Nothing is more devastating than losing a Super Bowl game.

“The Redskins, I realize, have also lost a couple--but that was years ago. Most of their players are new. This is the same Denver team, and their hurt is still vivid, still very real.”

Nobody, however, is saying that the Redskins are dead. “Both teams will move the ball up and down the field in the first exciting Super Bowl we’ve had,” Ortmayer said.

“The big difference between this and the last 10 or 15 Super Bowls is that neither team has a defense that can dominate. But all the psychology favors Denver.”

In one other respect, it will make history. Although National Football League coaches have exclusively, and often tiresomely, stuck with the T-formation as their only offensive system for nearly 40 years, neither of these teams runs a conventional T. It will be Washington’s one-back system vs. Denver’s shotgun.

Those picking Washington keep making one point: The Redskins are the champions of the better conference.

The Bronco story:

PASS OFFENSE

The strength of the Broncos is often almost hidden from view, strangely enough, considering that it’s always out in the open. Their strength is the congregation of receivers complementing Elway.

The public focus is naturally on the quarterback. But the machine works because there are so many inviting targets for Elway, such a variety of clever receivers. All seven can get open, catch the ball and run with it.

They fall into two groups, the Three Amigos and the Big Four, and come in all sizes and shapes--small, tall, slight, and firmly packed, and if some can run away from you, others can run you down.

Smallest and fastest are amigos Vance Johnson, Mark Jackson and rookie Ricky Nattiel, who as football players are much alike. Slick.

Of the Big Four, the toughest are the tight ends, Clarence Kay and 6-5, 256-pound Orson Mobley. Orneriest is Sewell, 6-3, 210, who plays halfback, wide receiver, tight end, and surrogate quarterback, throwing a touch pass that even an Elway can envy. Rounding out the package, the Broncos also have one tall wide receiver, 6-4 Steve Watson.

And then there is Elway. Technically, like any quarterback, Elway can be rushed. You can catch up with him, that is. But when you get there, then what? You still don’t have him. He’s like a slippery bar of soap.

In this season of his maturity at age 26, after five years in the league, Elway throws a better pass from the pocket than he does rolling out, sadly for the defensive players of the NFL.

But when he does roll out, the defense tends to break down, so his scrambles increase Denver’s chance for big plays.

“The explanation is that Elway’s receivers scramble as well as he does,” Buffalo Bills General Manager Bill Polian said.

Said Harry Hulmes, assistant general manager of the New York Giants: “If he turns downfield, it gets worse. Elway’s always running through a broken field.”

Often for a first down.

The big change at Denver this season was Reeves’ new shotgun offense, a full-blown single-wing offense--the NFL’s first since the 1940s.

In this series, Elway takes a direct snap from center and retreats to a station 10 yards or so behind the line of scrimmage.

“The only reliable defense against any passer is to rush him,” said Sid Gillman, a Hall of Fame coach. “Reeves and Elway prevent that with the shotgun.”

RUNNING OFFENSE

In a conventional running situation against a conventional NFL first-down defense, the Broncos can’t run a lick. They are arguably the poorest running team to reach the Super Bowl in 22 years. On ball-control running downs, that is.

On passing downs, however, they have been running for excellent yardage, getting most of it on draw plays and other fake-pass carries out of the shotgun and various T-formation sets by all three backs, Elway, halfback Sammy Winder and fullback Gene Lang.

For example, when the Cleveland Browns turned over the ball on their third play from scrimmage at the Browns’ 18-yard line in the American Football Conference championship, Denver immediately ran Winder twice, for 12 yards, against a Cleveland defense that was expecting Elway to throw it.

Earlier, on their first play, the Browns, calling a pass at the Cleveland 12, had taken a sack. The Broncos didn’t make that mistake in the early nervousness of a big game. First they ran Winder to confuse the Cleveland pass defense, then they passed for an easy touchdown.

“You have to defense Elway to pass or run,” Polian said. “Then, the Broncos use their running backs as counterpunchers to what Elway does.”

That is the design of Reeves, who has had to replace eight Denver starters since last season, mostly because of injuries--two in the offensive line. As a rule, two offensive-line injuries at the same time devastate NFL teams--including, most conspicuously, the defending champion Giants this season.

The Broncos, however, have rolled merrily on with a new center and guard, Mike Freeman and Stefan Humphries, who combine effectively with Pro Bowl guard Keith Bishop and two comparatively undersized tackles, Dave Studdard and Ken Lanier. In an era of 300-pound offensive linemen, the Denver tackles are no bigger than the defensive ends they’ll face Sunday, Dexter Manley and Charles Mann.

Nonetheless, “Elway gets better protection than any quarterback in football,” Ortmayer said. “The Denver line has learned to bite, scratch and claw--whatever--to protect him.”

DEFENSE

The Denver defense is the Denver defensive coach, Joe Collier.

It’s doubtful if any other assistant coach in the league is more valuable, or more extraordinary.

“Collier had a Super Bowl club last year, and you’d expect him to build on that this year,” Denver writer Joe Sanchez said. “Instead, he’s changed the personnel in 10 of the 11 positions.”

Said Raider executive Ron Wolf: “Continuity of leadership is more important than continuity of personnel, and the same guy has been calling the defensive shots for Denver since (1969).

“People always underestimate Denver’s defense because they (undervalue Collier’s) coaching.”

The Broncos do have a nucleus of Super Bowl veterans, Wolf said, naming Karl Mecklenburg, Rulon Jones, Dennis Smith--who has been injured most of the season--and Ricky Hunley. But Hunley is the only Bronco defensive player now lining up in the same position he played a year ago.

If the whole is greater than the sum of its parts, the man responsible is the one who changes the Bronco defense, not only every year, but every play. To Joe Collier, football is a living, breathing chess game:

--His strategy, the simplest in the NFL, is merely to be perfect on every down.

--His tactics are the league’s most diverse. The Denver defense is geared to the team it is playing. Collier changes the operation each week, striving to outnumber each opponent at the point of attack--on every down--whether it takes five linemen, five linebackers or seven defensive backs.

“He has the smallest defense and the most innovative schemes in the league,” Polian said. “What he’s trying to get are turnovers.”

Size seems to be the last thing Collier considers when fitting together a lineup. “The most important football quality is intelligence,” he said.

So against any opponent, the Broncos are generally the smarter team on the field, though physically too small to rush the passer, except in gangs. They don’t blitz passers much, anyway. “We blitz for the running game,” Collier said.

The starters with Jones this year in Denver’s three-man line are Andre Townsend and nose tackle Greg Kragen. The announced outside linebackers are now Simon Fletcher and Jim Ryan, although Mecklenburg has been playing mostly outside. Hunley, the club’s one run stopper, is normally inside. Many others play in Collier’s many packages.

In the secondary for the AFC championship game, he started cornerbacks Mark Haynes and Steve Wilson with strong safety Randy Robbins and free safety Tony Lilly. The best of these, probably, is Haynes.

But one looks high, low and in vain for a Chip Banks in the Denver defense, or a Wilber Marshall, or a Richard Dent.

SPECIAL TEAMS

When the Broncos are playing in Mile High Stadium, it sometimes seems that their special teams are special, but that’s mainly because the ball is sailing true through the thin Rocky Mountain air.

Elsewhere, their kicking game has been undistinguished, and Rich Karlis, their veteran kicker, missed a couple of simple field goal tries in last year’s Super Bowl. During the regular season that ended Dec. 27, Denver’s gross and net punting averages were 39.9 yards and 31.6 yards, respectively, not shabby but not wonderful. Punter Mike Horan suffered two blocks.

The best Denver specialist is probably Elway, the triple-threat who has brought the quick kick back to pro football.

The Broncos have also returned punts distinctively at times with K. C. Clark, who has averaged a respectable 13 yards.

Ortmayer calls Denver’s special teams adequate, adding that that’s what you want against the Redskins, particularly when you are punting to them.

“The worst thing you can do when you’re playing Washington is to out-kick your coverage,” he said. “You don’t want to give (Redskin punt returner) Darrell Green any kind of a head start. It’s better to drop the ball in front of him and let it dribble.”

That’s the easy part for Denver.