SUPER BOWL XXII : Williams’ Day a Painful Treat : Redskin Quarterback’s 2nd Period Leaves Broncos Gasping for Breath

There is often pain in waiting and winning, as Doug Williams has learned over the years and realized here again Sunday in Super Bowl XXII.

His end was justified in victory, as the Washington Redskins crushed Denver, 42-10, at San Diego Jack Murphy Stadium with a 35-point highlight film of a second quarter that shattered record-books and Bronco backs, and caused Rocky Mountain lows.

For Williams, though, the means were more cruel, taking him first from the streets of Zachary, La., to the National Football League’s title game in 1979 and back again. Williams went down before he went up again. He disappeared for a time into a spring league and returned quietly to the thrill of no one.

There was bench time and think time. Getting to Super Sunday and making his stand and his point to whomever it was he was making it for would demand constant testing and pain and patience.

Someone probably told Williams that his upstaging Denver’s John Elway in the biggest of games would be as easy as having a root canal.

Well, somehow Williams did both. He went down before he came up. Williams didn’t sleep much this week--his body was on East Coast time--waking most days at 5 a.m.

There was an abscessed tooth that forced him into a dentist’s office for three hours of work Saturday.

“There was soreness, but I didn’t think about it today,” Williams said.

There was a 10-0 first-quarter deficit to think of, and a knee injury that forced him out of the game for a while.

Williams, untouched, stumbled in his own pocket with 1 minute 37 seconds left in the first quarter, suffering hyper-flexing of his left knee.

He returned later with a brace.

“I felt if I could walk, I could set up,” he said. “No matter what the pain was.”

Williams returned early in the second quarter, just in time to make history.

In that quarter alone, he completed 9 of 11 passes for 228 yards and 4 touchdowns, maybe good enough numbers for a most valuable player standing alone. Suddenly, everything Williams touched was fire.

It was five Redskin touchdowns in five possessions. It was Williams throwing for 80 yards to Ricky Sanders and Williams to Gary Clark for 27. It was Timmy Smith, previously as generic as his name, running 58 yards for another score. It was Williams again throwing for 50 yards to Sanders, and then Williams to Clint Didier and an 8-yard scoring pass just before the half.

More than that, it was over. Adios, Three Amigos .

Williams, for the game, completed 18 of 29 passes for 340 yards and 4 touchdowns. Afterward, people piled MVP trophies and Super Bowl records into his arms and then asked if he was surprised.

“The question is, are you surprised?” Williams shot back. “Did I surprise you? That’s a hell of a question.”

And a football world answered yes.

Really, though, it wasn’t supposed to happen at all. What happened to Elway and the Duke and the Arm and the Amigos?

It was Elway, not Williams, who was chased and sacked and battered all evening. It was Elway who completed fewer than half of his passes--14 of 38--and was sacked 5 times. And it was Elway who threw 3 interceptions.

“Our idea was to harass him all night long,” Redskin tackle Dave Butz said. “If not legally, then we wanted to at least throw their offensive linemen into him and make him take a hit.”

It was pretty convincing. Of course, the Redskins might have added that so many might have overlooked the fact that their line was bigger and better all along.

Could it be something in their conference’s water? This was the NFC’s fourth straight Super Bowl win and sixth in the last seven, not that anyone’s counting.

“We got our tails kicked today,” Elway said. “No question, we lost to a better team.”

And not even the Elway factor could overcome the odds. It turns out, the game’s greatest quarterback can’t do it by himself.

The Redskins, as planned, used some shadow coverage on him.

Sometimes they had a lineman hound Elway’s every move, sometimes a linebacker, sometimes strong safety Alvin Walton, who put his helmet into Elway’s chest enough times--once illegally--to make him remember.

“He was elusive,” defensive end Charles Mann said of Elway. “I lost 15 pounds out there today in this track meet. The key was not giving him a chance to set up. We made him throw on the run.”

Of course, no one could explain what took the Redskins so long to get to the second quarter. Some were pitching the cleat theory, claiming their short cleats were causing them to slip on the damp stadium surface.

In fact, at various times during the quarter, you could find Washington players on the sideline changing to longer cleats.

“I put on cleats that were one-half inch longer,” Mann said. “It makes a difference.”

But before the Redskins could get out of their bad shoes, they were down, 10-0.

How long did it take? Well, Elway’s first pass from scrimmage went 56 yards to Ricky Nattiel for a touchdown. It wasn’t complicated. Nattiel simply ran past cornerback Barry Wilburn, and Elway threw the ball about 60 yards on the fly.

Rich Karlis added a 24-yard field goal on the next drive to make it 10-0, but Denver left the quarter feeling it could have been so much more.

The Redskins, who had been to two of these things already this decade, came out and performed as if it were opening night on Broadway.

Washington receivers were guilty of bad cleats and bad hands, dropping four passes along the way.

But the second quarter brought new hope. Suddenly, the Redskins were unstoppable.

The key was Williams and Sanders connecting on an 80-yard scoring pass, Sanders beating Mark Haynes on the play, on Denver’s first offensive play of the quarter, just after Williams had returned to the lineup.

“They should have been up, 21-0,” Mann said of the Broncos. “Once we scored, everything just turned.”

Sanders, who like Williams and Smith had been a backup this year, had 5 catches for 168 yards in the quarter and 9 catches for 193 yards in the game.

Meet the new Three Amigos.

With 10:15 left in the quarter, Clark beat Steve Wilson in the left corner of the end zone for a 27-yard scoring pass.

Then it was time for running back Smith, a rookie and fifth-round pick from Texas Tech. Smith was one of General Manager Bobby Beathard’s many finds, a player who missed his junior and senior seasons in college because of injury.

Beathard, though, remembered Smith. And Sunday, Smith remembered Beathard with a Super Bowl record-setting performance.

In fact, Smith wasn’t told he was starting until he was walking onto the field after George Rogers had been introduced as the starting tailback.

“I think they expected George,” Smith said of the Broncos. “Starting meant a great deal to me.”

It’s easy to see why the Broncos might have overlooked Smith, who broke Marcus Allen’s single-game Super Bowl record with 204 yards rushing in 22 carries. Smith had gained only 126 yards in 29 carries during the whole regular season.

Denver won’t soon forget his 58-yard touchdown run, the one that put the Redskins up 21-10 and all but put the Broncos out of contention.

“Tim Smith should have easily been the MVP,” quarterback Williams said.

Not this time. This was finally Williams’ day.