Elway Optimistic Despite a Season Rife With Turmoil : Pro football: Denver quarterback making plans for a fourth try at a Super Bowl championship ring.

Indianapolis Colt running back Eric Dickerson is threatening to retire unless he is traded, Miami Dolphin quarterback Dan Marino is asking to be traded and Philadelphia Eagle quarterback Randall Cunningham is pondering retirement after two more seasons.

Meanwhile, Denver Bronco quarterback John Elway quietly has been making plans of his own. Elway, no stranger to adversity himself with three Super Bowl losses, intends to play next season for . . . the Broncos. And he intends to finish his career with . . . the Broncos .

Elway doesn’t want out of Denver; he just wants another chance at the Super Bowl.

Elway, the former Granada Hills High star, has spent the two months after the Broncos’ third Super Bowl wipeout in four years at his recently purchased condominium in Palm Springs. He has stayed away from the spotlight to avoid controversy and has reveled in the lack of attention.

What Elway has discovered in his seclusion is that there is life after the Super Bowl--even after a humbling 55-10 defeat to the San Francisco 49ers.

Elway has had time to re-energize and reflect. He has spent time with his family and has played golf at least four times a week. “I’ve been shooting in the 70s,” Elway said. “I’m a six-handicap. But I don’t have any aspirations of playing on the Seniors Tour.”

And two months away from Denver has given Elway an optimistic outlook. Leading the Broncos in 1990 is something he wants, not dreads. But he recognizes that it won’t be easy.

For all the yardage--21,303--he has passed for in seven seasons with the Broncos, for all his awards, Elway’s status as one of the NFL’s top performers has been tarnished because he has been shut out in the all-important category of Super Bowl victories.

“That’s the real bottom line,” Elway said. “It doesn’t matter what your stats are or what you’ve done. It’s how many Super Bowls you’ve won. Every time you lose the Super Bowl, the monkey on your back gets bigger. And the monkey gets even bigger when you’ve been blown out in three of them.”

Yet, Elway does not look back ruefully at 1989. He acknowledges that he probably played the best game of his life in Denver’s win over the Cleveland Browns in the AFC championship game (385 yards passing, three touchdowns, 39 yards rushing), but that was quickly forgotten after Super Bowl XXIV.

“It was a great year for us,” Elway said. “We were just coming off an 8-8 season and had 19 new faces out of 45. That was a big turnover. We went to two Super Bowls (XXI and XXII) and then went 8-8 and were getting old. We made some changes and made some cuts that not everyone liked.

“We were projected to finish in the middle of the pack and were 11-5 in the regular season and finished 13-6. It was a great year. We have to keep things in perspective. We were projected to go 6-10.”

Thoughts of the Super Bowl indignity, however, have not gone away. Elway never got his rhythm, appeared jittery and completed only 10 of 26 passes for 108 yards and threw two interceptions.

“There’s not a day that goes by that I haven’t thought about (the Super Bowl),” Elway said. “It’s frustrating. It’s also a situation where there’s nothing you can do about it. It’s not like I threw a last-minute interception. We didn’t even have a chance.”

Elway took considerable heat from the media last season when his individual stats began to fall. After leading the team to a 6-2 start, Elway returned the fire in a Sports Illustrated story, telling the magazine the media’s criticism had gone out of bounds.

Elway reacted heatedly to innuendoes that he had a drinking problem and stories about his media relations (not that great) and gratuities (not that great). Furthermore, the length of his hair and size of his teeth were subject to open discussion and dissection. The Bronco quarterback told Sports Illustrated that he was suffocating under the intense scrutiny and was “sick of it.”

Jack Elway, John’s father and a former Cal State Northridge and Stanford football coach, applauded John for taking the offensive. “I thought (the criticism) was unjust, unfair and untrue,” Jack Elway said. “I think it was good for him mentally to express his thoughts. I thought he handled himself real well and said it like it was.”

But despite winning more games (he is 70-36-1, a .660 winning percentage) than any active quarterback except Joe Montana, Elway says he expects criticism.

“It comes with the territory,” Elway said. “There’s no quarterback in the game that hasn’t taken criticism. You look at Joe Montana. They were all over him before this year. You get paid to play, but you also get paid to take that stuff.”

Elway realizes that it’s a far different situation from his years with Granada Hills and Stanford. Although he failed to lead Granada Hills to a City Section football title and never took Stanford to a bowl game, he has received considerable plaudits. He was Parade magazine’s top prep quarterback for the 1978 season and finished second in the Heisman Trophy balloting behind Herschel Walker in 1982.

Looking at his high school days, Elway said, “I think at that level it’s still a game. It’s different in pro ball because of the expectations. You’re getting paid now and the expectations rise accordingly to what you get paid. That makes it tougher.

“In high school, you’re still a kid and still able to have fun. If you don’t win, the world doesn’t stop turning.”

Elway, who makes $2.1 million annually, can empathize with the plight of Dickerson and Marino, both of whom perform with great expectations. But he does not sympathize.

“I think those guys are just blowing smoke,” Elway said. “Dan must want to get out of there, but he’s not going to. Dickerson, if he retires, he’d have to pay back a million dollars (to the Colts).

“When it gets closer to the season, they’ll be right there.”

Elway remains upbeat about the upcoming season, expecting the Broncos to maintain their competitiveness.

“We need help in some areas,” Elway said. “We need a couple receivers, we need a big fullback, we’re young in the offensive line.

“We’ve got good players but need some great players, some big-play guys. We’ll be right in the hunt again.”

Yes, optimism reigns under the Palm Springs sun. Elway said that even the prospect of his turning 30 on June 18 is no cause for worry. “I’m just glad I made it that far,” he said.