Don’t Let Him Start at the Two

The way it’s supposed to work is, you get tailbacks from USC, linebackers from Penn State, kickers from Vienna--and quarterbacks from Western Pennsylvania.

Western Pennsylvania, after all, is where Johnny Unitas came from. Also, Joe Montana, Dan Marino, Joe Namath, George Blanda, Jim Kelly and you could name probably half a dozen others.

But, I’m not so sure the greatest of all of them didn’t come from, of all places, Stanford.

John Elway never became “Broadway John” or “the Springfield Rifle” or “Dandy,” but he’s done more with less than any signal caller in history.

He’s never won a Super Bowl. There, as the bard would say, is the rub.

But John Elway has put the Denver Broncos in the Super Bowl. Three times. That, kind sirs, is no ordinary feat. That is a little bit like putting a burro in the Kentucky Derby or qualifying an Edsel for Indy.

Denver, otherwise, had about as little right to be in Super Bowls as--oh, say, Stanford.

John Elway may not put the Denver Broncos in the 1992 Super Bowl. On the other hand, he has them halfway there.

John Elway, with the football and only one point behind and 2 minutes 7 seconds left on the clock, is the most frightening sight a defensive coordinator could see this side of a baby brandishing a machine gun.

First of all, Elway is a great athlete--something a quarterback is not necessarily supposed to be. After all, Slingin’ Sammy Baugh had legs about the size of soda straws. Unitas was hunched over, bowlegged and wore these unathletic high-cuts his whole career. Namath never reminded you of Baryshnikov out there.

Elway was good enough to get drafted in baseball as well as football--by the New York Yankees, no less, and he hit . 318 for their farm club in Upstate New York.

He’s operating, as most quarterbacks do sooner or later, on legs that are more brace than flesh, held together more by steel rods than bone and sinew, but he is still as damnably elusive as a housefly in hot weather.

They used to say Unitas had such great peripheral vision that he could see his ears. Well, Elway’s edge seems to be hearing. He can hear those size 14s coming up behind him well away. His career has been one long Tom & Jerry cartoon. Elway is harder to lay a glove on than a carnival booth fighter.

Perhaps you noticed what he did Saturday. He had the ball on his two-yard line, first down and 2:07 to play with Houston leading his team, 24-23. He drove into field-goal range so his team could win, 26-24.

That was child’s play for Elway. In 1986, he had to drive the length of the field to score a touchdown with time running out and Cleveland leading by a touchdown. That has come to be known as “the Drive.” Saturday’s has now become “the Drive II.” Like World wars and Popes, Elway’s drives are Roman-numeraled. There will be another one along any minute.

Houston lost the game Saturday because: a) it gave the ball to John Elway with time left on the clock; and, b) it violated Murray’s Second Law of Football Motion.

Murray’s Second Law is this: The most overrated maneuver in pro football is the kick out of bounds inside the opponent’s five-yard line.

When Houston punted the ball out on Denver’s two-yard line with only two minutes to play, the Oilers were high-fiving and celebrating all over the field.

My heart ached for them.

You see, I know from years of observation that is the worst possible place to defend from.

Would you believe your own two-yard line is often better field position than the other guy’s?

Consider how much of the field you have to protect when your opponent is on his own goal line instead of yours. You have to spread your forces thin. You almost have to let him out of the hole to guard against a catastrophic strike.

I do not know how often this holds up in the computer. I only know what I’ve seen.

Happens all the time. Consider Sunday’s game, Detroit vs. Dallas. The Lions, leading 7-0 with the ball on the Dallas 35, fourth and short yardage, committed the unpardonable offense to Murray’s Law. They punted.

The ball went out of bounds on the Dallas four-yard line. Strategy worked, right?

Hah! About seven plays later, the Dallas quarterback, Steve Beuerlein, had rolled the ball from his own four to the Dallas 10. The only reason he settled for a field goal was a guy dropped a touchdown pass.

They used to call this maneuver the “coffin corner” kick. In the pros, the corpse in it is, frequently, the team that kicked it there.

The moral here is: Why kick the ball at all when you have fourth down and short yardage--or, for all of that, long yardage. If you kick it in the end zone, you have gained only 15 or 20 yards. If you kick it out in the “coffin corner,” it’s often your own funeral.

Houston never should have punted at all, probably, but not out on the two in any case. Elway may very well be more dangerous from the two than the 20.

But then, Elway is dangerous from anyplace.

A lot of people wince at the notion of Denver’s Broncos maybe making another Super Bowl. After all, they have lost the ones they’ve been in by scores of 7-27, 20-39, 10-42, 10-55. They seem to turn into a puddle of ice water at sea level.

None of that, though, can detract from Elway’s astonishing performances. Anyone can win with a pat hand. Elway does it with a busted flush. That’s why recruiters would do well to hover around Palo Alto the next time they’re looking for a Super Bowl quarterback. Western Pennsylvania has a pretty good track record--but John Brodie, Jim Plunkett and John Elway are pretty hard to sack historically, too.