NFL PLAYOFFS : QBiak Almost Forced Bills Into Early Retirement

The name is Kubiak. Sometimes, on fan-made grandstand banners, it has been written this way: QBiak. But it is a name rarely written anywhere, because Gary Kubiak rarely does anything worth writing about. He is an understudy nobody pays to see, a stuntman nobody sees on the marquee, a part-time quarterback so seldom put to work, he was practically an eighthback.

Until Sunday. Until this, the last football game of his life. Championship game, American Football Conference, winner to the Super Bowl. A game won by Buffalo over Denver, 10-7. A game Gary Kubiak was supposed to stand around and watch.

Instead, it became the game of his life. By the time it ended, Kubiak was on his knees, wailing, pounding the ground. It was a game he tried so hard to win, wanted so much to win, damn near did win, that the least his Bronco teammates felt they could do was punch out those nasty Bills who ganged up on the quarterback before the game was over.

“I tried,” a red-eyed Kubiak said afterward.

Season over. Career over.

“That’s all I could do was try.”

Did he ever. John Elway couldn’t take Denver to a touchdown. Jim Kelly couldn’t take Buffalo to a touchdown. But the minute Gary Kubiak got summoned into the game, having spent the better part of it holding placements for unsuccessful kicks and observing the wild pitches of two of the NFL’s most successful right-handers, he turned into, quite improbably, the best quarterback on the field, the star of the show. QBiak the magician.

Only a week ago, after his juggled hold of a missed extra point had nearly cost Denver a life-preserving game with Houston, the only good reason for prolonging Kubiak’s career seemed to be, as Elway later put it, that the Broncos “didn’t want Koob’s career to end that way.” Elway, in fact, was the one who then prematurely leaked the news that Kubiak, his best friend on the squad, intended to retire from football at season’s end.

Kubiak is still a young man--younger even, at 30, than Elway. Eventually, though, there comes a time in a boy’s life to put away funny-bouncing balls and short pants, and in spite of the obvious life Kubiak still has left in his arms and legs, Sunday’s performance actually left him more convinced than ever he was a Bronco who was ready to be put out to pasture.

“It’s been great. It’s been the thrill of a lifetime,” Kubiak said, trying to overcome the gloom of a beaten team’s room. “It’s almost like the Man Upstairs gave me one more chance to feel that feeling. I had disk surgery last year and a lot of guys come back from it. But, to be honest with you, it’s been a struggle for me. For the first time, football became a struggle for me. I didn’t want it always to be a battle. I felt this (his back trouble) was somebody’s way of telling me something.”

It was not the only voice he heard.

As Sunday’s game was dragging along, everybody, Kubiak included, kept waiting for the superstar quarterbacks to do their thing. But Kelly was barely able at times to get Buffalo a first down. And Elway, well, he fumbled once, and he also flipped a screen pass into a linebacker’s arms that gave the Bills their only touchdown, and then somehow his right thigh became so seriously bruised that Elway later nearly fainted from the pain.

Nobody notified the understudy. Nobody had to.

“The first thing that entered my mind,” Kubiak said, “was: ‘Can you believe this? Today might be my last day out here and I get called on.’ ”

Not that Elway wanted it that way. He pleaded with Dan Reeves to leave him in. The Denver trainer was the one responsible for advising the coach to yank him out. Reeves needed no second opinion. “He’d never come up to me to say: ‘Take me out.’ That’s just not John,” Reeves said.

Kubiak buckled his chin strap.

Elway unbuckled his.

“Go get ‘em, boss,” Elway encouraged him.

And he almost did. Almost got ‘em. The Bills had feared and respected Elway. One of them, linebacker Ray Bentley, a strong bidder to replace Todd Christensen as pro football’s MVP (Most Verbose Player), said beforehand that he stood in awe of Elway, “football’s magical mahatma.” But about all some of the others knew about Kubiak is that for nine NFL seasons he has been pretty adroit at carrying a clipboard.

Fourth quarter: Kubiak takes the Broncos 85 yards in eight plays. It wasn’t “The Drive,” as more than one feat of Elway’s has been labeled, but it was enough to scare heck out of the overconfident Rich Stadium fans who welcomed the Bills with a banner: “Elway’s Drive III: Coming Soon to a Golf Course Near You.” They, too, hadn’t counted on Kubiak.

Onside kick gets the ball back. Screen pass to Steve Sewell catapults Denver into Buffalo’s territory. Minute-and-a-half remaining. Denver needs another Drive? Kubiak’s prepared to deliver one. Call it a going-away present.

Only Sewell fumbles.

Bills get the ball.

And Kubiak? He is left kneeling near midfield, not salaaming, not some magical mahatma, simply the picture of exasperation, slapping the artificial turf with both palms. His only chance thereafter comes with 17 seconds to play, and even then he completes two more passes, making him 11 of 12 for the day, on one of which Buffalo’s Jeff Wright slams Kubiak so far out-of-bounds that three Denver teammates take swings at Wright, literally going down fighting.

Reeves will miss him. The coach called Kubiak the classiest player he has known, and said: “You’d have no idea from watching him today that it was the first game he’s really played all year.” Reeves is thinking of inviting him back to coach Denver’s quarterbacks, in fact.

Elway will miss him, too. The quarterback called Kubiak the ever-ready man. He said: “Whenever he’s called upon, he always does a great job. It won’t be the same around here without him.”

And Kubiak will miss them.

“I guess I’m looking for a job,” he said.

Thirty. Unemployed. Good references.