DAILY REPORT

Johnson was asked if he would mind posing for pictures with the Vince Lombardi Trophy, which goes to Sunday’s winner.

“If someone wants a picture, that’s fine with me,” he said. “I have no superstitions.”

“I read about a surgeon who always did the same thing the morning he was to perform surgery--eat the same breakfast, drive the same route to work. . . . It wasn’t that he was superstitious, he just didn’t want to divert from anything he was used to so he could focus on what he had to do.”

If John Elway is disappointed that his close friend Mike Shananan did not get the Denver Bronco coaching job, he is keeping it to himself.

The Bronco quarterback, in Los Angeles to receive the NFL Man of the Year Award for his charitable work in Denver, said that the naming of defensive coordinator Wade Phillips as head coach should “work out for the best.”

Said Elway: “The players like and respect Wade.”

Asked if the fired Dan Reeves was a players’ coach, Elway said: “No. No, I don’t think you could say that.”

Although Elway said he and the other players respected Reeves, and that the troubles between the two were blown out of proportion, he said he probably would not stay in contact with Reeves.

“We’ll exchange Christmas cards, but that’s probably about it,” he said.

As the winner of the man-of-the-year award, Elway will receive $25,000 for the Elway Foundation, a nonprofit organization that has contributed more than $1 million to the treatment and prevention of child abuse since its inception in 1988.