Broncos Dance to Daylight

If this were art instead of football, Terrell Davis would be the star from Riverdance, that muscular, heroic figure with definitive moves and stately presence. And the Broncos’ offensive line, well, these big guys would be the Rockettes, precise and deftly choreographed to function as one, impressively graceful and efficient.

They can be tough gents, this splendid running back and his band of macho supporters, grinding out the short yards with all the determination you would expect of champions. But these linemen are not the Hogs from Redskins fame, nor is Davis a recreation of John Riggins, or even Jerome Bettis. Rather than spending their games trying to maul you with a simplistic I’m-coming-straight-at-you mentality, the Broncos have found that moving sideways most often is the best way to ultimately move forward.

This keep-it-in-motion, move-it-laterally, impeccably scripted dance routine has allowed the Broncos to put their best foot forward--to say the least. Behind the consistent blocking of these beefy Rockettes, Davis has surged to top billing among league stars. He is the NFL’s most valuable player and the rushing game he unites is the league’s most ferocious, predictable weapon, the foundation of a Broncos colossus that is positioned to produce a stunning undefeated regular season and a repeat appearance in the Super Bowl.

As if on cue, Davis seems to be breaking or threatening yet another record with every week’s outing. As this season winds down, a strong final act could land him in rarefied air indeed--2,000-plus yards, where only O.J. Simpson, Eric Dickerson and Barry Sanders have previously high-stepped, and perhaps even 2,105-plus yards, which would make him the NFL’s all-time single-season rusher.

This is no longer a quarterback’s league; this is the Riverdance man’s playground, a dance festival where keen vision and quick feet, not strong arms, are the focus. It is a stage where terms like ‘downhill’ and ‘north-south’ and ‘cutback’ and ‘isolation’ are the steps of domination, not slant patterns and timing routes and three-step drops. It is a production where predictability is the foundation, yet scripted improvisation is the key to its success. Get your top hat, put on your tap shoes, pop in the CD and let’s go inside the world of T.D. and the Rockettes. This is one extravaganza you don’t want to miss.

What’s so impressive about the Broncos’ running game is that it all makes so much sense. You have a running back who doesn’t have breakaway speed, nor threatens Barry Sanders in the nifty category, nor Jim Brown in the power area. Yet the things Terrell Davis does well, he does exceptionally well. He reads blocks with the intellect of a Ph.D.; he makes quick, decisive cuts after waiting patiently for his blocks to form, followed by instant acceleration; he relishes churning for a few yards instead of figuring out ways to avoid contact. So you take these traits and you hand them to choreographer Alex Gibbs, one of the best line coaches in the business, and you wind up with an outline for excellence that works so well even its star is flabbergasted.

“The thing I like about this offense is that it is tailor-made for me,” Davis says. “I’m not sure it is coincidence or what, but my running style fits perfectly with what we do. I didn’t have to change anything. They didn’t ask me to be a scatback or run lots of draw plays or be a shifty, quick back like Barry. I am a north-south, downhill runner who makes one cut and one move, and this offense is predicated around that one move.”

Of course, it fits. Gibbs and Coach Mike Shanahan are too smart to misuse Davis. It would be like asking Baryshnikov to swing dance or Astaire to sing opera. So Shanahan abandoned his passing roots grown in the soil of Bill Walsh’s West Coast offense. None of these side-by-side, two-back, deceptive 49ers schemes. Instead, Gibbs and Shanahan, best buddies from their days as Broncos assistants under Dan Reeves, have become masters of a different, more simplistic approach. They didn’t reinvent the running wheel; they just reshaped the spokes a little.

So the Broncos, with Davis, are a tailback team. He lines up seven yards deep in the backfield, like O.J. Simpson did at USC, with a lead fullback, giving him the extra room to peer into the defense and sort out potential running holes. Oh, sure, the Broncos use him on some traps and draws and counters, standard NFL running fare. But their featured weapon is known within the trade as a stretch play. It can be run either with a handoff or a pitchout, but the basic premise stays the same.

Think first about the Rockettes--the real ones. Focus on how they move laterally, each step exact in its nature. Legs up together, then down, then sideways. Now substitute the Broncos’ linemen. Not nearly as pleasant to the eyes, but in their own way just as elegant. Let’s say they are running a stretch play to the right. When the ball is snapped, all five immediately move in that direction, keeping their shoulders parallel to the line of scrimmage. They absorb contact with the defense, but instead of pushing straight upfield, they link up with defenders and keep going sideways, pushing with their hands and shuffling their feet as if they are basketball players on defense.

All the while, they maintain the same spacing, or gap, between them that was present at the snap of the ball. This gap maintenance is a key. Defenses are fanatical about gap control; on every play, a defender is assigned to every gap along the line. The Rockettes understand this obsession and try to neutralize it with their movement. If they can shuffle laterally fast enough--and stay in unison--they are betting that a defender will surrender control of his gap, either because he lags behind or because he becomes overzealous and tries to fill his gap too quickly, allowing a Rockette to knock him out of the way. In essence, the defense is being stretched and being penalized for what it should do best--pursue the ball. Instead of attacking, the defense is now on the defensive.

Meanwhile, Davis is moving in the same direction as his linemen. Like a quarterback who reads a progression of potential receivers, he is scanning the line, reading a progression of gaps. Can he break around the tight end? Or through the gap between the right tackle and tight end? Or between the right tackle and guard? Or between the guard and center? His instructions are simple: get through your progressions quickly--no indecision allowed--choose a gap and make one cut. No dancing, no hip-swinging, no frosting. And that cut must be north-and-south or downhill, which, in football terms, means that cut is heading straight at the line.

By being decisive, and by moving straight at the gap, Davis minimizes the chances of being stopped for a loss. His aim is to settle for a 2-yard gain rather than imitate Sanders and keep going sideways, risking a negative play. (He’s lost yards on only 27 carries this year). His cutbacks aren’t those reverse-the-field heart-stoppers, either. Instead, we are talking about a step or two back and then cut. And unlike other cutback runners, his angle to the line remains sharp. Once he heads forward, he stays that way; other such stylists often will cut, then flatten out their angle and move more east and west.

Ah, but you say, when he cuts back to a hole, why shouldn’t he be stopped by defenders pursuing him from behind? Gibbs and Shanahan have addressed that problem as well. On the backside of the play, the Rockettes are cutting defenders, knocking them off their feet and keeping them from pursuing.

“[The stretch play] looks like a sweep when it starts, but you spend the whole week of practice telling your players it really isn’t a sweep, but it is hard for them to adjust,” says Redskins defensive coordinator Mike Nolan, whose unit surrendered 119 yards to Davis on Sept. 27. “He almost never takes it around end. He will see a hole and cut it back. But your defensive guys are moving along the line, worried about outside containment, and their linemen do a good job of grabbing and pushing you along. They let the momentum of the defense take over and carry you right out of the play.”

The Broncos also rely heavily on their isolation running play, where Davis moves behind Howard Griffith, the league’s premier blocking fullback. Griffith sprints through a gap and blocks a linebacker trying to fill up the hole; Davis then cuts through the resulting space. But defenses that key too much on Griffith, figuring he will lead them to Davis, get burned because Davis has the option of cutting into another hole that may open instead.

“Their line doesn’t attack you like most lines do,” says Cowboys linebacker Fred Strickland. “Most lines will fire out at you. The Broncos flow down the line and you wind up flowing with them. It’s sort of like a wave rushing to the side. You get lulled to sleep and then boom, he cuts on you. Once he sees it, he goes. Then afterward, you’re sitting there telling yourself, ‘If I hadn’t floated and waited for him to make a decision, I might have been able to make the play.’ ”

All the while, Davis is waiting, too. “I’m looking for them to make just one mistake,” he says. “Then it is up to me to take advantage of it.”

OK, so you are a defense and you know every dance routine in the repertoire of T.D. and the Rockettes. Can’t be that hard to stop, right? Like trying to control the old Packers sweep, knowledge is a start, not a solution. Here are the major reasons the Broncos’ running game continues to flourish.

* Speed and tempo. “You’ve got to keep up with their pace,” Redskins middle linebacker Marvcus Patton says. “They do everything so fast and they keep up that pace throughout the game. Instead of overpowering you, they wear you down. That’s what they did to Green Bay in the Super Bowl.”

The Broncos practice without pads, better to keep themselves fresh and quick. Shanahan preaches game tempo during these workouts--quickness, speed, explosion--so the reads Davis gets closely resemble what he will see in the games. No other team in the NFL plays so quickly. Watch the Broncos and the play clock; they consistently are snapping the ball with 10 or 15 seconds left, not two or three.

“Holes come from not being able to match their speed,” Nolan says. “They don’t mess around. It’s boom, boom, boom. He is back there deep and they are running fast and it just takes one defensive guy not running fast and he picks the hole. It’s amazing.”

* Stubbornness. Shanahan is nothing but stubborn--and smart. He knows he has a good thing in Davis and he isn’t wasting him as a decoy. You can bank on Davis getting his 25 carries a game. And there is a method behind all these attempts.

“We know we won’t win on every carry,” Shanahan says. “But if we stay with it, we will get two or three big plays from him and that will be enough. Plus, it makes our play-action passes more effective as well as our overall passing game.”

* Blocking help. The Broncos have the best blocking wide receivers in the game, particularly Ed McCaffrey. Their work is essential to Davis’ downfield success. To help stop Davis, defenses will bring an extra defender, usually a safety, near the line in the so-called box. This eighth run-stopper usually is unblocked by offenses, who can counter with only seven blockers (five linemen, tight end, fullback). But Denver’s receivers frequently are asked to crack back and eliminate either that safety or a linebacker, thus neutralizing the defensive tactic. If Davis can get through a line gap and the receiver can eliminate a blocker on the next level of defense, a 4-yard gain becomes 10 or more.

* The man. As good as Davis has been in his first three pro seasons, this version is better. “He expects to make plays now that he didn’t when he first came into the league,” Shanahan says. “Before, it was all so new that he didn’t know what he could accomplish. Now he does. So he is looking for the longer gains. He knows he has a chance to dominate if he plays at the level he is on now. That is a big change in his mind-set.”

He’s also richer, now that he is playing with a $56 million contract that included an $11 million signing bonus.

He wears his status as a star impressively, and he has become obsessed with enhancing his future. He has overhauled his diet; instead of a steady parade of junk food, he now eats pasta and chicken and vegetables. He has a private masseur and chiropractor; one or the other works on his body daily. He gulps down power shakes and takes what he calls power naps, sleeping up to 12 hours a day.

On most game days, he is so ready, so prepared, that his vision is shockingly clear. “I can see things from here to there. It’s amazing how big the gaps look.” But when all the precise Denver choreography breaks down, he has the skills to improvise a new dance. His key is to not waste time. Make a cut, get what you can from the play and move on. He also can make yards when none should be available. With his legs constantly churning, he is extremely difficult to tackle, particularly if you hit him high and rely on your arms to bring him down.

In essence, he becomes his own blocker. “He is a great runner after contact,” Raiders Coach Jon Gruden says.