Broncos Could Take Bills Off the Hook

At the moment the happiest people in America are Buffalo Bills fans, because the Denver Broncos are in position to take them off the hook. If the Broncos hold true to their Super Bowl form -- and get croaked by the customary 30 points -- the Buffalo Bills will no longer be the national joke by which pathetic Super Bowl teams are measured. (Buffalo itself, however, will still be the Armpit of the East, as we in Binghamton gleefully called it; in Binghamton! ) And noted co-dependent Buffaloons, like my friend Tim Russert, will probably walk on water, which they can do, as Lake Erie will be frozen until June.

If the Broncos lose the upcoming Super Bowl -- and who among us believes they won’t? -- Denver will surpass (is that the right word?) Buffalo and Minnesota, and become the only franchise to go 0-5 in Super Bowls. I should point out there are 10 franchises that have yet to qualify for the chance to go 0-1, including sorry, no-account franchises like Atlanta, New Orleans, the Houston-Tennessee Oilers and the St. Louis-Arizona Cardinals, for whom 0-2 would be a Jean Hersholt Lifetime Achievement Award.

The sad truth is that as bad as Buffalo has been in the Super Bowl, Denver has been worse. While Buffalo lost four Super Bowls in a row by an average score of 35-16, Denver’s four have been by an average of 41-12. John Elway’s three Super Bowls have been the Titanic, the Andrea Doria and the Hindenburg. With Elway, Denver has been pasted by an average of 45-13!

And this includes the all-time Super Bowl shaloompfing, 55-10, to the 49ers; Denver’s first Super Bowl loss, 27-10 to Tom Landry’s Cowboys 20 years ago, was a nail-biter in comparison. The Broncos have gone paws up, usually by halftime, in every Super Bowl they’ve played. They’re as dependably awful as Up With People.

The Broncos’ miserable Super Bowl performances have made it easy to dismiss them again this year -- as the oddsmakers already have. Although Green Bay’s record over the last 20 seasons is a soggy 152-156-4, the Packers are universally celebrated as “winners.” The Green Bay Packers are to the NFL what the New York Yankees are to baseball, and what the Boston Celtics are to the NBA. Their legend was formed more than 30 years ago under Saint Vincent Lombardi, and it sticks regardless of how long they were capsized. On the other hand, Denver is 187-124-1 over the last 20 years, and what does it get them? Bupkus. It’s too bad it didn’t get them Butkus, then maybe they’d have stopped somebody and won a few Super Bowls.

Based on what happened Sunday it’s hard to see Denver winning. The Packers defense smothered the 49ers, holding the 49ers to 33 yards rushing. Terrell Davis has knocked out three straight playoff games where he has rushed for more than 100 yards, but the Broncos offensive line is giving away significant tonnage to the Packers. Gilbert Brown alone weighs more than half of downtown Denver. You knows the Coors ads where you’re instructed to say, “Hey, beer man”? Gilbert Brown could eat the beer man and still have room for the nachos man.

The Packers have risen to the occasion each time they’ve needed to or wanted to this year. They went to New England on a Monday night, and crushed the Patriots, 28-10, in a rematch of their Super Bowl game. They cratered Dallas, 45-17, in a game they pointed for because they’d never beaten Dallas under Mike Holmgren, and Dallas had knocked Green Bay out of the playoffs three straight years from 1993 to 1995. Green Bay is 9-1 this season against playoff teams. It seems the bigger the game, the better Green Bay plays. Take Dorsey Levens. You put him out there in a big game, and all of a sudden he runs like Jim Taylor.

All of this puts enormous pressure on Elway, who has been the centerpiece of the Broncos for so long he may as well come to San Diego in a vase. Everybody who’s not wearing a slice of gouda on his head is rooting for Elway to finally win a Super Bowl. At 37, Elway has become something of a grand old man. He has built up an equity of goodwill by fighting the good fight at the same stand for his whole career, like Patrick Ewing in the NBA.

It wasn’t always this way for Elway. When he came into the league he was regarded as a smug, spoiled pretty boy -- all flashy arm and giant gleaming teeth -- for the way he blackmailed the Baltimore Colts into trading his draft rights to Denver. For a while those embarrassments he suffered in the Super Bowl seemed a sort of comeuppance.

But Elway persevered in the classic American hero style of Gary Cooper, and now he’s seen as a valiant warrior who has been somehow wronged. It wouldn’t have turned for Elway had he been one of those athletes who likes to call attention to himself, like a Deion Sanders or a Rick Barry. Nobody bleeds for a big mouth. But by dint of his quiet struggle Elway has become venerable. The shame of it is that the Super Bowl is where he’s most vulnerable.