Competition Drives Elway to Play One More Season

The answer came to John Elway, of all places, on a basketball court.

For nearly five emotionally tortured months after winning Super Bowl XXXII, Elway couldn’t figure out the question about his future: Does he play one more season, or ride off into his NFL sunset with the championship ring he had waited 15 years to earn?

Elway asked everyone.

His wife: Don’t quit yet.

His kids: Daddy, we still want to see you on TV.

His contemporaries: Former Buffalo Bills quarterback Jim Kelly, like Elway a veteran of four Super Bowl appearances, told him to keep playing, because, if given the chance, Kelly wouldn’t have quit when he did after the 1996 season.

His predecessors: Former Cincinnati Reds catcher Johnny Bench, one of pro sports few champions to go out on top, said there were no regrets about his decision.

Everyone had the answer.

Except Elway.

Then it happened on the eve of his annual charity golf event in late May. He had invited 10 buddies for their traditional pre-golf pickup basketball tournament, a ritual that goes back more than a decade.

“At first, I said, ‘I’m not playing,’ ” said Elway, who took a seat on a nearby bench to watch the game of 5-on-5. “But that lasted one game. When that happened, I said, ‘I can’t sit on the sidelines and not compete.’ That’s what really got me over the hump.”

A few days later, Elway told the world he was coming back for one more season.

“It just didn’t feel right,” Elway said about his thoughts of retiring. “There are things I’ve thought about that would be nice, but I’ve sold my car dealerships, and if I play golf every day, my elbow hurts. My heart didn’t tell me it was time to quit. I think when it’s time to quit, you’ll know.”

For Elway, it wasn’t time.

So the 38-year-old quarterback, one of pro football’s most prolific passers, is back for what he insists--promises, in fact--will be his final season, one he hopes will culminate in another NFL championship to further distance himself from those three Super Bowl losses that had haunted his otherwise brilliant career until last Jan. 25.

All is right in Denver for one last season.

“As far as I’m concerned, John Elway is our franchise, and I’m glad he’s back for another year. We all are glad he’s back,” Broncos Owner Pat Bowlen said. “Ever since he got here in 1983, you can say that he has been the Denver Broncos, and that’s as true today as it ever was. The thing is, he’s not just coming back because he feels he has to or he feels obliged to. He’s coming back because he definitely has the ability to play at an extremely high level.”

It is next to impossible to find anyone who would argue the latter point as Elway begins his victory lap.

Even Kansas City Chiefs Coach Marty Schottenheimer, who sees Elway from a slightly different perspective than the rest of the football world. It is Schottenheimer who has so often been victimized by Elway’s brilliance. From Elway’s epic comeback against Schottenheimer’s Cleveland Browns in the 1986 American Football Conference Championship Game referred to simply as “The Drive,” to Elway’s most recent conquest of Schottenheimer’s Chiefs in the 1997 AFC divisional playoffs, Schottenheimer believes Elway remains as dangerously effective as ever.

And not just because of his wondrous right arm.

“The greatness of John Elway is not the product of his skills, but the great competitive nature of the guy,” Schottenheimer said. “It doesn’t matter what you’re involved in with him, he’s going to try to beat you. Notwithstanding the times he’s beaten us, I have the greatest regard for the guy.”

So much, in fact, that Schottenheimer was pulling for Elway’s return in the offseason. This in spite of the fact that the Broncos are one of the few remaining obstacles between Schottenheimer and his first ever Super Bowl appearance.

“As crazy as this might sound, I’m glad he didn’t leave the game yet, because he can still play in a winning fashion,” Schottenheimer said. He became convinced that Elway need not end his career after watching one memorable play from Denver’s 31-24 victory over the Green Bay Packers in Super Bowl XXXII. And no, it was not another of Elway’s 4,223 career completions.

“To me, the play that symbolizes John Elway was the play in the Super Bowl where he went on a scramble, and he just dove and flew through the air,” Schottenheimer said.

The play has since been dubbed “The Helicopter.” It may become as memorable as “The Drive.”

Late third quarter, game tied 17-17, Denver ball, third and 6 at the Packers’ 12. Elway goes back to pass, and is under a heavy rush. Finding no open receivers, he scrambles to his right and heads for the first-down marker. Packers safety LeRoy Butler sprints toward Elway and the collision between the two sends Elway spinning into the air.

Gain of eight. First down.

Elway leaps to his feet and heads jubilantly back to the huddle.

Two plays later, Terrell Davis scores the go-ahead touchdown with 14:26 left in the fourth quarter. “I’ve probably seen the play 20 times on the highlight tape,” Broncos fullback Howard Griffith said. “That really sent a message. When you have your leader, your quarterback, giving all that effort trying to get extra yardage, it showed how much he wanted it, how much we all wanted it.”

Said safety Tyrone Braxton: “That play still gets me fired up. It gives me chills just thinking about it.”

For Elway, the play was simply an extension of the competitive nature that has driven him to become arguably pro football’s greatest quarterback.

“I knew we needed a first down, and in that type of situation, you do whatever you have to,” he said.

Elway plans on doing more of the same this year.

“That guy is one of the most competitive, one of the most intense people I’ve ever been around,” said Giants head Coach Jim Fassel, who coached Elway at Stanford and later with the Broncos as Denver’s offensive coordinator. “He’s everything you want in a quarterback. He’s got the smarts, he’s got the competitiveness, the leadership, the arm strength. He’s got everything.”

Question is: Does Elway’s definitive decision to make 1998 his final season make him psychologically vulnerable? Does he fall into the trap that former Buffalo Bills Coach Marv Levy warned of, that anyone who says he only wants to play or coach one more season is, in effect, already retired?

Elways insists the answer is no.

“I came back to win football games and defend our championship,” he said. “That’s No. 1 on my list. I’m going to enjoy my final year, but I’m coming back so we can win it.”

And Denver coach Mike Shanahan believes Elway remains as effective today as at any time in his career. The latest empirical proof: During a recent practice Elway, who had undergone offseason shoulder surgery, threw a pass so hard that it actually broke wide receiver Ed McCaffrey’s middle finger.

“He’s at the top of his game,” Shanahan said. “Just look at him on film last year. He had a great year, and he’s going to have another great year because he works so hard to prepare himself.”