Taking a Stab at Top Story

Did we get lucky, or what?

In this year of reflection and remorse before the new millennium, the Super Bowl stumbles on the perfect story line for the 20th century.

The boss’ top assistant befriends the top employee.

Together, they stab the boss in the back.

Together, they get the boss fired.

Now, six years later, the old boss runs into them in a hallway.

Is this going to be fun, or what?

You’ve seen it with your bosses, you’ve lived it in your hallways, maybe even you’ve been the one with the sharp-pointed agenda.

Now, we get to watch it all on national television.

Mike Shanahan, John Elway and Dan Reeves.

You, me and the guy in the next cubicle.

Super Bowl hype that, for once, is not hype.

When the Denver Broncos and Atlanta Falcons take the field at Pro Player Stadium here Sunday, they will be living out a drama as near as our next day at work.

One man’s desire for payback, his rival’s desire for justification, a fence-straddling accomplice--all that is more than simply an evening on the football field.

That’s a 10-minute break at the water cooler.

Shannon Sharpe put it in simple terms Tuesday, offering an honest description of the most personal Super Bowl theme in history.

“Mike doesn’t like Dan. John doesn’t like Dan. Dan doesn’t like Mike. Mike and John are best friends--period,” he said.

It is the feud between Reeves and Shanahan that requires an exclamation point.

So Elway complained about his coach. All quarterbacks complain about their coaches. Although Elway and Reeves are not friends, time has healed some of their wounds, even bringing them together to speak on the golf course.

When Elway helped get Reeves fired by Denver after the 1992 season, he needed a strong partner like Shanahan to pull it off.

Elway was never paid to be loyal. His partner was.

Dan Reeves hopes a victory by the Falcons will prove that he was right, and Shanahan was a weasel.

Mike Shanahan hopes a victory by the Broncos will shut the old man up.

Reeves, 55, has stately gray hair, wears stately suits or sweaters, talks with a stately drawl.

Shanahan, 46, showed up Tuesday in a golf shirt with a zipper collar.

Even when Reeves is standing, it looks as if he is in a rocking chair, so grandfatherly is he.

Grimacing Shanahan looks as if somebody is always biting his toes.

The tension between them at Tuesday’s media day was like the warm Atlantic breeze. Soft, invisible, and potentially deadly.

“I’ve been fired, I’ll be fired forever, talking about it just opens up wounds,” Reeves said, refusing to elaborate. “At one time we were all great friends. I want to be that close again. It doesn’t do any good to keep bringing it up.”

Shananhan’s answer about the controversy wasn’t quite so long.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he said.

But he does, because he and Reeves talked about it last week in their respective cities.

Reeves went first, and if you think his comments were calculated to take pressure off his players, then you don’t know Reeves.

When he is asked a question, longtime observers say he always answers it honestly.

Even if the question is about firing Shanahan as Bronco offensive coordinator after the 1991 season.

Even if the answer is stunning.

“When I made the decision to fire Mike, I didn’t have any facts, but in my mind, I felt it was best for our team to let him go,” Reeves said last week. “I didn’t think he had my best interest in mind.”

Among charges Reeves leveled was that Shanahan ran to Elway with critical comments Reeves had made in private coaches’ meetings.

“You say things in meetings you’d never say to a player,” Reeves said. ‘It came from a staff meeting. Does that mean Mike did it? There are a lot of people on a coaching staff. I have no proof.”

He also said Shanahan was wrong not to have told him that Elway hated him.

“Why didn’t I know until I read about it in the paper?” Reeves said. “If you’re the quarterbacks coach, and you’re close to him, why didn’t you tell me?”

A day later, Shanahan responded by saying, “If he wants to bring up dirty laundry, there’s nothing I can do about it.”

And this: “How could Dan not know he had a problem with John? Everybody in town knew.”

Add these hot coals to old embers from Reeves and Elway about making each other’s lives hell, and this week began as a real eyebrow scorcher.

So what happens now?

The coaches will continue to avoid the comments and each other until the quick and easy pose with the Lombardi Trophy on Friday morning.

But then comes Sunday afternoon, when they will be on the field with their teams before the game, a time head coaches often shake hands and chat.

What will they do then? Everybody is wondering. Every camera will be watching.

And about that time, if you are not from Denver or Atlanta, you’ll have to decide.

Whom are you cheering for?

This is not about teams or individuals, it is about situations.

Are you a boss who thinks he was blindsided by some overly ambitious little twerp on his way to the top?

Or are you the hard-working young executive who hustled his way to the top and now feels stung by an insecure former boss?

This Super Bowl is not about cheering for football players, it is about cheering for human beings.

That being the case, the vote here goes to Dan Reeves.

He gave Mike Shanahan his first chance in the NFL. He allowed Shanahan the freedom to develop into the coach he is today.

And, it seems, he was burned for it.

Even if you are young and have never been in Dan Reeves’ position, you have to think: One day you will be.

Whether it be in the office, or with family, or with friends, one day each of us is going to need the loyalty of those to whom we have been loyal.

And if we don’t get it, like Dan Reeves, we will be devastated.

“I don’t know if my family has ever gotten over it,” he said of the end of a 12-year stay in a city he loved.

Reeves said there is only one way to solve this thing.

“Get us in a room with a psychiatrist,” he said.

Did we get lucky, or what?

That room will be the soft green field of Pro Player Stadium. The appointment will be for late Sunday afternoon.

Verrry interesting.

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Bill Plaschke can be reached at bill.plaschke@latimes.com