Weird, wild stuff

Sporting News, The, Jan 25, 1999 by Michael Knisley

The Broncos turned possible disasters into game-changing plays to advance to another Super Bowl

You know it's going to get goofy when the wind is gusting up to 45 mph at kickoff. You know it's going to get goofy when the Jets are more at ease than the Broncos in blustery crosswinds more common to the Meadowlands than Mile High Stadium.

"In all my years in this stadium, I've never seen the wind blow like that," says Broncos offensive coordinator Gary Kubiak, who knows Mile High about as well as anyone after 13 seasons with the Broncos (nine as a player, four as a coach).

And you know how goofy it's getting when John Elway needs a quarter and a half to complete his first pass and goes to the locker room at halftime with 33 passing yards. How goofy? While Elway's passes flutter and dive to places the Broncos receivers aren't, Vinny Testaverde (or "Air Vinny") successfully negotiates the first 13 passes he throws through the wind into his teammates' hands. Testaverde goes to the locker room at halftime with 217 passing yards.

So you know the game is going to turn on a goofy play or two. And it does. Two third-quarter oddities bring Denver back from a 10-0 deficit and into a 10-10 tie, and the Broncos go on to a 23-10 victory and a chance to defend their Super Bowl title.

Oddity No. 1: On first down from the Denver 36-yard line, Broncos wide receivers Ed McCaffrey and Rod Smith position themselves on the wrong ends of the line of scrimmage. McCaffrey is lined up split left, Smith split right. The play calls for Smith to run a post pattern and for McCaffrey to run a deep crossing pattern, but they line up in each other's positions. Elway, momentarily confused, furiously waves his arms in an effort to get them switched. Then, somehow convinces them to run each other's route.

"It was just me and Ed who got it wrong," Smith says. "Everybody else knew what they were doing. But John was like, `Don't worry about it.' It was good composure by John to keep us calm right there. I was kind of panicked in there for a second."

So Smith runs the deep crossing pattern and manages to take safety Victor Green with him. And McCaffrey runs the post pattern and manages to confuse the Jets so completely that he takes nobody with him. McCaffrey is more open than a guest on Jerry Springer. The play goes for 47 yards and sets up Elway's 11-yard touchdown pass to Howard Griffith, making the score 10-7.

Here's how confused the Jets are on the play: They think the Broncos line their receivers up that way on purpose.

"I knew something was up," Jets cornerback Ray Mickens says. "I noticed Smith was on the tight end side, which he doesn't play. So I knew they were going to do something like that. That's a play we knew they were going to run. We practiced for it. We knew when they switch positions like that, something is up. We just miscommunicated."

Oddity No. 2: On the kickoff after Griffith's touchdown, Jason Elam lofts a backspin pitching wedge shot into a gust of wind and it carries only to the 25-yard line. The ball hits the green in the center of a gaggle of Jets and hops backward toward the Broncos. Backup linebacker Keith Burns recovers for Denver at the 31, setting up Elam's game-tying 44-yard field goal into the wind.

This, like the completion to McCaffrey, isn't part of the Broncos' game plan.

"I'm just glad we came up with that ball," Elam says, "or else I'd be in a lot of trouble right now. I think it was (Dave) Meggett who was back there; and obviously, he wasn't expecting that. Most of the time, there was an unbelievable crosswind out there, blowing straight across the field into our sideline. I never did figure out the wind."

Except six minutes later, Elam figures out the wind well enough on a 48-yard field-goal attempt to aim the ball 20 feet wide of the right upright, which under normal circumstances is a truly goofy direction in which to kick a critical field goal.

"Kickers never, ever, ever want to play it outside of the upright," Elam says. "If it'd died, I'd have looked pretty stupid."

But the wind blows it some 30 feet to the left, straight through the middle of the goal posts for a 13-10 Denver lead. And by then you know, somehow, that this goofy game is going to be won by the Broncos.

Michael Knisley is a senior writer for The Sporting News.