Rewatch: Broncos at Lions 10/7/84

Live from the Pontiac Silverdome it's Don Criqui and Bob Trumpy bringing you the 1-4 Lions and 4-1 Broncos! I'm a little bit interested to know if there was ever a Broncos game on NBC in the mid-to-late 80s that wasn't called by either Criqui and Trumpy, Enberg and Olsen, or Charlie Jones and whoever he was paired with. I'm sure there was but it must have been rare because I don't remember.

The quality of this recording was not great and neither was the game. But I'm still thankful to have been able to watch it.

Lions QB Gary Danielson was kind of off to a hot start statistically in 1984. They mentioned how he came into the game with zero interceptions on the year. That's about to change...in a big way. 

Broncos get an early touchdown drive and then after the Lions' Billy Sims bobbles a pitchout and it pops in the air with help from Louis Wright, Rulon Jones grabs it and rumbles in for a touchdown to make it 14-0 which would be all the Broncos would need to win this one.

Rulon Jones reaches for loose ball

Kind of a brutal second quarter. Lions center Steve Mott suffers what turns out to be a season-ending injury late in the first half and has to be carted off. After the 3rd or 4th Lions turnover, John Elway goes deep to Steve Watson for a TD and a ref gets plowed over at the goal line by a Lions DB.

The Lions were really aggressive at the end of the first half - bringing in their backup QB, Mike Machurek, to throw a hail Mary with under 30 seconds remaining. I don't feel like we'd see that today.  In any case, Dennis Smith picks it off for the 5th turnover.

Not much happened in the second half. Neither offense was doing much of anything. The Broncos couldn't move the ball and the Lions couldn't hold onto it. Ken Woodard picked off a pass and returned it for a touchdown, the fourth interception of Danielson on the day, to put the Broncos up 28-7.

The only thing that was suspenseful about this game was the turnover count. I knew before watching that the Broncos defense set a team record with 10 turnovers in this game, but we passed the two minute warning and they were only at 8. How was this thing going to happen?

Here's how. Machurek is back in the game at QB and throws two interceptions in the final minute to give him three on the game, nearly matching Danielson's total. First, Tony Lilly picks him off, but then fumbles it back to the Lions on the return. Then Karl Mecklenburg comes up with an interception and has some running room. It looks like he has a chance to go the distance for the Broncos' third defensive touchdown of the game, but is brought down after a 63 yard return on what turns out to be the final play of the game.

Other Broncos defenses have received more acclaim, such as the Orange Crush of the late 1970s and the No Fly Zone of 2015. However, the 1984 unit was special in its own way and has kind of been forgotten through the years. Although they gave up a lot of yards, they only allowed 15 points per game on the season, which ranked second in the NFL that year. 

But their trademark was turnovers. Thirty-eight years later, this unit still holds team records for total takeaways in a single season (55), turnover differential (+21), most recoveries of opponent fumbles in a season (24), most defensive touchdowns in a season (8), most yards on interception returns in a season (510), and most turnovers in a single game (10).  Additionally, they hold the team single-season sack record with 57.