For my next rewatch, I perused the games that came up in a YouTube search for “1984 Broncos” and decided that the Chargers/Broncos tilt from 11/11/84 made sense if I wanted to keep it in a chronological order.
However, there were several things said early on in the broadcast that had me confused. There was a lot of playoff talk, such as the Broncos were on the brink of clinching the AFC West. In Week 11? Then they were doing score updates from around the league and the Chiefs were just polishing off a 34-7 upset win over the Seahawks. But during my rewatch of the 11/4/84 Broncos game there had been several updates on a Seahawks rout of the Chiefs. Surely they didn’t play in back-to-back weeks?
It was then that I realized that the video was mislabeled. I was watching the Week 15 Chargers/Broncos matchup. I suppose it was an easy enough mistake to make on the titling as both of the teams’ games from 1984 ended with an identical final score.
The outcomes of their two games would lead you to believe these teams were pretty evenly matched - both were decided by a field goal - yet the Chargers were headed for a last-place finish in the AFC West while the Broncos were in control of their own destiny for the AFC West title when the game kicked off. This Broncos team had a tendency to play tight games - seven of their 14 games to date had been decided by three points.
In the first half, the Broncos set a team record with their 51st sack of the season. They finished 1984 with 57 sacks and the record still stands today.
The Broncos didn’t do much offensively early on. Four first quarter drives resulted in two punts and two turnovers, which the Chargers converted into a pair of Rolf Benirschke field goals. However, after Benirschke missed a 53-yarder that would have made it 9-0, the Broncos responded with a drive that resulted in a Rich Karlis field goal that cut the Chargers’ lead to 6-3.
Dick Enberg and Merlin Olsen were on the call for this game and one of the main story lines they had to work with was the barefoot kicker Karlis, who was coming off consecutive games in which tying field goal attempts had bounced off the upright in losses to Seattle and Kansas City, dropping the Broncos’ record from 11-1 to 11-3. But after the Broncos put together a drive in the final two minutes of the half, Karlis was good on a 50-yard attempt as time expired to tie his career long and seemed to prove he wasn’t shaken by the unfortunate misses.
The Broncos put together an efficient eight play, 85-yard drive in the third quarter that ended with Sammy Winder scoring on a 4-yard run to give them their first lead of the game at 13-6. Earlier in the game Winder went over 1,000 yards for the season, the first 1,000 yard rushing season for the Broncos since Otis Armstrong in 1976. The seven-year drought remains the longest for the Broncos since they joined the NFL.
The Chargers responded with a long drive that gave them first and goal at the Broncos 1-yard line. Two rushing attempts at the end of the third quarter and two more at the beginning of the fourth resulted in zero yards, and the Broncos took over on offense after the successful goal-line stand. However, Winder fumbled on the second play and San Diego recovered. This time, they tried a pass and scored to tie the game at 13.
The Broncos offense responded with another long drive which included a 4th & 1 conversion and Merlin Olsen’s retelling of the story from earlier in the season in which Broncos WR Clint Sampson was “hit so hard in the Buffalo game they thought initially he might even be dead.” The Broncos got to the San Diego 5 but Elway was sacked and fumbled on a third down blitz. The Chargers recovered, their fourth turnover of the game.
Although the 1984 Broncos set a franchise record with a +21 turnover differential that still stands today, they were -4 in this particular game.
However, the Chargers didn’t capitalize, and the Broncos again drove deep into Chargers territory. Karlis came on to boot his third field goal of the game with just over two minutes remaining and put together the Ghost of Uprights Past once and for all. San Diego quarterback Dan Fouts didn’t play in this game and with USFL-bound Ed Luther leading the two-minute drill, the Chargers went nowhere.
During the final minutes of this game, NBC showed updates of the Rams’ Eric Dickerson going over 2,000 yards for the season and breaking O.J. Simpson’s regular-season record.
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| Karlis and Benirschke post-game |
Cameras focused on the two kickers, Karlis and Benirschke, on the field after game. Apparently they were good friends and Benirschke had helped Karlis through a rough couple of weeks.
The Broncos’ victory tied them for the AFC West lead with Seahawks at 12-3, and the two teams would play the following week for the division title. The Chargers record against AFC West opponents dropped to 0-7, and they would finish 0-8 after a week 16 loss to Kansas City. Yet they would finish the year with a 7-9 record due to a 7-1 record outside the division.
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