Rewatch: Broncos vs. Vikings 11/18/84

In 1983, Terry Bradshaw, who was on the tail-end of a brilliant 14-year career as quarterback of the Pittsburgh Steelers, publicly ripped rookie John Elway, who had forced a trade from the Baltimore Colts after being selected first overall in the draft. "In my opinion, he's not the type of guy you win championships with," Bradshaw said. "He never did it when he was at Stanford. I don't think he'll do it in Denver, and personally don't care if he ever does it."

Well then. 

Bradshaw retired after the 1983 season and joined CBS as an NFL analyst.  

This was the only game the Broncos played on CBS in 1984, and the network sent Verne Lundquist and Terry Bradshaw to the Mile High City.  I'm not sure of what went into the assignments of broadcast teams for Week 12. Maybe it was because Verne had a place in Steamboat Springs. But maybe they just couldn't resist the idea of sending Bradshaw to see Elway in person.

The Vikings managed a decent return on the opening kickoff. However, they fumbled on the first play from scrimmage. The Broncos recovered, and a few minutes later went up 7-0 on a Gerald Willhite touchdown. And things never really got better for the Vikings after that. The Broncos led 28-7 midway through the second quarter after converting two other Minnesota turnovers into touchdowns. 

They mentioned that the winning entry for a naming contest for the ‘84 Broncos defense was "The Plundering Herd” - a reference to their uncanny ability to force turnovers. One graphic during the game indicated that the Broncos had turned 46 takeaways into 126 points, which represented 50% of their scoring on the season.

Terry, the Louisiana kid, was still pretty new to the gig and was pretty folksy on the broadcast. He used a lot of southern dialect, such as “they’re gonna chunk it” and “this ol’ boy.” 

 

Meanwhile, Verne referred to "Danny Reeves" about a dozen or so times. I assume this was due to his roots in broadcasting as radio voice of the Dallas Cowboys during the era in which Dan Reeves played for the team.

The game was briefly interesting late in the first half when the Vikings then staged their only threat of the game, driving to the Denver 7 at the two-minute warning. A touchdown would cut it to 28-14 and make it something of a ballgame again. However, Tommy Kramer’s pass deflected off Roger Jackson and into the arms of Randy Robbins for the fourth Bronco takeaway of the half.

Terry was a little concerned at the Broncos end-of-the-half lack of aggressiveness with still time on the clock. But then almost as if Danny Reeves was listening, Elway went deep, hooking up with Steve Watson for 50 yards to set up a TD pass to Ray Alexander and a 35-7 halftime lead. 

The Broncos received the ball to start the second half and made the score 42-7 when Elway tossed his fifth TD pass of the game. So what could have been a 28-14 score quickly turned into 42-7 in just a few minutes of game clock. 

Gary Kubiak took over at quarterback with the Broncos up by 35. They didn't score again, but they didn't need to. The Vikings managed a pair of garbage time touchdowns to make the final score a respectable 42-21, although they needed to use a "gadget play" on the final play of the game to score the second one. "Gadget play" has completely disappeared from the football lexicon, but the term was used quite liberally on broadcasts in the 1980s.

Elway after 50-yard completion to Watson

Verne appropriately questioned Terry on his criticism of Elway. Terry insisted that it was all water under the bridge and that he was a big fan of Elway's.

Apparently not so much.

Five years later during the runup to the Super Bowl XXIV matchup between the 49ers and Broncos, Bradshaw again took a swipe at Elway, saying that Elway had been "babied" and "had it too easy" and again mentioned the lack of championships and he'd never had it tough like Bradshaw had in the early days in Pittsburgh.

Now that the careers of both of these Hall of Fame quarterbacks are in the rearview mirror, I suppose we could do a full analysis of who truly had it easy and who didn't, but we'll have to save that for another day.