This is the AFC Championship matchup between Dan Marino and John Elway that we didn't get nine months earlier after the Broncos were upset by the Steelers.
It’s certainly playoff weather. Although we’re only a little more than a week removed from summer, Denver got 8 inches of snow and hit a record low temperature for September at 17 degrees Fahrenheit. At game time it’s 29 degrees and there are piles of snow at either end of the field.
The game had received the annual “Orange Sunday” designation although it turned out to be more of a White Sunday in retrospect. And as one might expect, NBC’s lead crew of Dick Enberg and Merlin Olsen were on hand.
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The Broncos are first on the scoreboard. Rulon Jones forces a fumble on the Dolphins’ third possession and recovers at the Miami 25. The offense cashes in with Gene Lang scoring on a 10-yard run.
However, momentum quickly swings back to the Dolphins. Marino hits Nat Moore for a 69-yard touchdown to tie the game. The Dolphins are back in scoring position again after a sack of Elway, a punt, and a 15-yard late hit penalty on Steve Busick. Another touchdown by Moore is nullified by penalty, but the Dolphins still get the field goal to take the lead.
In the second quarter, Elway connects with Butch Johnson and Lang for big gains, and then Sammy Winder scores on 7-yard run with 5:32 left before halftime to make it 14-10, Denver.
Dolphins get pinned back on their own 14 on the ensuing kickoff, but Tony Nathan hauls in a Marino pass and rumbles 75 yards before being brought down by Ken Woodard. The Broncos D rises up and holds the Dolphins to just a field goal, retaining a one-point lead.
However, the Broncos can't move the ball so Marino gets to run the 2-minute offense, which results in a TD pass to Joe Rose to put the Dolphins in front, 20-14.
NBC is flashing baseball scores. The Kansas City Royals lost 6-3 to the Twins, putting them a game back of the Angels with a week left in the season. Dick tells us that they’ve got a four-game series with the Angels starting tomorrow. The Royals wind up taking three of four in that series, win the AL West by a game, and go on to win the World Series. It seems a little unusual to hear commentary on pennant races during an NFL broadcast, but this was a very long time ago.
It’s not halftime yet. The Broncos get inside the Miami 40 on a pass interference penalty and then Elway scrambles to get them in field goal range. Rich Karlis comes on to kick a field goal but hits the left upright and it bounces back onto the field, no good. We’ve seen this before, haven’t we?
But there was a flag on the play. Twelve men on the field for the Dolphins, so the Broncos get five yards and another attempt for Karlis. This time the kick glances off the right upright, but goes through. They don’t keep stats on it but you have wonder where Rich ranks on the all time list for hitting the upright. The successful try narrows Miami’s lead to 20-17 at the half.
The Broncos go 82 yards in 10 plays to open second half, with Winder scoring his second touchdown of the game to put the Broncos back in the lead. Karlis converts the extra point to make it 24-20. But wait…there is a penalty on number 67, Dean Miraldi, for illegal motion. I probably wouldn’t even be including the detail of the extra point except this time Karlis misses. So the lead is only three. In this back-and-forth game, will that come back to bite the Broncos?
The teams each take a turn with the ball, and then the Dolphins drive to the Broncos 46. It’s 3rd-and-9. Marino finds the legendary Vince Heflin for the first down and he spins away from Louis Wright and Steve Foley and takes it all the way. Heflin is only in action because Mark Clayton left the game with an injury. Mark Duper didn’t play at all and yet Marino is shredding the Broncos pass defense. He finishes this game with 390 yards and 3 touchdowns.
The Dolphins get the ball back after the Broncos fail to move it, and with the aid of a pair of pass interference penalties on third downs, they get into easy field goal range and extend their lead to 30-23.
But the Broncos get a nice kickoff return from Vance Johnson, and aided by a 15-yard penalty on the Dolphins, they set up at midfield to begin their next drive. There are still 8 minutes left on the clock, and plenty of time for the Broncos to tie this one up. However, shortly after Dick runs down the NBC Sunday night lineup of Punky Brewster, Silver Spoons, Steven Spielberg’s Amazing Stories, Alfred Hitchcock Presents, and the NBC Sunday Night Movie, which is “First Blood”, Winder fumbles and it is recovered by Miami.
Miami can’t move the ball and Mecklenburg drops Marino for a sack on third down to force a punt, but precious time has ticked off the clock.
The Broncos move downfield quickly and a pass to Butch Johnson gets them a first-and-10 at the Miami 16. However, they stall there and settle for a field goal rather than going for it on fourth and long. Probably the right move. They’ve cut it to 30-26 and there are still three and a half minutes to play. Dick and Merlin say that Dan Reeves is gambling on his defense.
The gamble on the defense turns out to be a good one, but the gamble on the special teams - not so much. The Broncos surrender a big kickoff return to Lorenzo Hampton, who brings it back almost to midfield. Even though the Broncos defense forces a three-and-out, Reggie Roby pins the Broncos deep with a punt. So with a 1:39 remaining, the Broncos are 97 yards from the opposing end zone and need to get all of it - remember that missed extra point?
Elway completes a couple of passes but is then intercepted to end the final threat. Marino is the victor in Elway-Marino I.
This seems like it will be the first of many duels between these two quarterbacks from the 1983 QB draft class and that they will battle for AFC supremacy for years to come. And yet, Elway-Marino II won’t come for another 13 years, and they will retire having met only three times in the regular season or playoffs. Contrast that with Tom Brady and Peyton Manning, who met 17 times during the 15 years their careers overlapped.
It might be the weirdest scheduling quirk in sports history and isn’t limited to just the playing careers of Marino and Elway. This game was the only meeting between the Dolphins and Broncos between 1976 and 1997 - a span of 22 seasons. In those days, due to the irregular size of divisions, teams weren’t guaranteed to meet every four seasons the way they are now. Schedules were partially a function of how you finished in your division the prior season. For example, because the Broncos finished first in the AFC West in 1984, the teams from the AFC East that went on their slate in 1985 were the Dolphins (1st in 1984) and the Colts (4th in 1984). Even when the formula shifted from 1st-4th and 2nd-3rd matchups to 1st-3rd and 2nd-4th matchups, the Broncos and Dolphins still didn’t align. Jim Kelly, another member of the 1983 QB class, met Elway head-to-head six times, and his Bills played in the same division as Marino’s Dolphins.
The craziness extends beyond the regular season. One would think that Elway and Marino would have crossed paths in the postseason on a frequent basis. They would have faced off in the 1983 and 1984 playoffs but for the fact that the Broncos didn’t win their first playoff game either time. And then from 1985 to 1996, the Broncos and Dolphins never qualified for the playoffs in the same season, although one or the other qualified every season in that span (with the exception of 1988). It wasn’t until the 1998 season, Elway’s final year, when they finally crossed paths in the postseason. Oddly enough, Elway-Marino III came only three weeks after Elway-Marino II. The whole thing is just bonkers!
What I’m trying to say in so many words is that this Week 4 game is one of the hidden gems in Bronco history, although no one fully realized how special at the time. And despite the cold, it was an exciting, well-played game. Only three turnovers between the two teams. Time of possession was dead even - 29:59 to 30:01. Six lead changes. A 300-yard passer, a pair of 100-yard receivers (Nathan and Moore) and a 100-yard rusher (Winder).
In 1984, the Broncos didn’t lose their second game until Week 13, but it’s only Week 4 of the 1985 season and they have already dropped their second game. At 2-2, they’re in a four-way tie for second place in the AFC West behind the 3-1 Kansas City Chiefs.
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