No Plan B

by Mark Kiszla

  In the NFL, history counts for nothing on the scoreboard. Heading into the Broncos’ first playoff appearance in the Manning era, Fox issued the standard coach speak: “Forget about rest, forget about seeds, forget about who you play, when or where.”

  One day short of four weeks from the moment Denver made Flacco and the Ravens feel like a zero, Baltimore returned the favor when the stakes were much higher.

  That’s why Saturday, January 12, 2013, is doomed to live in infamy throughout Broncos Country. The thermometer read a frigid 13 degrees. But how Denver lost is what sends shivers down the spine.

  There was the obvious pass interference the officials missed when Ravens cornerback Corey Graham returned an interception 39 yards for a touchdown to stake the visitors to a 14–7 lead early in the first quarter.

  There was the coverage that Hall of Fame cornerback Champ Bailey blew not once but twice against Ravens receiver Torrey Smith, with the errors resulting in 14 points for Baltimore.

  There was the missed 52-yard field goal by Denver kicker Matt Prater that could have staked the Broncos to a 24–14 lead in the final 76 seconds of the opening half.

  There was the buzzard’s luck of Knowshon Moreno suffering a knee injury that knocked him from the huddle, leaving Denver’s running attack with no leg to stand on as the Broncos tried to maintain a late lead.

  There was the way Fox nursed the advantage as if his quarterback were Tim Tebow rather than Manning. The Broncos came out of the two-minute warning with a running play by rookie Ronnie Hillman needing seven yards to move the chains on third down in Baltimore territory, rather than giving a quarterback being paid $18 million a chance to clinch the victory with one of those short, accurate passes for which Manning is famous.

  Despite all that went wrong, however, the Broncos led 35–28, after punting to the Ravens late in the fourth quarter. Little 5-foot-5 Trindon Holliday, picked up at midseason off the street by Elway and the Denver front office, had cast himself as the biggest hero of the game, by returning a punt 90 yards for a touchdown and a kickoff 104 yards for another score.

  The Broncos took the lead, putting the career of Lewis officially on the clock, midway through the final period. A nifty little pass from Manning that Demaryius Thomas turned into a 17-yard touchdown left Lewis facedown, an old, tired man eating dirt in D.T.’s wake. An AFC championship game between Denver and New England, matching Manning versus longtime rival Tom Brady, seemed a near certainty.

  Fox certainly must have felt the Broncos needed to do nothing more. At the two-minute warning, with the Ravens unable to stop the clock again, Denver faced a third down at its own 47-yard line. Gain seven yards on the next snap, and the Broncos offense could sit back and laugh, because it would be all over except the crying in the rust belt town of Baltimore. Nobody throws those nifty, safe, little underneath passes better than Manning. This was precisely the situation for which a team pays a Hall of Fame quarterback $18 million per year. But what did Denver do in this situation? Put the football in the hands of Hillman, a rookie running back.

  Unbelievable.

  Rather than step on the neck of the Ravens, Fox stood back and played beat the clock, satisfied with punting.

  “The percentages prove true. Ninety-seven percent, you’re going to win the game in that situation,” said Fox, who obviously liked his chances as Baltimore’s offense took the field, needing a miracle to tie the game.

  Out of timeouts, 70 yards from the end zone and regulation time down to its final 41 seconds, all Baltimore had was a prayer. As his offensive teammates took the field, Ravens safety Ed Reed stood on the sideline, shaking his head and mumbling to himself. Lewis buried himself beneath the hoodie of his parka, the way a little kid tries to hide under the covers from the end of grandpa’s bedtime story, because once the book snaps closed, there is nothing more to look forward to except the dark.

  Strategy gone after a harmless incompletion on first down and an inconsequential scramble by Flacco on second down, what Baltimore did was throw caution into the night sky. Against defenders required to do little on third down except keep the football in front of them no matter how far toward the goal line the Broncos needed to backpedal, Flacco called for four receivers to run four vertical routes.

  That is, a Hail Mary. Times four. No matter how you do the math that almost certainly equates to no chance in hell.

  After taking the snap, Flacco stepped up in the pocket, dodging severe pressure applied by Broncos defensive ends Elvis Dumervil and Robert Ayers. As the clock ticked, a voice of doubt inside his head urgently suggested discretion called for surrender on this play: Throw the ball away. Throw the ball away. Throw the ball away.

  But Flacco told discretion to shut up. “I call him Smokin’ Joe,” Baltimore receiver Jacoby Jones said. Quarterbacks with big arms are seldom shy at taking a shot. They do not want to be told the odds. Said Flacco: “You have to get a little bit lucky.”

  Pure dumb luck, however, would have never stood a chance except for the arrogant, unfocused stupidity of Broncos safety Rahim Moore.

  As Jones ran behind him at the Denver 30-yard line and Flacco launched a pass with the trajectory of a mortar shot, Moore inexplicably moved without purpose, as if somebody else would do the work for him. Caught too shallow on the route, he was challenging the NFL’s strongest arm to blow the football by him. What on Earth was Moore thinking? Or was he thinking at all?

  “I think I got a little too happy. I misjudged it, man,” said Moore, admitting he was going for an interception that could have cast him as the hero in the final snapshot of the game, rather than playing sound defensive technique that every player learns in elementary school.

  As Moore leapt at the pass and made a desperate stab with his left hand, he wore the same hopelessly lost look as a panicky Little League outfielder watching a ball sail over his head.

  Near the east sideline of the stadium, in front of the Baltimore bench, Jones caught Flacco’s prayer and scampered untouched into the end zone, blowing a kiss to heaven for the 70-yard touchdown that tied the score at 35. Manning stared into space, the road to the Super Bowl suddenly appearing to be to infinity and beyond.

  Some way, somehow, the Broncos had to shake off the shock and give hope a chance.

  The Ravens kicked off. After the touchback, Denver had possession at the 20-yard line, with two timeouts and the number one quarterback of his generation on its side. Manning had 48 game-winning drives in the fourth quarter or overtime on his sparkling NFL resume. He needed to move the Broncos 45 yards to give Prater a decent shot at a field goal to break the tie.

  In Denver’s moment of need, Manning took a knee.

  Unfathomable.

  Tebow would have taken a knee, but only in a short prayer on the sideline, then risen to preach to teammates that faith was invented for crisis.

  In his playing days, if Elway had been told by coach Dan Reeves to take a knee, there might have been fisticuffs on the bench.

  “No Plan B” does not take a knee.

  It felt like a shameless act of surrender. The sky was falling and the Broncos could not find the courage to get up. Many of the 76,732 spectators had a distinct sense this team was doomed the instant Manning assumed the fetal position on the final offensive snap of the fourth quarter. The stadium was filled with dread. No, it was worse than dread. The stadium was filled with booing. In the final seconds of regulation, the Broncos surrendered everything, including the home-field advantage they had worked all season long to gain.

  Sports analysts are often accused of second-guessing long after the game is done. At 6:03 PM in the Rocky Mountains, as Denver settled for a coin flip to see which team would receive first crack at avoiding sudden death in the playoffs, I tweeted: “Can’t take a knee there, John Fox.” On the CBS telecast, Dan Dierdorf beautifully gave voice to what America was thinking: “Am I the only one shaking my head here a little bit? Two timeouts left for Denver, Peyton Manning at the quarterback position and you don’t at
least give it a whirl?”

  Denver lost its nerve.

  Big moments call for bold moves.

  Denver wimped out.

  A leader steps out front and demands action in the face of adversity. The best Fox could offer was a hug and a pat on the rump.

  “There is a certain amount of shock value, a little bit like a prize fighter taking a right cross on the chin at the end of the round,” said Fox, who detected his players were weak in the knees. “We’re looking to get out of the round. That might not be the ideal time to go for the knockout punch.”

  Rather than pulling egos off the canvas, Fox let his players cede every emotional edge to Lewis and the Ravens, who believed they were on a mission from God. The Broncos got what namby-pamby meekness deserves. In overtime, they were dead men walking.

  During the waning seconds of the game’s fifth quarter, Manning took a snap at his own 38-yard line, rolled to his right, and probably should have kept running to the concession stands for a cup of hot chocolate. Instead, a veteran quarterback with a history of playoff flameouts suffered total brain freeze, uncharacteristically throwing a pass across his body, into the teeth of the Baltimore secondary.

  Although Broncos receiver Brandon Stokley fought for the catch, he got outmuscled for possession of the football at the 45-yard line, and Graham nabbed his second crucial interception of the of the game for the Ravens.

  Six snaps later, rookie Baltimore kicker Justin Tucker calmly drilled a 42-yard field goal 1 minute, 42 seconds into the second overtime period to end the Broncos’ season with a 38–35 loss.

  “Am I the only one in Denver who’s happy right now,” tweeted Peter Tebow, trolling an entire city in the name of his brother, dumped by Elway so Manning could become the Broncos quarterback.

  If God actually cares anything about football, He will penalize you 15 yards for unsportsmanlike conduct for that juvenile display of pettiness, Peter Tebow.

  But this is why it will be the name of Rahim Moore that Broncomaniacs will take in vain. Starting with the season-opening game in September against the Pittsburgh Steelers, from rushes to punts and sacks to extra points, Denver took 3,210 snaps to put itself in the best position possible to make a Super Bowl run. And with nothing more than a single 10-second play, all that beautiful work was destroyed.

  “I’m taking the blame for it. Hey, I lost the game for us,” said Moore, taking full responsibility and never blinking as one question after another cast him as the sacrificial goat of the disheartening loss. “It is what it is.”

  Tell you what it is: The most epic blunder in the history of the Broncos. Since players began pulling on uniforms in 1960, no member of this team has ever made a more monumental mental mistake.

  It was an unforgivable mistake by any athlete paid good money to play safety in the NFL. It caused too many sleepless nights to count. It might have cost Manning his last, best chance at another Super Bowl ring. It was a party balloon Moore popped.

  “The worst thing about it is,” Moore said, “is we’re going home. We’re going home off a play I could’ve made, and a play I’m here to make. Coach Fox and the staff, everybody’s around me to make that play. And I didn’t make it.”

  In the aftermath of the upset, anybody with an old number 7 Broncos jersey had flashbacks to January 1997. Remember? The irate Jacksonville Jaguars, a second-year NFL franchise disparaged by the Denver Post’s Woody Paige as the “Jagwads” in a pregame column, entered Denver a 14½-point underdog, but departed with a 30–27 victory on the strength of Mark Brunell’s passing and the running of Natrone Means. “I’m going to go home, sit on my couch and probably cry,” said tight end Shannon Sharpe in a sad Denver locker room.

  In the sports department of every major newspaper, the copy desk needs at least one person who serves as a living, breathing Wikipedia capable of recalling so many fascinating little-known facts of local athletic lore it could make Jeopardy! master of ceremonies Alex Trebek faint. At the Denver Post the bottomless well of information is Mike Burrows. Credit—or blame—him for this list:

  To end the 1996 season, Jacksonville beat Elway and the Broncos by three points, the same amount as this stunning setback to Baltimore.

  In both instances, the Broncos entered the fateful playoff game with a 13-3 record and the seed in the AFC.

  Elway was 36 years old when he lost to Jacksonville. Manning was also 36 when he lost to Baltimore. And what franchise drafted both quarterbacks when they entered the NFL? The Colts.

  Mike Shanahan and John Fox seemed to be bound for the Super Bowl during their second seasons of coaching in Denver, until the Jaguars upset Shanahan and the Ravens beat Fox.

  But here is where it gets downright freaky:

  In both 1996 and 2012, would you like to guess which team won the national championship in college basketball? Kentucky.

  The starting running back for the Broncos in both games was a proud alumnus from the University of Georgia (Terrell Davis and Moreno).

  Amy Van Dyken came out of landlocked Colorado to make a big splash at the Summer Olympics in Atlanta, swimming to four gold medals in 1996. Teenage swimming phenom Missy Franklin did Colorado proud at the Summer Olympics in London, winning four golds in 2012.

  Sixteen years separated two defeats that stole the breath of stunned Broncomaniacs. Against Jacksonville, Alfred Williams wore number 91 as a defensive lineman. When Flacco lofted a desperation pass and the sky fell on the Super Bowl dreams of the city 16 years later, Williams watched as a helpless spectator, while wearing a number 77 throwback jersey that honored Broncos legend Karl Mecklenburg.

  “This loss was worse,” said Williams, his eyes glassy with shock as he trudged down a gray-drab hallway in the underbelly of the stadium.

  In those mournful eyes of Williams, the truth was revealed: In defeat, the pain of loving the Broncos is all the same, whether you are a player on the field or a fan in the stands.

  Under the weight of falling skies, hearts break.

  As Williams walked past the Broncos locker room, Fox was behind the closed doors, telling Moore, Manning, and the rest of his disconsolate team: “Don’t let this loss define you.”

  Chapter 16

  Swimming with the Snarks

  On any given Sunday, or any of the other six days in the week, there is a great American pastime growing faster than pro football. It is called snark. Anybody can play, sharp-tongued devils and dumb wits alike.

  Welcome to the rise of antisocial media. We the people of the Internet hold this truth to be self-evident: In the wake of any NFL player’s knucklehead move, on the field or in a nightclub, the sound of LMAO will be 10 times louder than the comfort the poor fool gets from electronic sympathy cards.

  Nasty as we wanna be, full or sarcasm and devoid of context, snark attacks hit and run after 140 characters. Whether directed at the funny bone or below the belt, a cold-blooded snark never apologizes for kicking your sorry hashtag.

  If you believe as Baltimore star Ray Lewis does, God suited up in purple and white and took the field as the Ravens’ 12th man during the 38-35 upset of Denver on the bitter cold January afternoon that ended the Broncos’ season. “God is amazing, and when you believe in him . . .” Lewis preached to CBS sideline reporter Solomon Wilcots after the victory kept the veteran linebacker’s retirement tour alive. “Man believes in the possible. God believes in the impossible!”

  Lewis praised the Lord. But hell hath no fury like the wrath of Ravens fans, royally pissed at anybody who had doubted their football team. Peyton Manning and the Broncos had not even retreated to the Denver locker room when the e-mails of vengeance began pounding my inbox:

  God is having His revenge. Ray Lewis is the messenger to John Elway and John Fox for cutting His player: Tim Tebow. And for Elway stiffing Baltimore in 1983. (Ravens fan Steve Murfin of Queenstown, Maryland)

  Whew. The God to whom Murfin prays must really hold a grudge.

  Elway left Stanford with an economics degree nearly 30 years
before Lewis beat Manning in the NFL playoffs. Wow, a young Elway must have spurned Baltimore so ruthlessly it would take God three decades to get even. In 1983, the young quarterback and his father decided it would be bad for the Elway family business to play for Frank Kush, the irascible coach of the Baltimore Colts at the time. The uncommon leverage held by Elway had nothing to do with football.

  The big stick Elway brought to the discussion was a nifty .361 batting average as a college baseball player. It allowed Elway to issue a threat to skip out on the NFL draft and join the New York Yankees rather than suffer with Kush. “Even though the Colts thought I was bluffing, I was not bluffing,” Elway said. “My plan was to go play baseball for a year and then go back in the NFL draft.”

  Well, Colts owner Robert Irsay was not going to get pushed around by some snot-nosed college punk. On May 2, 1983, Irsay ordered the team to send Elway packing in a trade with Denver for quarterback Mark Herrmann, the rights to offensive lineman Chris Hinton, and a future first-round draft choice.

  Less than eight months after Elway had forced a controversial, blockbuster trade, the Colts had played their last game in Baltimore. Irsay moved the team to Indianapolis. The tough rust belt town in Maryland cried in its beer. Years later, Manning would join the Colts and win a championship for Indy. Farther on down the road, Elway would forsake Tim Tebow and sign Manning.

  In the twisted minds of bitter old Baltimore fans, the karmic dots all finally connected when Ravens rookie kicker Justin Tucker drilled a field goal through the heart of Elway’s grand designs on returning to the Super Bowl with Manning as his quarterback.

  But, even for those misguided souls who believe God loves Lewis more than Elway, it might be dangerous to predict the demise of Old No. 7 at any juncture. At age 36, Elway and the two-touchdown favorite Broncos suffered a stunning playoff defeat at home to the Jacksonville Jaguars.