Elway Is ‘Devastated,’ Searching for Answers

SAN DIEGO —  This is a whole new experience for John Elway, and he has had trouble coping with it.

Throughout his football career, Elway, 28, has known nothing but success. At Granada Hills High School, at Stanford University and with the Denver Broncos, his achievements as a quarterback have invariably set him apart from his contemporaries.

But the Broncos are 1-3 in 1988 after two consecutive Super Bowl appearances, and Elway’s sub-par passing has been a key factor. He has played only one good game, that a 34-3 victory over the Chargers, and he reached a low point Monday night with four interceptions as the Broncos let a 24-0 lead dissolve into a 30-27 overtime loss to the Raiders.

The form chart says the Broncos should get well in Sunday’s rematch with the Chargers at San Diego Jack Murphy Stadium, but there’s a question whether Elway will be emotionally ready.

After Monday night’s collapse, Elway was near tears in the Broncos’ locker room.

“I’m devastated,” he said. “This is the worst loss I’ve ever had.”

Elway was asked, “Where do you go from here?”

He replied, “Home. I need to go off by myself with this one.”

In a telephone interview later in the week, Elway said he still hadn’t recovered.

“I’ve never gone through anything like this,” he said. “I’ve never felt like this. I’ve never been so down.”

Asked what it would take to bring him back up, Elway said, “Ask me after the game Sunday, and I’ll tell how I got back up.”

Elway has completed 67 of 133 passes (50.4%), with 5 touchdowns and 8 interceptions. His 61.4 rating points leave him 24th in the NFL and 11th in the AFC. Babe Laufenberg of the Chargers is close behind him in the AFC at 59.9.

To further emphasize Elway’s ineffectiveness, consider that Boomer Esiason of the Cincinnati Bengals leads the league with 104.7 rating points and that Jim Everett of the Rams tops the NFC with 104.0.

Last season, when the Broncos won their second consecutive AFC championship, Elway completed 54.6% of his passes for 19 touchdowns and 12 interceptions for 83.4 rating points. He ranked only 13th in the NFL and seventh in the AFC, yet was a runaway choice as the league’s most valuable player.

Elway was asked if this is his worst start since his rookie season of 1983, when he struggled to a 47.5 completion percentage with 7 touchdowns, 14 interceptions and 54.9 rating points, next-to-last in the NFL and dead last in the AFC.

“My second and third years weren’t exactly smooth, either,” he said. “So I’ve had some tough times before, and those times were a learning experience that has to help me now. Still, I’ll have to admit this is the toughest.”

What can be wrong?

“I honestly don’t know,” he said.

Told that there were some theories being discussed, Elway said, “I haven’t heard any of them, and I don’t listen to any of them, so I don’t know whether they’re true or not.”

One is that the Broncos’ offense in general and Elway in particular have been hurt by a wave of coaching changes. Mike Shanahan resigned as offensive coordinator and quarterback coach to become coach of the Raiders and took Alex Gibbs and Nick Nicolau with him. Gibbs had coached the Broncos’ offensive line, Nicolau the running backs.

Another is that the absence of injured wide receiver Mark Jackson, one of the celebrated Three Amigos, has put a crimp in the Broncos’ long passing game. A third is that Elway might not be 100% physically.

When the theories were listed for Elway, he snapped, “False, false and false.” But he then conceded that the realignment of the offensive coaching staff had created some difficulty.

The replacement coaches are George Henshaw, offensive line; Mo Forte, running backs; Larry Kennan, wide receivers, and Pete Mangurian, tight ends. Kennan came from the Raiders, the others from colleges.

Chan Gailey, who had coached the wide receivers and tight ends, now works with the quarterbacks. Head Coach Dan Reeves didn’t hire an offensive coordinator to take Shanahan’s place.

“Any time you lose coaches like that, it takes time to come back,” Elway said. “The new coaches are still learning. There are things they’ve got to feel confidence in, because they don’t know all the intricacies of the offense. That’s hurting us right now.”

As for missing Jackson, Elway said, “Not really. We’ve seen a lot more zone (defense) this year, but we should be able to handle that.”

Reeves said Elway’s state of depression is understandable.

“The way we lost that Monday night game, blowing a 24-point lead, would devastate anybody,” Reeves said. “But whenever a team is struggling, the quarterback gets the blame for it, and that’s not fair. John has prepared himself well, and we haven’t.

“Monday night, John did an excellent job building up our lead. We let them come back, and then he threw those interceptions. One was on a tipped ball. Another, he tried to throw too quickly. The last two were very poor. He forced them. It was a combination of poor routes, poor pass protection and poor decisions.

“But I’m not displeased with John. He was trying to salvage something out of a bad situation, and it just didn’t work out.”

Elway admits, “I think sometimes I tend to try to do too much. I just have to do whatever I can do and try to come out of it.”

Of the effect of the coaching changes, Reeves said, “As late as it happened (Feb. 29), it had to hurt. We had to adjust. But you win with players, not coaches. Our trouble is that sometimes when we play good teams, we make them great teams on that given day.”

Reeves blamed himself for Monday night’s defeat, saying that if he had called a timeout shortly before halftime, the Broncos might have had a field goal that would have made it 27-0. They were on the Raiders’ 17-yard line with 10 seconds left, but Reeves tried to run one more play without using the last timeout.

“I made the mistake,” Reeves said. “There was no excuse for letting the clock run out on us.

“Now we have to be considered the last-place team in the AFC West (Kansas City also is 1-3, all others 2-2). But we’ll bounce back. It won’t necessarily be this week, but we’ll be back.”

In Elway’s opinion, the Broncos have gone backward since playing well in their exhibition games.

“All of a sudden, we’ve got a long way to go,” he said. “We were a better team in preseason than we are now, especially offensively. We’re not hitting on all cylinders. We’re not all exactly on the same page yet.”

The Denver media has been giving the Broncos a lot of heat for their stumbling start, but Elway said, “That’s something we’re pretty much used to. It’s not a major factor right now. We just have to try to put this thing together.”

Finally, Elway was asked if there were any area of play in which he was particularly unhappy.

“Not any specific area. I’m disappointed in my whole game.”