The Denver Broncos’ victory in Super Bowl XXXII was a reaffirmation of sport on almost every imaginable level. After 13 years of National Football Conference dominance in the National Football League championship game–a dynasty signaled by the Bears’ 46-10 thrashing of the New England Patriots, though the streak began the year before that–the American Football Conference finally broke through. For 13 years the better team not merely won but usually romped in the Super Bowl, seeming to remove all doubt from the outcome before the game even took place. That’s a sad state of affairs in sport. It’s produced a why-bother mentality that has become entrenched locally, where fans have been spoiled by the Bulls’ five championships, each one–thrilling as it was–won in convincing, almost preordained fashion. (The Bulls have never been extended to seven games in the National Basketball Association finals.) There have been notable upsets in other sports during the last decade–Buster Douglas’s heavyweight title victory over Mike Tyson and the Cincinnati Reds’ sweep of the Oakland A’s in the 1990 World Series spring to mind–but the NFL and the NBA got to the point where it seemed the championship games weren’t even necessary. For the past several years I’ve been rooting for a Super Bowl rout. If the AFC couldn’t advance a credible champion to play on Super Sunday, then let the game be a disgrace; let it cease to be sport and turn instead into an annual cultural event, like Thanksgiving or the Fourth of July. The Oscars have been more competitive in recent years than the Super Bowl has been, and the new TV advertisements trotted out for the massive audience have usually been more interesting than the game. In that context, the Broncos’ victory over the Packers was a reminder–to quote the sports cliche–of why they play the game. After 13 years, football fans specifically and sports fans in general needed the reminder.
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In the Super Bowl’s 32-year history there was only one bigger upset, only one that packed a larger impact: the New York Jets’ 16-7 win over the Baltimore Colts in 1969. That, of course, was the American Football League’s first victory over the National before their merger, and it established parity between the former rivals, especially when combined with the Kansas City Chiefs’ win over the Minnesota Vikings the following year. Yet it should be pointed out that the American Football Conference–the body that superseded the AFL–remained inferior to the senior NFC. It’s true, the AFC soon took the lead in Super Bowls won, but only with the help of the Colts and the Pittsburgh Steelers, teams that began building the nucleus of their championship squads when they were still in the NFL. When the Broncos beat the Packers a week ago Sunday, they joined only the Jets, Chiefs, Miami Dolphins, and Oakland/Los Angeles Raiders as original AFL teams to win the Super Bowl. In 32 years, that’s not much of a showing.
Not only was the Denver line in perfect sync, executing complex trap plays and pulling guards and tackles for sweeps around end, but running back Terrell Davis displayed that rare quality of being utterly in sync with his line. Starting from deep in the backfield, he would take a pitch or a handoff from quarterback John Elway and then wait and wait and wait until the line opened a crease, and then he was through it like a mouse down a hole. Davis ran for 157 yards and three touchdowns (Elway jogged in on a bootleg for the other) while missing the second quarter with a migraine suffered after he had his bell rung early on; he also had to overcome a fumble in his first carry of the second half. He was named most valuable player, and deservedly so, but I think it might have been a better gesture on the part of the media to vote a five-way MVP award to the Denver offensive linemen. They had steel-tempered their unity over the last two seasons by enforcing a gag order against all media interviews, which is part of why they came into the game as no-names. It would have been noble of the media to grudgingly conclude that, hey, there might have been something to that silence. Fat chance, however.
Favre won the statistical battle, completing an impressive 25 of 42 passes for 256 yards and three touchdowns to Elway’s 12-of-22 day for a mere 123 yards. Both threw an interception that led to opposing touchdowns. But Favre also coughed up a fumble that produced a Denver field goal. In their final drives, Elway was content to hand the ball to Davis or dump a pass into the flat to Howard Griffith. Favre, meanwhile, tried to force passes between double-teams or threw against his body while on the move, resulting in not leading his receiver enough. In the end the old vet won with self-control, and in that he showed the young whippersnapper there were still lessons to be learned.
