A Tangle of Broncos and Redskins

By Tom Callahan

Face value is an elusive concept at the Super Bowl, where the tickets for next week's XXIInd renewal started at $100. But since neither Washington nor Denver claims to be a great team, it figures to be a decent game for a change. Both the Redskins and the Broncos won conference championships in heart-stopping fashion when the Minnesota Vikings and the Cleveland Browns faltered and fumbled on their goal lines. The Redskins' coach, born-again Joe Gibbs, 47, actually fell to his knees in prayer before the Vikings' final play. Recalling his days as an assistant in San Diego, Gibbs said later, "I didn't live like I should have." Now he returns to the scene of the crimes with his new virtue confirmed.

Commending the Washington fans for their leather lungs, Gibbs admitted, "I think we'd have had a hard time beating Minnesota any other place." But the limits of honesty were strained when he went on to say, "I was lucky enough to come into a great situation here in 1981. I think any other coach would have won here also." Since starting out 0-5 that season, the Redskins have won 84 of 112 games and reached three Super Bowls. All this week in San Diego, Gibbs is in grave danger of being declared a genius.

Washington's only Super Bowl victory came against the Miami Dolphins five years ago, the season of the last National Football League strike, when the Redskins had one of the few shops without a strikebreaker. This time, during the three weeks of "replacement" games last October, Washington was the only team that stayed out en masse. Something must be said for solidarity. Meanwhile, the few Denver players who crossed the line, Receiver Steve Watson among them, seemed invariably to get injured. Picketing outside the stadium, Bronco Linebacker Karl Mecklenburg did some temporary damage to his image, retrieving and tearing up an eightyear-old's autograph when the boy started to go into the game.

Of all the sagas of well-traveled scabs (some of whom will have either $18,000 or $9,000 coming from the Super Bowl), the most compelling path was taken by David Jones, a center. He began in Denver and ended up in Washington. After helping the Broncos win two of three strike games, Jones hired on with the Redskins simply as a snapper for punts and place-kicks. Knocked unconscious in the Vikings game, he was advised by doctors that another blow to his vertebrae might paralyze him. "I think someone's trying to tell me something," he said. "I'm done playing for good."

The central character of the interminable buildup, which customarily dwarfs the contest, figures to be the Redskins' Doug Williams, 32, the Super Bowl's first black starting quarterback. His initial reaction is to smile. "I can't go in there and tell the Broncos' defense I'm black and I'm doing this for black America," he says. "Maybe it's a little sweeter for me because of some of the things I've been through, but I'm doing it for the Washington Redskins and myself."

Williams was the 17th player drafted in the first round of 1978 by the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. This is not a meaningless slot to the 6-ft. 4-in., 220- lb. man from Grambling, a dabbler in numerology who wears the number 17 and beat the Vikings on January 17, 17-10. But his has not been a lucky career. In Williams' first full season as the Bucs' starter in 1979, he lifted the league's most woeful team to a 10-6 record and a playoff upset over Philadelphia. Still, he was ridiculed as a rocket launcher without temper or touch who "could overthrow the Ayatullah."

In 1983, the awful year Williams' wife died suddenly of a brain tumor just three months after giving birth to their daughter, he fled to the Oklahoma Outlaws of the United States Football League. When the U.S.F.L. folded after the 1985 season, only the Redskins indicated any interest in him, and then only as a backup. He attempted one pass in all of 1986. It was incomplete.

The quarterback whom Williams understudied, last year's young pro bowler Jay Schroeder, 26, was demoted, reinstated and then finally shelved this season in one of the most dramatic reversals of form in league history. Reports that the Redskin players were muttering for Williams on the sidelines have been denied, but he does say, "I've had a lot of encouragement from the guys on this team, white, black or whatever. They respect me." His completion percentage against the Vikings was ghastly (nine of 26), but as the citizens of Denver will agree, the result is what counts.

Not only were the Broncos outshone by the Browns in their 38-33 shoot-out, but Denver's sublime John Elway also looked to be only the second-best quarterback on the field. Doing his awkward and wonderful impression of Johnny Unitas, Bernie Kosar was blithely leading the Browns back from a 21-3 half- time deficit when Runner Earnest Byner dropped the season on the three-yard ! line. In the locker room afterward, the Broncos players were unusually quiet, and not only because of the nature of their victory. They remembered last year.

Most of the preliminaries to Super Bowl XXI were spent godding-up Elway; then Phil Simms of the New York Giants was the one who quarterbacked an impeccable game. "Last year was Alice in Wonderland," says Owner Pat Bowlen. This year the Broncos have a keener sense of purpose. Counting the days he played and assisted in Dallas, it will be the eleventh title game for Coach Dan Reeves, 45, who once tried to motivate the Broncos by stacking greenbacks on a table. This time he is exhibiting his championship rings.

Working on their third center and third right guard, the Broncos have a casualty list that ranges from the brutal to the baroque. During the Cleveland game, surgical pins started oozing out of Strong Safety Dennis Smith's broken hand; he kept playing. On top of that, consider the fact that three defensive stalwarts -- Cornerback Louis Wright, Linebacker Tom Jackson and Safety Steve Foley -- retired after last year. Nobody can say how the defense was able to repeat, but everyone knows venerable Assistant Coach Joe Collier had much to do with it.

Denver's season turned around on a 21-14 loss in Buffalo that left the Broncos' record a meager 4-3-1. "I've never been the kind who's been a verbal leader," said Elway, 27, "but I guess I'm going to have to say something." He called the team to order. "I was so disgusted with the way I played in that game. The effort just wasn't there. I decided that my life in football is too short not to enjoy it. Every game should be fun, and when you're having fun, you play your best. I tried to get that attitude going on the team. Right now everyone is having fun."

But particularly the Three Amigos, Elway's merriest band of pass catchers: Vance Johnson, Mark Jackson and Ricky Nattiel. With Gerald Willhite among the fractured, honest workman Sammy Winder more or less constitutes Denver's running game (quarterback scrambles excluded). A lot depends again on the arm of Elway, though maybe also on the foot of Rich Karlis. If Karlis had made a couple of makable field goals in the first half of last year's Super Bowl, the game could have been much different. The Redskins' kicking game has been so shaky, Ali Haji-Sheikh and Jess Atkinson were still fighting for the job last week. The loser will have a hard time finding a ticket in San Diego.