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Rick Gosselin The Dallas Morning News
rgosselin@dallasnews.com
Published: 16 October 2014 09:57 PM
Updated: 17 October 2014 07:58 AM
All this time we thought Tony Romo’s best friend on the Cowboys was Jason Witten. At least off the field.
On the field, we figured his new best friend was Dez Bryant — he of the big-catch, big-moment theatrics.
Leave it to Hall of Fame quarterback John Elway to set us all straight.
“A quarterback’s best friend is a running game,” Elway said. “With what DeMarco Murray is doing down in Dallas and the way Tony is playing, it’s a great combination. That’s what Terrell [Davis] did for me when he got here.”
So who knew Romo’s best friend would be Murray — as he has become in 2014?
Elway speaks with authority on the marriage of a great passing game with a great running game.
For all of his greatness as a quarterback, Elway could not win a Super Bowl all by himself. As hard as he tried, it just wouldn’t happen for him in the 1980s.
The Broncos were neither a great offensive or defensive team in the 1980s. Good, but not great. What they had was a great quarterback who found ways to win games. Whether it was his arm, legs or sheer will, Elway drove the Broncos to three Super Bowls in the 1980s. He was magic at the end of games with the ball in his hands.
The ball was hardly in the hands of his running backs. And for good reason. Sammy Winder was the featured back on Denver’s 1986 and ’87 Super Bowl teams. But he wasn’t featured much. He failed to rush for 800 yards in either season and averaged less than 4 yards per carry both years.
Bobby Humphrey was a step up on the 1989 AFC champions, rushing for 1,151 yards. But even he averaged less than 4 yards per carry and only scored seven touchdowns. That put pressure on the quarterback to generate the other 24 TDs the Broncos would score.
If Elway didn’t make the plays to win games, the Broncos weren’t going to win. It became a heavy burden. The three Super Bowls the Broncos attended in the 1980s were all blowout losses.
As the calendar flipped and the NFL entered the 1990s, Elway turned 30 and it appeared his championship chases were over. Even when Elway led the NFL with 4,030 passing yards with 25 touchdowns in 1993, the Broncos barely qualified for the playoffs as a wild card with a 9-7 record.
But Denver rescued Elway in 1995 when they found Davis in the sixth round of the NFL draft. He rushed for 1,117 yards as a rookie on an 8-8 team and 1,538 more yards on a 13-3 team in 1996. Davis followed that up with an AFC-leading 1,750 yards in 1997 and, finally, a franchise-record 2,008 yards in an MVP season in 1998.
The reliance on Elway to make all the plays in Denver diminished. The Broncos won consecutive Lombardi Trophies in 1997-98 with Davis the focal point of the offense, allowing Elway to retire on top with two Super Bowl rings.
Elway knows what Davis did for his career. Now he’s seeing what DeMarco Murray is doing for Romo’s career. At 34, Romo’s own championship window is closing. For years, he has shouldered the burden of having to make all of the plays in order for his Cowboys to succeed.
Now Romo can turn around and hand the ball off to Murray, who leads the NFL in rushing and has tied Jim Brown’s record for consecutive 100-yard games at the start of a season at six.
“When you’ve got that guy behind you, all of a sudden you have the balance to be able to run or throw the football,” said Elway, now the general manager of the Broncos. “It takes so much pressure off the quarterback to where, all of a sudden, the passing game opens up so much.
“When you can run the football, what the defenses can do as far as blitzing and those types of things are very much diminished. It gives you so many more options and makes you that much more of a threat on the offensive side. It makes you a two-faceted team.”
In the four years he played with Davis, despite his advanced age, Elway had three of his four best seasons as a passer, throwing for 27 touchdowns in 1997 and 26 in 1995 and ’96. He became the oldest quarterback ever to win a Super Bowl at 38.
Romo averaged 36 passes per game in 2013 in an 8-8 season. With the emergence of Murray, Romo is throwing four fewer passes per game this season and the Cowboys are 5-1.
It worked for Elway. Now it’s working for Romo.
Rick Gosselin The Dallas Morning News
rgosselin@dallasnews.com
Published: 16 October 2014 09:57 PM
Updated: 17 October 2014 07:58 AM
All this time we thought Tony Romo’s best friend on the Cowboys was Jason Witten. At least off the field.
On the field, we figured his new best friend was Dez Bryant — he of the big-catch, big-moment theatrics.
Leave it to Hall of Fame quarterback John Elway to set us all straight.
“A quarterback’s best friend is a running game,” Elway said. “With what DeMarco Murray is doing down in Dallas and the way Tony is playing, it’s a great combination. That’s what Terrell [Davis] did for me when he got here.”
So who knew Romo’s best friend would be Murray — as he has become in 2014?
Elway speaks with authority on the marriage of a great passing game with a great running game.
For all of his greatness as a quarterback, Elway could not win a Super Bowl all by himself. As hard as he tried, it just wouldn’t happen for him in the 1980s.
The Broncos were neither a great offensive or defensive team in the 1980s. Good, but not great. What they had was a great quarterback who found ways to win games. Whether it was his arm, legs or sheer will, Elway drove the Broncos to three Super Bowls in the 1980s. He was magic at the end of games with the ball in his hands.
The ball was hardly in the hands of his running backs. And for good reason. Sammy Winder was the featured back on Denver’s 1986 and ’87 Super Bowl teams. But he wasn’t featured much. He failed to rush for 800 yards in either season and averaged less than 4 yards per carry both years.
Bobby Humphrey was a step up on the 1989 AFC champions, rushing for 1,151 yards. But even he averaged less than 4 yards per carry and only scored seven touchdowns. That put pressure on the quarterback to generate the other 24 TDs the Broncos would score.
If Elway didn’t make the plays to win games, the Broncos weren’t going to win. It became a heavy burden. The three Super Bowls the Broncos attended in the 1980s were all blowout losses.
As the calendar flipped and the NFL entered the 1990s, Elway turned 30 and it appeared his championship chases were over. Even when Elway led the NFL with 4,030 passing yards with 25 touchdowns in 1993, the Broncos barely qualified for the playoffs as a wild card with a 9-7 record.
But Denver rescued Elway in 1995 when they found Davis in the sixth round of the NFL draft. He rushed for 1,117 yards as a rookie on an 8-8 team and 1,538 more yards on a 13-3 team in 1996. Davis followed that up with an AFC-leading 1,750 yards in 1997 and, finally, a franchise-record 2,008 yards in an MVP season in 1998.
The reliance on Elway to make all the plays in Denver diminished. The Broncos won consecutive Lombardi Trophies in 1997-98 with Davis the focal point of the offense, allowing Elway to retire on top with two Super Bowl rings.
Elway knows what Davis did for his career. Now he’s seeing what DeMarco Murray is doing for Romo’s career. At 34, Romo’s own championship window is closing. For years, he has shouldered the burden of having to make all of the plays in order for his Cowboys to succeed.
Now Romo can turn around and hand the ball off to Murray, who leads the NFL in rushing and has tied Jim Brown’s record for consecutive 100-yard games at the start of a season at six.
“When you’ve got that guy behind you, all of a sudden you have the balance to be able to run or throw the football,” said Elway, now the general manager of the Broncos. “It takes so much pressure off the quarterback to where, all of a sudden, the passing game opens up so much.
“When you can run the football, what the defenses can do as far as blitzing and those types of things are very much diminished. It gives you so many more options and makes you that much more of a threat on the offensive side. It makes you a two-faceted team.”
In the four years he played with Davis, despite his advanced age, Elway had three of his four best seasons as a passer, throwing for 27 touchdowns in 1997 and 26 in 1995 and ’96. He became the oldest quarterback ever to win a Super Bowl at 38.
Romo averaged 36 passes per game in 2013 in an 8-8 season. With the emergence of Murray, Romo is throwing four fewer passes per game this season and the Cowboys are 5-1.
It worked for Elway. Now it’s working for Romo.
