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The Denver Broncos and Cleveland Browns meet on this week’s NFL schedule, and that matchup brings back memories of a contest between these two franchises that will be this week’s Thursday Throwback feature. It was a playoff game, the 1986 AFC Championship game, and was a game that was  a major contributor to the legacy of Hall of Fame quarterback John Elway. His Broncos were placed in an almost impossible position as the Browns had scored to take a 20-13 lead, then on the ensuing kickoff, Denver muffed the ball and wound up pinned at their own 2 yard line with about 5 minutes to play. So Elway was faced with the proposition of needing to drive his team 98 yards, almost the entire length of the field, on the road in the most hostile of environments – Cleveland’s Dawg Pound. Elway, who was a master of the two minute drill during his career, methodically drove his club downfield, mixing in short passes to his backs, Sammy Winder and Steve Sewell, a couple of scrambles for positive yardage, and a pair of completions to one of his favorite targets, wide receiver Mark Jackson. It was Jackson who hauled in the pass in the end zone to culminate “The Drive”, a five yard completion from Elway to tie the game with 37 seconds left, sending it into overtime.

The overtime session is mostly forgotten as Elway’s mastery on the game-tying drive immediately went into NFL folklore. In the extra period, Denver’s defense held the Browns on their first possession, and Denver took over for their first try. Elway was brilliant again, taking his club 60 yards to set up a game-winning field goal by Rich Karlis. A key play on the winning drive was a 28 yard completion from Elway to receiver Steve Watson on a third and 12 play. The loss was another chapter in Cleveland’s supposedly cursed professional sports history, and another chapter would be added the following year as the same two clubs would meet again for the right to represent the AFC in the Super Bowl, this time with running back Earnest Byner being the goat by fumbling the ball as he attempted to cross the goal line for a go-ahead score. That game would go down in league history as “The Fumble”. To this day, the Browns’ last NFL championship was accomplished in 1964, and in the modern era, they are one of a small group of teams that has yet to qualify for a Super Bowl.

Denver QB John Elway engineers “The Drive” in 1986

This week’s Throwback Thursday featured game (the Kansas City Chiefs and Chicago Bears meet this week) will be the first and most likely only one of it’s kind to be highlighted here – a preseason game. The preseason of 1967, however, was unique compared to any other season. It was the first year when established NFL teams played clubs from the upstart AFL after an agreed merger of the leagues took place. The first Super Bowl had taken place the previous year, and the NFL was pounding its’ collective chests after their representative in that game, the Green Bay Packers, had soundly beaten the AFL champion Kansas City Chiefs 35-10. Green Bay coach Vince Lombardi poured a little salt in the AFL’s wounds after the game, claiming that although the Chiefs were a fine club, there were more than a handful of NFL teams who were better. The Chiefs were looking for some redemption and respect in ’67, and the first chance they had to get back at the cocky NFL came in a preseason contest against George Halas’ Chicago Bears. Preseason games today can barely even be considered legitimate NFL contests, as they are mostly used as glorified scrimmages to evaluate young players while all the star players rest up for the regular year. But in 1967, things were completely different. The fact that the AFL clubs were going to get a chance to show how well they matched up with the established league meant that these games, even though they were exhibitions and the results didn’t count, were very important. How important was this game to the Chiefs? Their quarterback, Len Dawson, had been battling a virus all week leading up to the contest, but climbed out of the sick bed to play and throw 4 touchdown passes as coach Hank Stram’s forces totally befuddled the Bears. Can anyone imagine a sick player playing in an exhibition game in today’s game? Kansas City pulled out all the stops, emptying out their playbook with all sorts of offensive formations and defensive shifts and blitzes to crush the proud NFL Bears. The final score was a whopping 66-24. After Dawson was finished with his aerial display, K.C.’s backup signal caller, Pete Beathard, came into the game and fired a fifth scoring pass. In all, Gloster Richardson and Otis Taylor caught a pair of TD passes each, while Chris Burford hauled in the fifth. Gale Sayers, Chicago’s star back who was the “Kansas Comet” in his college career, had a rough homecoming as he was held to a paltry 35 yards. The Bears’ lone positive moment came when Dick Gordon returned a kickoff 103 yards for a touchdown. Of course, with all the scoring the Chiefs did, their kickoff coverage teams were probably pretty tired. Despite the fact that the Chiefs had their triumphant moment in manhandling the Bears in this game, in the 16 exhibitions played between AFL and NFL clubs that season, the NFL dominated play overall, winning 13 of the games.

Chiefs’ coach Hank Stram plots strategy with his QB, Len Dawson