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When Denver Broncos head coach Sean Payton, not long after his team defeated the Buffalo Bills 33-30 in overtime in the divisional playoffs last Saturday, announced that quarterback Bo Nix had broken his ankle and would be lost for the rest of the postseason, it was thought by most people following New England’s 28-16 triumph over the Houston Texans on Sunday in the other divisional game, that the Patriots would have a field day when they went to Denver to play in the AFC Championship Gane this Sunday.
But as the great Lee Corso always says, “Not so fast, my friend.”
Do the Broncos, with quarterback Jarrett Stidham, whodr NFL résumé is pretty much a blank sheet of paper, actually have a chance to beat the Patriots and move on to the Super Bowl? You bet they do. And why is that? Because history tells us so.
The proof happened exactly 60 years ago, and it has a distinct Cleveland, Browns, and even Ohio State as well, flavor to it.
In 1965, the defending NFL champion Browns (11-3) won the Eastern Conference in a breeze, by four full games over their longtime bitter arch rivals at the time, the New York Giants, and their soon-to-be arch rivals, the up-and-coming Dallas Cowboys, both 7-7. But in the Western Conference, the regular season ended in a dead-heat between the Baltimore Colts, the team the Browns head vanquished 27-0 to capture the title in 1964, and the Green Bay Packers, who were 10-3–1.
That forced a playoff game between the Colts and Packers at Green Bay to determine who would represent the conference against the Browns in the NFL Championship Game. The Packers won that one, 13–10, with a late field goal that the people in Baltimore still insist was no good. It was hard to tell, because there was so much fog.
In any event, the Packers went on to defeat the Browns 23–12 in the title game, denying Cleveland of its championship repeat in 10 years.
But there’s so very much more to the story than that.
The Colts were rolling along at 9-1 and looked well on their way to winning the Western Conference title for the second straight year and earning them a rematch with the Browns. However, then everything went sideways. The following week, they played to a 24–24 tie with the Detroit Lions, a team they had spanked 27–10 earlier in the year. The next week, against the Chicago Bears, the 1963 NFL champs, starting quarterback John Unitas got hurt early in a game and Baltimore lost 13-0. His replacement, Gary Cuozzo, could do nothing to generate any real offense.
Then the week after that, in the next-to-last game of the regular season against the Packers in Baltimore, Cuozzo played most of the game before getting hurt. By that time, though, the Packers were well on their way to a resounding 42–27 victory. Green Bay improved to 10–3 and moved into first place, a half-game in front of the slumping 9–3-1 Colts. On top of all that, with Cuozzo now hurt as well, the Colts had run out of quarterbacks, which was not good because even then, it was the most important position in teen sports. Fullback Tom Matte, a product of East Cleveland Shaw High School and Ohio State, finished up the game. He had been a quarterback for the Buckeyes before being taken by the Colts in the first round of the 1961 NFL Draft, but in a run-first offense. He would have to start the following game, the regular-season finale against the Los Angeles Rams at the Coliseum and somehow figure out a way to direct the team to a victory, while the Colts also had to hope that Green Bay would stumble against the San Francisco 49ers.
That was asking a lot, which is why all seemed lost for Baltimore.
But Matte, basically playing in a wildcat formation before there was such a thing, did indeed get the Colts the victory, 20-17, with the help of a late field goal by Lou Michaels. And at the same time, the Packers played to a 24–24 tie with the 49ers.
That put the teams into a deadlockat 10–3-1.
Green Bay seemed to have a decided advantage heading into the playoff game. It would be at Lambeau Field, and they had swept the season series against the Colts, also winning there 20–17 in Week 2, when Baltimore had a healthy Unitas. Now the Colts would be having to use a converted fullback, who couldn’t really pass much, to be their quarterback. Matte was 0-2 passing against the Rams.
Sometimes, though, things don’t work out as you think they will, and this was one of those times. Matte, wearing a wristband that had all the plays on it, just as he did in the victory over the Rams, went out and played the game of his life, and so did the rest of the Colts. Had it not been for that disputed field goal, Baltimore may have won. Matte’s play in that regular-season finale, and, more specifically the playoff game in which he competed 5-of-12 passes for 40 yards and was an outstanding leader, is one of the great stories in NFL history.
It also shows what a skilled head coach, such as Baltimore‘s Don Shula, a Painesville Harvey High School and John Carroll University product who spent the first two years of his pro career with the Browns, can do when his back is to the wall.
So, then, we get to Sunday’s game between the Broncos and Patriots. Payton is a great coach as well, and, just as was the case with Shula, he is at his best when he is in a tough spot. He has had an entire week to come up with a plan of attack for Stidham, accentuating his strengths and covering up his flaws. He is going to keep him out of harm’s way and allow the running game, and his defense, to lead the way.
So, instead of being the favorite, as they would’ve been with Nix in the lineup, the Broncos are now the underdog. They are playing with house money, in that public opinion says that they have little chance to win. That has put all the pressure on the Patriots, who have to go to Denver, where the organization has never won a playoff game, even in the days of head coach Bill Belichick and quarterback Tom Brady (who were 0-3), and find a way to come out on top.The theater of all this is tremendous.
I think the Patriots will win, but only barely, on a field goal in overtime. Call it 20–17.
in the NFC title game between the Rams and Seahawks at Seattle, you have two teams that are probably better than either the Broncos or the Patriots. The Rams are, in fact, very good, they have one of the best quarterbacks in the game in Matthew Stafford and one of the top head coaches in Sean McVay, but the Seahawks have a better overall team and they are playing in a place that is one of the toughest in NFL for opponents to win. The one fear of the Seahawks? It is that quarterback Sam Darnold, who has been playing pretty well of late, will revert to his old ways when he has greatly struggled. But this is a great moment for him — the moment he has waited for— to change his reputation, erase all those bad memories and help his team earn a trip to the Super Bowl. And I think he will do that, but again, it will be by only three points, 27–24.
Steve King
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