Elway and The Giant Way

By Tom Callahan

Everyone agrees that the New York Giants are somebody's fine football team. Whose, no one seems completely sure. Neither of the feuding Maras, Wellington and Tim, quite owns them. And since the Giants play their home games in East Rutherford, N.J., the mayor of New York City regards them as "foreigners." Any parades have been referred to the city of Moonachie.

Even New Jersey has had occasion to disavow the Giants. At the final game of 1978, considered the low point in a post-'50s depression, an indignant little airplane buzzed Giant Stadium towing an ultimatum: 15 YEARS OF LOUSY FOOTBALL; WE'VE HAD ENOUGH. The comeback begun on that note has at last brought the Giants to Pasadena, where they are the bright and favored stars of Super Bowl XXI (also featuring the Denver Broncos).

Early in 1979, unable to settle on a new general manager to lead them out of the wilderness, the Maras had a myopic former high school history teacher pressed upon them by the exasperated league. His name was George Young, and his philosophy was rooted in the Old Testament. "You need a strong defense and a good running game," he preached, "because in the second half of the season God sends you bad weather." In turn, he hired Coaches Ray Perkins and Bill Parcells; Parcells took.

As Young had forecast, a terrible wind came up last week at the conference- championship game against the Washington Redskins. The runner he had standing ready was 5-ft. 7-in. Joe Morris of Syracuse University, and the defense consisted hugely of Linebackers Harry Carson, Gary Reasons, Carl Banks and the Most Valuable Player in the National Football League, Lawrence Taylor. The Giants won the game, 17-0, and the playoffs, 66-3, maiming two opposing quarterbacks in the process.

Meanwhile, in far-off Cleveland, a quarterback for the ages was coming of age. Denver's John Elway, 26, a Stanford baseball and football phenom prized above Miami's Dan Marino in the great quarterback draft of 1983, gathered the Broncos in their own end zone with less than six minutes and more than 98 yds. to go. Just to tie, they needed a touchdown. "We've got these guys right where we want them," drawled Denver Guard Keith Bishop, a Texan, but everyone else was looking at Elway. "We have a long way to go, so let's get going," he said. "Do whatever it takes, and something good will happen."

Thrice in a 15-play march third downs required something wonderful. On a third-and-18 play near midfield, Coach Dan Reeves advised Elway to try for just half of it, recalling the cautious voice of Baltimore Coach Weeb Ewbank that Johnny Unitas never heeded in the Colt-Giant sudden-death championship game of 1958. Elway completed his 20-yd. pass to Mark Jackson, and another of 5 yds. for the touchdown. In terms a Giant can understand, pro football had a new standard for closing flourishes. No less an authority than Dallas' Tom Landry, New York's defensive coach in that legendary loss 29 years ago, says so.

Craig Morton, Denver's Super Bowl quarterback of 1978, a former associate of Roger Staubach's in Dallas, calls Elway "simply the best quarterback I have ever seen." As Morton viewed it, the push then to the overtime field goal, which devastated Cleveland, 23-20, was an inevitable extension of the storied drive. At every Bronco stall afterward, the moral was the same. "I knew if anyone could do it, it was us," said Place-Kicker Rich Karlis. "We have John Elway." "When you have John Elway," Bishop said, "anything is possible." "Anytime you have John Elway," said Reeves, "you have a chance." Since New York is favored by 10 points, this chorus becomes Denver's song of the Super Bowl.

N.F.L. traditionalists hoped for a Giants-Browns matchup, a game fit to be watched on black-and-white television. But Super Bowl tradition is founded in the old American Football League too, and Elway casts something of a Joe Namath shadow on the mismatch. As of last week Elway had not guaranteed a victory, but he did say this, "You have got to win the Super Bowl before you are a great quarterback."

Although Tackle Jim Burt danced last week with the customers (whether they were from New Jersey or New York), most of the Giant veterans have shown a restraint born of hard times. End George Martin says, "The defense we've played the past two weeks has been so incredible, Harry Carson and I keep thinking we're going to wake up and be 3-12-1 again." Elway's less lionized counterpart, Phil Simms, 30, still refers to "the anxiety of being a Giant. Jeez, it's been hanging over our heads for so long. The distant past, the recent past. Maybe this will stop some of the past. Maybe people will start talking about our team."

While the Giants (16-2) terrorized the league from the season's second game, the Broncos (13-5) at one stretch went ten weeks without a two-game winning or losing streak. Only a couple of months ago, the Giants and Broncos met in New Jersey, and New York won on a Martin interception, 19-16. "Their pass defense was terrific," said Simms. "I hate playing teams with terrific pass defenses." Of Elway, Taylor mused, "I sure hope we don't have to face him again." If everyone is right, and the Giants win their first world championship in 30 years, Coach Parcells will be soaked with his usual Gatorade. If everyone is wrong, something stronger will be in order, at least in New Jersey.