August 5, 2020 • 34 mins
The Broncos were headed to the Super Bowl. The Jaguars were the fun new kid on the block. It wasn't supposed to be a fair fight. But after ending the Bills careers of Jim Kelly & Marv Levy, the Jaguars shocked the football world behind QB Mark Brunell as they derailed Denver's championship run. How did they do it - and why didn't the Jaguars turn into the expected dynasty fans thought they'd be? Meanwhile, Denver lost more than a game, as they whiffed on a chance to be immortal. It's the defeat John Elway called the most embarrassing of his career until that point.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome to Special Teams, a production of I Heart Radio
(00:21):
Greetings and Welcome Inside Special Teams, a weekly podcast where
your host, myself, Jason Smith, and Mike Harmon take you
back to what some special teams did in certain years
in sports. And we look back today at the ambush
a mile high January, where it looked like the Broncos
(00:41):
We're gonna go right to the Super Bowl instead of
the upstart Jacksonville Jaguars pulled one of the biggest upsets
in NFL history, defeating them thirty to twenty seven. The
Jaguars go on, the Broncos go home. And at this
point we were thinking the Broncos ever gonna win a
Super Bowl? Real? Really? They they couldn't beat the jag
Bars at home, Mike, Are they ever gonna win a
(01:02):
Super Bowl? Because that's what it was for the Broncos
back in the mid to late nineties before they broke through. Well,
and it's not even you know, couldn't beat the Jaguars,
it's how they lost to the Jaguars as well. Chronicle
going forward, like, it's one thing to lose the game
straight up, it's another to dominate. But yeah, a lot
of twists and turns in this one, and certainly for
(01:23):
the Denver Broncos that it had a rough year the
year before go out and the regular season flows including
you know you you made an appearance in the schedule.
But all in all, I mean, you just see the
names on this roster and you say, how did it
not get over look nine Pro Bowlers, they were so loaded.
(01:44):
I mean, I know they won back to back Super
Bowls when when you get into the years after, but
this was probably the best Denver team I had seen.
It was the birth of Terrell Davis as a superstar,
the beginning of those great Denver backfields where no matter
who they put in there, they would rush for fifteen yards.
It could have been Mike Anders, sin Oorlandis, Gary Tatum, Bell,
Ruben Drones. But this was the start of the Terrell
(02:05):
Davis four year run that actually got him into the
Hall of Fame. And I was at opening week. It
was my my wife and I were It was our
big life change. We had left ESPN when I was
a production assistant and associate producer at ESPN, when I
was still behind the scenes. We were moving to California,
to Los Angeles and we drove across country and we
just so happened to be near Denver around the first
(02:27):
week in the NFL season. I said, hey, can we
stop and she happened to be, well, well, we were
leaving the end of the summer and I said, well,
where are we gonna be around this day? And because
we were driving across country, it was it was such
a great trip. And I said when are we gonna
be near around Denver and she was alwill be in Colorado,
like early September. I'm like, okay, let's go to Jets Broncos.
It's opening weeks. She was like, great, we go to
(02:48):
the game and the Jets just get drilled. That's rich Coats.
Oh my god, it was terrible. It's rich Goats. Was terrible.
I was wearing my Neil O'donnald jersey to the game
and we got thumped thirty one six. We were never competitive. Everybody.
I was the I was the big fun of guy
in the in the in our section because I was
one of the few people wearing a Jets jersey. And
it wasn't even close. It was this is like, clearly,
(03:10):
here are two teams that are going in different directions.
It's the first game for Neil O'Donnell's Jets quarterback, and
I'm like, oh, we got a new era. Oh no, no,
we just absolutely stink and we're on our way to
one in fifteen. But the Broncos it was a very
workman like victory where it was, yeah, this is the Broncos.
They're so good, they're loaded. All right, we're gonna lose
and just wasn't even close. Well, but you see the
(03:31):
final score. But then you go back in and watch
a little bit and take a quick peek at the
box score. I mean Elway sixteen three yards, two touchdowns,
two interceptions. Hey, we're in the game. Nah, Now, I
think he said, well, he stopped playing after the first quarter.
He came out, he rested the last three quarters of
the game. Bill Musgrave was in the game. Uh Davis
(03:54):
only had what nine total yards? He had a touchdown.
Only it was saying it was just all you had
Webster Slaughter as your top target. Yeah he was. He
he scored in that game, Yeah he did. He scored.
Webster Slaughter, who was done, who was decent for the
Browns in the eighties. Was our only plab Like, oh
(04:14):
my goodness. The Broncos were just that much better. There
were guys that had like jet voodoo dolls were running
up to me sticking pins in it, going yeah, I
got your Neil O'donnald right here. And at that point
I could say, yeah, and when's the last time you
won a Super Bowl? And I'm going, oh, I don't
know that I want to really, but this was the
type of year. It was that they were so good
they rested their starters the last three games of the season.
(04:38):
It was Mike Shanahan's second year as Broncos head coach.
And here's the thing. Shanahan wasn't the genius yet. I mean,
this was okay, Ken Denver get over the top and
win a Super Bowl where they hadn't gotten there before.
And he had two years as a head coach with
the Raiders in the late eighties. It didn't work. The
players didn't like him. Al Davis didn't like him. Davis
(04:58):
and Shanahan fired each other's loyalists, so it was really
long time for Mike Shanahan to get a job again
as a head coach. It was tough, lawsuits in the
whole nine yards and no one trying to get his
money yeah, no one thought, Okay, we can touch this guy.
But finally the Broncos give him a chance, and it
worked because it was a different person in charge. John
(05:18):
Elwaye hated Dan Reeves, so this of course was going
to be better. And voila. It's the same Broncos, but
it's a new attitude, new outlook, new leadership. And here
go to the Broncos and they have another great, great season.
Just an amazing assembly of talent and some of the
guys who were like secondary players on this squad when
(05:39):
you kind of look at it, you know, and trying
to roll up. John Mobley was a rookie. Uh. You
had a fullback in Detron Smith trying to help work
through things, Fortrell Davis. Uh. And then you know, we
we've got some of the stalwarts, some of the names
you know, and some that you forget where where on
(06:00):
a squad and our our colleague at Fox, Mark Shlareth,
part of the action there on the offensive line. I
aged myself, I don't age other people quite so well.
So when I see him and I see Alfred Williams
and guys that I've gotten to know in the media
world a little bit, it's always yeah, I guess they
did play that long all right. Then you want to
know the best story Mark Lareth ever told me when
(06:22):
I said, I when I asked him, you know, when
we worked at ESPN together, I asked him, I said, uh,
how much do you run during a game? I mean,
I don't know how we got on the topic. How
much you run during It was not that much at all,
he goes. In fact, I'll tell you how I used
to conserve my running. And I said, what do you mean?
He goes, Well, let's just say l way through an interception,
it was a fumble and the and and it was
(06:43):
a long way going down the other way, like we
fumbled inside the team's red zone and they were taking
it back for a touch, And I said, okay, goes.
I ran as fast as I could until I knew
I was out of frame and there was gonna be
no video of me slowing down and stopping. So I
would run real fast. And then when I knew that
the the guy was because I'm not catching anybody. I'm
an offensive lineman. When I knew I was at I
(07:04):
would just peel off really slow and go, I'm not
catching them. Because you know, coaches wanted to see you
run all out, but you want to see it on tape.
He was like, yeah, so I would just go back.
I would just kind of peel off and go Okay.
I looked like I gave it a good run. I
thought that was a pretty good story. That's not a
bad strategy. So that's the Broncos, which were look quit essential.
(07:24):
This was the Broncos team of of this of the nineties. Again,
they're most talented lways still looking to breakthrough. For the Jaguars,
it's just their second NFL season, right, They go four
and twelve their first year under Tom Coughlin. But after
Jimmy Smith becomes a starter in the offense, takes off
and this became a really potent offense. This was Mark Brunel,
(07:47):
Jimmy Smith, Keenan McCardell. They were so potent. Andre Riisen
was on this team, but he got demoted after Brunell
threw five picks in a game against the Rams because
they kind of blamed Andre Risen for not running the
right route to get us, so they demoted him. And
this is it. I mean, the Jaguars squeak, I mean
just take off and they squeak into the playoffs by
(08:08):
winning six of their last seven. It was a huge
run in Jacksonville. Became the flavor of the moment. They
were fun, they were young. It was an expansion team.
People bought their gear. Brunel was fun to watch, you know,
it was outside the pocket. They can plays with his legs.
This was a really, really fun team. It's like the
Jaguars at this point became instant cult heroes in the NFL. Well,
(08:28):
that's just it. You had a lefty quarterback because you
didn't see a lot of those what you have at
that point. It would have been Steve Young. Yeah, I
mean you didn't have a lot of guys running around,
you know, South pause, weird spin on the ball, the
fact that you know he absorbed hits like a lunatic
at times. You gotta preserve yourself. Man. There's there's a
lot of season left, but you saw him take off.
(08:52):
You you look at the the run game effective and
as you mentioned, the insertion of Jimmy Smith into that
starting lineup at one of the great receivers of the
last twenty plus years that I don't think gets nearly
enough attention when we put our lists together of how
good he truly was. Yeah, this offense came together so fast.
(09:14):
It wasn't just Smith and Keenan McCardell, who were together
for a long time. Is the Jaguars really were. This
was the the big three of the team for the
late nineties early two thousand's. This was Natron Means and
James Stewart in the backfield, and you know which of
them are you gonna stop? They were both tough running backs.
Tony Baselli starting his Hall of Fame career. They beat
(09:34):
Buffalo and the playoffs to move on to play the Broncos,
and it was another big game for Brunel. You know,
they put up four nine yards of offense against the Bills.
They sent Jim Kelly into retirement. It was his last
game in the National Football League, and it was like
the changing of the guard. Okay, here go. The Bills
were used to them for a while, and now we're
gonna wind up seeing the Jaguars. Maybe not this year
(09:56):
because okay they're they're newbies, but they're in their second
year of existence, but clearly they look like that and
all this young talent to really become a dominant team
in the a f C for a long time they
came together that fast. I mean, this is this is
a year removed from not having any players. Here they are,
you know, and they win, they make which made me think,
what the hell are the Jets doing. I mean, this
(10:16):
is a team that didn't have players and they're getting
into the playoffs. Well that's to say, you go four
and twelve the first year, and then you rally up
to nine and seven, A fresh face, young Tom Coughlin
getting that like, he wasn't red in the face. Fully,
he hadn't been wind burned because he was down in Jacksonville.
It wasn't the chronic, you know, red face look that
he had for so many years down the sideline for
(10:38):
the Giants later on. But if you talk about young, right,
because you've got a cool new logo, uh teal is
you know, the uniform is just a different color than
you're used to seeing, right, because it's darker than what
the Dolphins were using. And so yeah, you've got a
little bit of merch rolling up and people buying in
(11:00):
and just kind of curious to see what this franchise
is gonna do. Some decent, you know, additions on the
defensive side of things, but you know, again, just the
curiosity and and you're a guy Rob Johnson in the mix.
See how no matter where we go on special teams,
he finds his way in. And Brunel was just so
(11:21):
much fun to watch play. I mean this, this is
a guy that you thought was coming out of Washington
was going to be a highly rated quarterback. But he
gets hurt, loses the job as senior year to Billy
Joe Hobert. But the Jacksonville Jaguars saying, okay, no, no,
he's gonna be our guy. And slowly he comes through
and look he through for four thousand yards. This year
wasn't great touchdown interceptions, nineteen touchdowns and twenty picks, but
(11:43):
he just had something about him. He had that in
factor in The whole team was just fun. It was
you couldn't root against them. It was really hard to say, okay,
even though Tom Coughlin was look, you know the drill
Sergeanty was and and I'm sure it couldn't have been
fun for a lot of the players, the young players
coming in. But they were just a fun team. And
you don't get that that often in sports. It would,
you know, everything about them was, hey, I really want
(12:05):
to see him play and see him come together and
become a dominant team, and you really thought it was
gonna happen after this game against the Broncos. Yeah, I mean,
just a lot of buy in when you got a
guy that's given his body up and while we sit back,
you know, and on our Fox Sports radio show and
stare at each other, going, what the hell is that
guy doing? You gotta get down. You gotta learn that
(12:26):
Peyton Manning turtle move, like those old little toys you
had that had the button on the bottom and the
legs would buckle and then you'd let it go and
he's brother there he is. Just bring back up. That's
what you need to do as a quarterback, and you
need to learn not to absorb hits, but by the
same token, that's what endears you to your crowd and
the local fans and to your teammates because they know
(12:46):
you're giving up every inch to get over the top.
Now and this year, what is absolutely amazing is he
also fumbled fourteen times. Yeah they only lost three of them. Yeah. Well,
I always felt like he always had that big knee
brace that took up most of his leg and still
he's getting outside the pocket and getting away from people
and making throws. I felt I feel like he had
(13:07):
the knee brace on his entire career. You kept yelling
run for us, run alright, sorry, too easy a joke.
So this is where things sit. The ambush at Mile
High was upon us. It was supposed to be a
route for the Broncos. It was anything. But how did
it happen? And what happened to these teams following? Keep
it right here? This is special teams with Jason Smith
(13:28):
and Mike Armon. So Denver comes into this game as
(13:49):
four team point favorites and it starts out like it's
going to be a route. Denver scores two touchdowns in
the first quarter. Vaughan hebron has a touchdown run on
four down, the extra point gets blocked. Lay throws a
touchdown to Shannon Sharp. They missed the two point conversion.
Jacksonville doesn't have a first down in the first quarter,
and it was gonna be easy, all right, Well, it's
(14:11):
all right, Well, obviously we're not gonna get drawn in
this playoff game. It's twelve nothing. They missed the extra point,
two point conversion, But this is it. The Jaguars are
going nowhere against this Broncos team, which made the comeback
all the more shocking because here's a young team that
doesn't know anything on the road in the playoffs. You're down,
the crowd is loud, you're on the road. Okay, it's
just not gonna work for us. We won our big
(14:32):
game against the Bills. It would have been easy to
quit and go home and say, hey, it was a
great year and you know, another year of seasoning. We'll
come back and try it again next year. What's curious
is if you go back and watch the telecast, as
you know, a nerd like me is want to do
uh not often did you have the uh the score
and down in distance and time that would disappear for
(14:53):
long stress like where are we at? What do we do?
Who's paying attention? This is the days of the ten
minute ticker, where getting the scores three ten minutes? Oh great,
Oh we got the scores coming up soon. Yeah. And
then finally, you know, it settles in towards the end
of the first half where you see it a bit more.
But it's like, all right, how do you run clock? Right?
I mean, you got lway, you got all this potent
(15:14):
offense to it, but how do you get the clock
to keep moving well? And this year Denver's defense was
really good. You know that the era of the Broncos,
we spent a lot of time talking about Elway and
Terrell Davis obviously, but this Denver defense was terrific. There
was nothing that was gonna tell you that the Jaguars
are gonna be able to mount any sort of come back.
And then the second quarter came and it was like
(15:35):
they flipped a switch. The Jaguar score on three straight possessions.
The game completely changes an inverse from the first quarter.
Jacksonville takes a thirteen twelve lead a halftime, and it
turned into everything that Jaguars were you know, watching this
game again. It's big plays from wide receivers, it's big
runs by the running backs, it's choke yardage, and Jacksonville
(15:57):
would wind up scoring on six straight possessions in this game.
And it was what just happened. It was a shock
to everybody whoa we got a game here and at halftime,
the Broncos going to the locker room going what the
hell is going on? We were in control of this
game and now we're losing at halftime. Yeah, it looks
like you're gonna go runaway and hide and slows down.
And when it's all said and done, the opportunities lost, right.
(16:20):
I mean, you see the frustration start to mount because
what started so easily isn't clicking. Now, this game turned
out to be. Instead of the birth of a superstar
from Mark Brunel, it turned out to be this was
his finest hour. He throws a touchdown past to McCardell
in the third quarter and a touchdown past to Jimmy Smith.
This after a thirty yards sideline to sideline run they
(16:43):
still talk about in Jacksonville. Al Right, it was a
big play to take them down to the twenty one
yard line. The touchdown past gives Jacksonville a ten point
lead thirty to twenty. But this run where he starts
off on one side of the field, comes all the
way back to the other side. I mean, this was
the defining play of the Jaguars of this season, of
Mark Brunell's career. I mean, they had a ten point
(17:03):
lead in the fourth quarter. Nobody knows how they got here,
how they were able to suddenly run circles around the
Broncos defense. Denver does come back to make it thirty seven.
Elway throws a touchdown to Ed McCaffrey, but Jacksonville gets
the on side kick. They win a game. And I
know still it was probably years later, and you have
people walking around going, yeah, I get the Super Bowls.
(17:26):
I understand how we but I don't understand how we
lost that game to to the Jacksonville Jaguars. I don't
understand what happened in the second and third quarter us
how suddenly we couldn't stop them. I don't understand how
Mark Brunell was able to do anything he wanted to do.
But really this was the apex, and what you thought
was the beginning was really the top of this run
by the Jaguars. Don't you try to just throw that
(17:46):
one away. Everybody's allowed one of those in your history.
You you're the Jets, you've got tons of them. I'm
I'm a barrass fan tons, and I've certainly got thirty
of those tons of top. Yeah. So if you're a
Bronco fan, you just eight that never happened. No, that's no, no, dude,
we didn't. We didn't play that year. What happened? Yeah, no, no,
we decided not to play. We took the year off
(18:07):
and then won the Super Bowl the year after. That's
what we did. I like, you know, Brunel. The thing is,
this is really about him because he was now at
this point the next great superstar quarterback in the NFL.
He orchestrates this upset over the Broncos and and for
all the Look, obviously quarterbacks are going to get more
attention than anybody else. And look, they had tremendous weapons
(18:28):
around him, and that's something that you know, as we
go on years and years, you wonder, boy, how did
they not win with all these great weapons. But they
always had a running back, whether it was you know,
James Stewart and whether it was Natron Means, whether it
was Fred Taylor, whoever it was. They had the wide receivers,
they had Jimmy Smith, they had Keenan McCardell, they had weapons,
and this was really the biggest win. They've gone further
(18:50):
in the playoffs and in subsequent years, which we're gonna
get to, but this really this win. This was the
biggest moment for the organization. And he was gonna be
a big star, but twenty touchdowns was his high with Jacksonville.
He didn't really run for a lot of yards and
really turn into Steve you know, he was more like
Steve Young light. He never really hit that next level.
He was kind of the same quarterback at the end
(19:12):
of his career that he was at the beginning of
his career. He never really took that that jump going Okay,
now I'm learning what the defenses are giving me, and
I'm gonna take a step here, take a step here,
and now become that great, great quarterback. No, he kind
of peeked early and he was good. But in the NFL,
you're not really gonna take advantage of what you shoot
in your career if you're the same player year two
that you are year eight and year nine. And that's
(19:34):
kind of what Brunel was. No, he's he's a guy
that I remember him getting a little bit of fantasy
love for a couple of years off the al Right,
he runs a bit, Right, that was the calling card
and the wishing and hoping based on the players that
were assembled there in right, I mean it was he
sold a lot of a lot of hope when it
came down to it, Right, you had the one big
(19:55):
run up year and come back to two thousand five
as a member of Washington. But for the Jaguars, its
just you can never curb the turnovers and and eliminate,
you know, just the mistakes overall, right to get to
that next level. Not to mention, you know, trying to
be gaudy with your stats. That's not really something that
(20:17):
jives with what Tom Coughlin wants to do either, and
just call it and stylistically that's not his thing. To
just open it up. So the Jaguars move on, and
we'll left more on them in a few minutes. But
for the Broncos, they go home in a game that
John Elway said was the most embarrassing of his career
up until that point because they should have won the
Super Bowl. And they should have, all right, this is
(20:39):
a year in which we actually saw the Patriots advanced
the Super Bowl and play the Packers. Had the Broncos
won this game, they would have had the Patriots at
home for the a f C Championship, which was Bledsoe
and Curtis Martin. Now, the Patriots were surprising, but they
were kind of a weak number two. See even though
ourselves was the coach and look at what he's doing here,
Denver wins that game at home easy, and I think
(21:00):
they would have beaten the Packers in the Super Bowl.
The Patriots gave the Packers a much better game than
anybody expected. Packers came in his favorites and how good
can the Patriots be? And without Desmond Howard's big return
for a touchdown, the Packers might have lost this game.
And so this should have been the first championship for
the Broncos. And this is why we should be talking
about them. Is the only NFL three Peters because this
(21:21):
was the beginning of their incredible three year run thirteen
and three, twelve and four fourteen into two super Bowls.
I mean, this should have been it. I mean, this
was a lost Super Bowl for the Broncos. But watching
this game and you you know, and and seeing this
as we're going back for the podcast, it's like the
Broncos played this entire game like what's happening? We were
(21:41):
not really processing what's happening. We should be winning this game?
Why is this going on? One of those things where
you you're kind of a deer in headlights, you don't
really see how it's going on, and by the time
you get your your bearings again, it's too late, and
and and that's kind of how this game played out
for the Broncos. They just couldn't stop the Jaguars at all.
Like I said, six straight possessions and the Broncos go
(22:02):
home when it should have been a Super Bowl year
for them. The Broncos came into this game with a
game plan, but then when they got punched in the mouth,
they had no way of coming back, Like, we're gonna
impose our will on this game, and what's the old saying.
Everybody's got a plan until they get punched them up.
I don't think they thought they were gonna get punched
in the mouth. We're not gonna this is the this
is the Jaguars. We're gonna win this game. And then
when it happened, you know, you get lulled in to
(22:23):
that sense of security after the first quarter they had,
and then it gets to the second quarter and it's
it's it's a it's an avalanche, and it just keeps coming.
There's no way to stop it. You couldn't even adjust
at halftime. I thought, you know, going in at halftime,
all right, this is where the Broncos go, Okay, let's adjust.
Well look what they did to us scoring those three
possessions in the second quarter. Nope, couldn't do it. Couldn't
do it. And Mark Brunell did whatever the hell he
(22:43):
wanted to in the second half. And that was the
big stunning part. So why didn't the Jaguars turn into
the team of the late nineties early two thousand's, Well,
one word definitely is responsible for that. We have that
coming up next Where are they now? And the rest
of the short, but illustrious and an incredible career of
Terrell Davis. This is special teams with Jason Smith and
(23:03):
Mike Armon before we get to the Jaguars and what
happened to them against the Patriots and in subsequent years,
(23:25):
you know, we spent a lot of time talking about
John Elway and and yes, they wound up winning two
Super Bowls and Terrell Davis was terrific and he was
the guy that finally brought glory to Denver when Denver
really ignored the running back position for the vast majority
of Elway's career, but suddenly was oh, hey, look now
we got a running back and now we're winning. But
after this year, Davis really only had two more years
(23:48):
in the NFL. And that's it. You know, it's hard
to believe he's a Hall of Famer because he he
only had three fantastic years, one good one and that's it.
He had a bad knee injury when he tried to
make a tackle an interception against the Jets in the
game in and that did it for him. I mean,
up until then, he was fantastic. The mile high salute,
(24:08):
you know, the Y two k for him is he
gonna get to two thousand yards and Terrell Davis was
gonna be the it guy in the NFL. But that
was you know, there's only really two more years. And
because he was so good and they won two Super Bowls,
they put him in the Hall of Fame. But boy,
you're really stretching the limit of of how long does
the guy have to play they get in the Hall
of Fame in the National Football League. It's one that
(24:29):
still leaves me uneasy. As brilliant as those three seasons were,
that that's enough to get you in, right, Not that
you want to be a stat at a stats aggregator, right,
because we've got some of those in the mix as well.
Right where there's certainly, you know, the guys that are lifers,
and you say, all right, they got to this giant
(24:50):
pile of receptions or or yardage and and all of
those things. But it's it's just a snapshot. And and
I guess because he got way over that gets him in.
I mean, because it's dominance for a couple of seasons.
But we've got a couple of guys that we'll have
to have conversations about in coming years that were dominant
(25:12):
for a half decade and their induction might be curiosities. Right,
I don't know if the career by time folks listened
to this down the line and it's living in the
podcast world forever, whether Antonio Brown gets back on a
football field. But six seven years about as good as
you've seen as a receiver, chad Ocho sinko, Is he
(25:33):
getting one? Is he getting a bust to go along
with that canton coat that he wore all those years ago?
I mean, he was about as good as it was
for a receiver for four or five years. But again,
does he get lost to history because of the numbers,
you know, whereas here you've gotta have flash for just
three seasons, four good, three great, and he's in the
(25:57):
Hall of fame. I don't begrudge him. I mean, he
know me. It's a museum and you're celebrating the best.
So let's just build a bigger museum and get more
busts in there, more tourism. I always say, but it's
it's one of those great debates. Hundred yards and thirteen
touchdowns in this year, hundred yards and fifteen touchdowns the
(26:18):
next year, and then two thousand and eight and twenty
one touchdowns. You look, it's it's hard you take any
running back from the past twenty years ago. Okay, do
you have three years like that? No, but it still
is only three years. Yeah, you know, it's it's it's
still only three But you win this. Winning the Super
Bowl sometimes does that. And he he was the guy
(26:39):
that Broncos were so good for so long they could
never win. But finally they get him and they win
back to back Super Bowls. But I mean, by way
of contrast, right, you look at saying going into Ezekiel
Elliott's played four years in the league, forty touchdowns. He's
already had three seasons with at least undred fifty rushing yards.
(27:01):
He's got forty eight touchdowns altogether, including a lot more
prominent role in the passing game than Terrell Davis ever did.
So he's at almost seven thousand total yards already, which
is right about where Terrell Davis finished. I mean, just
to put it in perspective, Look, it is like I said, Look,
(27:22):
I was stunned when he got in. I was surprised.
I didn't think that he deserved just because he didn't
play long enough. And and I remember we talked to
Jason Cole, was Pro Football Hall of Fame voter, and
he was like, you know, the conversation wasn't really that
big a deal. It was like Terrell Day, Yeah, Terrell
Davis is in. It's like wow. So it wasn't It
didn't even sound like it was controversial. It was like, yeah,
d D he's in, he's in, he's and he's in.
(27:43):
I'm like, okay, greatness, he's stamp a man and let's go.
So for the Jaguars, they were going big game hunting.
They returned back home and there were forty thousand fans
greeting them at the airport after they beat the Denver
Broncos again a game that nobody saw coming. So now
they got New England in the A f C Championship Game.
Could a team in their second year in existence go
(28:06):
to the Super Bowl? But what killed them in this
game killed them every time they got within a step
of greatness. Turnovers killed them. Early on in the game,
they had the high snap on a punt. Brian Barker
gets tackled at the four yard line. New England scores
a touchdown. Chris Hudson fumbles a punt. New England gets
a field goal. All right, Brunel gets picked in the
(28:26):
end zone. James Stewart's fumbles its return for a touchdown.
Brunel throws another pick, and the New England Patriots are
going to the Super Bowl and the Jaguars are going home.
But you think, okay, all right, it happens they were
a team. They the clock struck midnight for them. Look,
they weren't supposed to beat the Broncos, but they did.
But here comes their era of dominance. Well in ven
(28:47):
they go eleven and five. Here they are, but they
lose the rematch to Denver in Denver seventeen. Denver takes
care of business on their way to the Super Bowl.
All right, but this begins their four year run of
almost for the Jaguars, right, They lost the Jets in
the playoffs and night they lost the a f C
title game to Tennessee in nine nine the only team
(29:09):
they lost to in nine they were fourteen and two.
They lost the Titans three times. What were the common
themes in these games? Turnovers? Four turnovers against the Jets
in ninety eight, including Key Shawn catching an interception on
the final play of the game, when the Jaguars are
throwing up a hell Mary six turnovers against Tennessee in
the a f C title game in h that's true. Yes, hey,
(29:33):
we're not nine in seven this year. We're gonna be great.
But this is what this is what did the Jaguars
in It wasn't that, oh we played a better team here,
a better team, but no turnovers crushed them. It killed
them in the game against the Patriots for the a
s C title game, killed them against the Jets, killed
them against the Tennessee Titans three years later. Had you
just stayed away from that, had you been able to
(29:53):
hold on to the football, you probably win at least
one of those games, and maybe it's a super Bowl
for the Jaguars that you're talking about being the the
ultimate for the organization. But instead it's this game, this win,
the ambush ap mile high. You look back and say,
what's the greatest win in Jaguars history. This is the
game you look back at. But you know, me, the
devil always in the detail, the greatest predictor of wins
(30:15):
and losses to some eight three percent in the National
Football League. Hold on to the stinking ball. That's it.
I mean, don't be errant and passing. And that's the
other thing is is Brunell had an arm to get
it down field, but he had a lollypop kind of
throw off in times. Yeah. Right, there was a lot
of air because there were a number of you know,
(30:36):
near misses. Going back and watching just clips of him
as get ready for the podcast going, you know, reminding
yourself of of all the little things of aret, why
didn't they get over It's like, yeah, that that long
wind up and delivery to the outside. Cornerbacks were licking
their chops on occasion. You know that he just leave
one up a little too much. You know, they were
(30:59):
a team of almost that you thought, it's shocking that
they weren't any better. They didn't at least get to
the Super Bowl. One's not they gotta win one or
win two or be dominant. But boy, they seemed like
they were. And they kept their big three together for
a long time, and like I said, they segued into
Fred Taylor, who was phenomenal pretty easy. You you look
back and go, man, how did this team not win more? How?
(31:21):
How did they wind up shooting themselves in the foot
the whole time? The the Jaguars were the era of
never was. They were almost there and then they never
were And and it doesn't make any sense. A lot
of talent, a lot of stars and big names. And
again you know, talking about Jimmy Smith and how he's
oft forgotten in lists of receivers and you know, talent
(31:43):
over the last twenty years. Fred Taylor's that guy too.
Write Oftentimes it's like, and by the way, don't forget
fred Taylor would have been third on this Listen, Wait
what it's like? Can you remember how good he was?
But then you put the numbers behind it and it
just one of those Sorry, don't forget about them just
because they play in Jacksonville, because that's the norm now, right,
(32:05):
it's just Jacksonville. Uh send him to London. Uh send
him relocate them wherever. Whatever shot Collen wants to do, go,
they don't matter. I mean that's kind of the general attitude.
Even if you have a minshumania for a while, it's
still the all right, it's gonna become Jacksonville again. All Right,
I'm a little where are they now coming off this game?
(32:26):
Let's go defensive lineman Don Davy h He's part of
a wealth management company. Disciplined equity is what it's called.
That's pretty good. Well, you gotta be disciplined if you're
gonna make money. I want to name a horse. Disciplined
Equity's gotta be sixteen letters, right, all right, I'll work
on that. Work on that. See if you can shorten that,
(32:47):
like it's a license plate. Mike Hollis uh doing someone
Hemp based wellness products? Wow, okay, I liked help based
well this' but hemp based is different. Well, you know,
hemp based. You know one of those. You get the
p h Lionel Washington, defense coordinator for the Southern Jaguars
after some coaching stints in the National Football Leagues. Mike Lowdish,
(33:09):
sales manager for clover Dale Equipment, Construction, Equipment and Company. Uh,
and then you got Reggie Rivers, the Galla Team author
does a bunch of stuff helping nonprofits with fundraising strategies,
kind of like you do on air. Sometimes you'll say, Hey,
I've got a good strategy for this company, here, there, everywhere.
(33:31):
That's what Reggie Rivers is doing in his post football career.
So there it is. The where are they Now? The
ambush at Mile High, the big moment in the sun
for the Jacksonville Jaguars, and a lost chance at the
Broncos to be the first team to win three straight
Super Bowls. Jason Smith and Mike Harmon. You can listen
to our show on Fox Sports Radio Monday through Friday,
(33:52):
ten pm to two am on the East Coast, seven
to eleven on the West Coast. If you have an
idea for a future Special Teams broadcast, Hey, let us
know on Twitter at how about a Fresca. Mike is
at Swollen Dome. We'll talk to you next week for
another big NFL game here on Special Teams. Before you go,
(34:21):
rate and review the show. Whether you're listening on I
Heart Radio, I Heart Radio, apps, Apple, whatever it is,
give us a rate, tell us you like it. We
will love you, forever and ever and ever Special Teams
(34:44):
is a production of I heart Radio. For more podcasts
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Apple podcast, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
Welcome to Special Teams, a production of I Heart Radio
(00:21):
Greetings and Welcome Inside Special Teams, a weekly podcast where
your host, myself, Jason Smith, and Mike Harmon take you
back to what some special teams did in certain years
in sports. And we look back today at the ambush
a mile high January, where it looked like the Broncos
(00:41):
We're gonna go right to the Super Bowl instead of
the upstart Jacksonville Jaguars pulled one of the biggest upsets
in NFL history, defeating them thirty to twenty seven. The
Jaguars go on, the Broncos go home. And at this
point we were thinking the Broncos ever gonna win a
Super Bowl? Real? Really? They they couldn't beat the jag
Bars at home, Mike, Are they ever gonna win a
(01:02):
Super Bowl? Because that's what it was for the Broncos
back in the mid to late nineties before they broke through. Well,
and it's not even you know, couldn't beat the Jaguars,
it's how they lost to the Jaguars as well. Chronicle
going forward, like, it's one thing to lose the game
straight up, it's another to dominate. But yeah, a lot
of twists and turns in this one, and certainly for
(01:23):
the Denver Broncos that it had a rough year the
year before go out and the regular season flows including
you know you you made an appearance in the schedule.
But all in all, I mean, you just see the
names on this roster and you say, how did it
not get over look nine Pro Bowlers, they were so loaded.
(01:44):
I mean, I know they won back to back Super
Bowls when when you get into the years after, but
this was probably the best Denver team I had seen.
It was the birth of Terrell Davis as a superstar,
the beginning of those great Denver backfields where no matter
who they put in there, they would rush for fifteen yards.
It could have been Mike Anders, sin Oorlandis, Gary Tatum, Bell,
Ruben Drones. But this was the start of the Terrell
(02:05):
Davis four year run that actually got him into the
Hall of Fame. And I was at opening week. It
was my my wife and I were It was our
big life change. We had left ESPN when I was
a production assistant and associate producer at ESPN, when I
was still behind the scenes. We were moving to California,
to Los Angeles and we drove across country and we
just so happened to be near Denver around the first
(02:27):
week in the NFL season. I said, hey, can we
stop and she happened to be, well, well, we were
leaving the end of the summer and I said, well,
where are we gonna be around this day? And because
we were driving across country, it was it was such
a great trip. And I said when are we gonna
be near around Denver and she was alwill be in Colorado,
like early September. I'm like, okay, let's go to Jets Broncos.
It's opening weeks. She was like, great, we go to
(02:48):
the game and the Jets just get drilled. That's rich Coats.
Oh my god, it was terrible. It's rich Goats. Was terrible.
I was wearing my Neil O'donnald jersey to the game
and we got thumped thirty one six. We were never competitive. Everybody.
I was the I was the big fun of guy
in the in the in our section because I was
one of the few people wearing a Jets jersey. And
it wasn't even close. It was this is like, clearly,
(03:10):
here are two teams that are going in different directions.
It's the first game for Neil O'Donnell's Jets quarterback, and
I'm like, oh, we got a new era. Oh no, no,
we just absolutely stink and we're on our way to
one in fifteen. But the Broncos it was a very
workman like victory where it was, yeah, this is the Broncos.
They're so good, they're loaded. All right, we're gonna lose
and just wasn't even close. Well, but you see the
(03:31):
final score. But then you go back in and watch
a little bit and take a quick peek at the
box score. I mean Elway sixteen three yards, two touchdowns,
two interceptions. Hey, we're in the game. Nah, Now, I
think he said, well, he stopped playing after the first quarter.
He came out, he rested the last three quarters of
the game. Bill Musgrave was in the game. Uh Davis
(03:54):
only had what nine total yards? He had a touchdown.
Only it was saying it was just all you had
Webster Slaughter as your top target. Yeah he was. He
he scored in that game, Yeah he did. He scored.
Webster Slaughter, who was done, who was decent for the
Browns in the eighties. Was our only plab Like, oh
(04:14):
my goodness. The Broncos were just that much better. There
were guys that had like jet voodoo dolls were running
up to me sticking pins in it, going yeah, I
got your Neil O'donnald right here. And at that point
I could say, yeah, and when's the last time you
won a Super Bowl? And I'm going, oh, I don't
know that I want to really, but this was the
type of year. It was that they were so good
they rested their starters the last three games of the season.
(04:38):
It was Mike Shanahan's second year as Broncos head coach.
And here's the thing. Shanahan wasn't the genius yet. I mean,
this was okay, Ken Denver get over the top and
win a Super Bowl where they hadn't gotten there before.
And he had two years as a head coach with
the Raiders in the late eighties. It didn't work. The
players didn't like him. Al Davis didn't like him. Davis
(04:58):
and Shanahan fired each other's loyalists, so it was really
long time for Mike Shanahan to get a job again
as a head coach. It was tough, lawsuits in the
whole nine yards and no one trying to get his
money yeah, no one thought, Okay, we can touch this guy.
But finally the Broncos give him a chance, and it
worked because it was a different person in charge. John
(05:18):
Elwaye hated Dan Reeves, so this of course was going
to be better. And voila. It's the same Broncos, but
it's a new attitude, new outlook, new leadership. And here
go to the Broncos and they have another great, great season.
Just an amazing assembly of talent and some of the
guys who were like secondary players on this squad when
(05:39):
you kind of look at it, you know, and trying
to roll up. John Mobley was a rookie. Uh. You
had a fullback in Detron Smith trying to help work
through things, Fortrell Davis. Uh. And then you know, we
we've got some of the stalwarts, some of the names
you know, and some that you forget where where on
(06:00):
a squad and our our colleague at Fox, Mark Shlareth,
part of the action there on the offensive line. I
aged myself, I don't age other people quite so well.
So when I see him and I see Alfred Williams
and guys that I've gotten to know in the media
world a little bit, it's always yeah, I guess they
did play that long all right. Then you want to
know the best story Mark Lareth ever told me when
(06:22):
I said, I when I asked him, you know, when
we worked at ESPN together, I asked him, I said, uh,
how much do you run during a game? I mean,
I don't know how we got on the topic. How
much you run during It was not that much at all,
he goes. In fact, I'll tell you how I used
to conserve my running. And I said, what do you mean?
He goes, Well, let's just say l way through an interception,
it was a fumble and the and and it was
(06:43):
a long way going down the other way, like we
fumbled inside the team's red zone and they were taking
it back for a touch, And I said, okay, goes.
I ran as fast as I could until I knew
I was out of frame and there was gonna be
no video of me slowing down and stopping. So I
would run real fast. And then when I knew that
the the guy was because I'm not catching anybody. I'm
an offensive lineman. When I knew I was at I
(07:04):
would just peel off really slow and go, I'm not
catching them. Because you know, coaches wanted to see you
run all out, but you want to see it on tape.
He was like, yeah, so I would just go back.
I would just kind of peel off and go Okay.
I looked like I gave it a good run. I
thought that was a pretty good story. That's not a
bad strategy. So that's the Broncos, which were look quit essential.
(07:24):
This was the Broncos team of of this of the nineties. Again,
they're most talented lways still looking to breakthrough. For the Jaguars,
it's just their second NFL season, right, They go four
and twelve their first year under Tom Coughlin. But after
Jimmy Smith becomes a starter in the offense, takes off
and this became a really potent offense. This was Mark Brunel,
(07:47):
Jimmy Smith, Keenan McCardell. They were so potent. Andre Riisen
was on this team, but he got demoted after Brunell
threw five picks in a game against the Rams because
they kind of blamed Andre Risen for not running the
right route to get us, so they demoted him. And
this is it. I mean, the Jaguars squeak, I mean
just take off and they squeak into the playoffs by
(08:08):
winning six of their last seven. It was a huge
run in Jacksonville. Became the flavor of the moment. They
were fun, they were young. It was an expansion team.
People bought their gear. Brunel was fun to watch, you know,
it was outside the pocket. They can plays with his legs.
This was a really, really fun team. It's like the
Jaguars at this point became instant cult heroes in the NFL. Well,
(08:28):
that's just it. You had a lefty quarterback because you
didn't see a lot of those what you have at
that point. It would have been Steve Young. Yeah, I
mean you didn't have a lot of guys running around,
you know, South pause, weird spin on the ball, the
fact that you know he absorbed hits like a lunatic
at times. You gotta preserve yourself. Man. There's there's a
lot of season left, but you saw him take off.
(08:52):
You you look at the the run game effective and
as you mentioned, the insertion of Jimmy Smith into that
starting lineup at one of the great receivers of the
last twenty plus years that I don't think gets nearly
enough attention when we put our lists together of how
good he truly was. Yeah, this offense came together so fast.
(09:14):
It wasn't just Smith and Keenan McCardell, who were together
for a long time. Is the Jaguars really were. This
was the the big three of the team for the
late nineties early two thousand's. This was Natron Means and
James Stewart in the backfield, and you know which of
them are you gonna stop? They were both tough running backs.
Tony Baselli starting his Hall of Fame career. They beat
(09:34):
Buffalo and the playoffs to move on to play the Broncos,
and it was another big game for Brunel. You know,
they put up four nine yards of offense against the Bills.
They sent Jim Kelly into retirement. It was his last
game in the National Football League, and it was like
the changing of the guard. Okay, here go. The Bills
were used to them for a while, and now we're
gonna wind up seeing the Jaguars. Maybe not this year
(09:56):
because okay they're they're newbies, but they're in their second
year of existence, but clearly they look like that and
all this young talent to really become a dominant team
in the a f C for a long time they
came together that fast. I mean, this is this is
a year removed from not having any players. Here they are,
you know, and they win, they make which made me think,
what the hell are the Jets doing. I mean, this
(10:16):
is a team that didn't have players and they're getting
into the playoffs. Well that's to say, you go four
and twelve the first year, and then you rally up
to nine and seven, A fresh face, young Tom Coughlin
getting that like, he wasn't red in the face. Fully,
he hadn't been wind burned because he was down in Jacksonville.
It wasn't the chronic, you know, red face look that
he had for so many years down the sideline for
(10:38):
the Giants later on. But if you talk about young, right,
because you've got a cool new logo, uh teal is
you know, the uniform is just a different color than
you're used to seeing, right, because it's darker than what
the Dolphins were using. And so yeah, you've got a
little bit of merch rolling up and people buying in
(11:00):
and just kind of curious to see what this franchise
is gonna do. Some decent, you know, additions on the
defensive side of things, but you know, again, just the
curiosity and and you're a guy Rob Johnson in the mix.
See how no matter where we go on special teams,
he finds his way in. And Brunel was just so
(11:21):
much fun to watch play. I mean this, this is
a guy that you thought was coming out of Washington
was going to be a highly rated quarterback. But he
gets hurt, loses the job as senior year to Billy
Joe Hobert. But the Jacksonville Jaguars saying, okay, no, no,
he's gonna be our guy. And slowly he comes through
and look he through for four thousand yards. This year
wasn't great touchdown interceptions, nineteen touchdowns and twenty picks, but
(11:43):
he just had something about him. He had that in
factor in The whole team was just fun. It was
you couldn't root against them. It was really hard to say, okay,
even though Tom Coughlin was look, you know the drill
Sergeanty was and and I'm sure it couldn't have been
fun for a lot of the players, the young players
coming in. But they were just a fun team. And
you don't get that that often in sports. It would,
you know, everything about them was, hey, I really want
(12:05):
to see him play and see him come together and
become a dominant team, and you really thought it was
gonna happen after this game against the Broncos. Yeah, I mean,
just a lot of buy in when you got a
guy that's given his body up and while we sit back,
you know, and on our Fox Sports radio show and
stare at each other, going, what the hell is that
guy doing? You gotta get down. You gotta learn that
(12:26):
Peyton Manning turtle move, like those old little toys you
had that had the button on the bottom and the
legs would buckle and then you'd let it go and
he's brother there he is. Just bring back up. That's
what you need to do as a quarterback, and you
need to learn not to absorb hits, but by the
same token, that's what endears you to your crowd and
the local fans and to your teammates because they know
(12:46):
you're giving up every inch to get over the top.
Now and this year, what is absolutely amazing is he
also fumbled fourteen times. Yeah they only lost three of them. Yeah. Well,
I always felt like he always had that big knee
brace that took up most of his leg and still
he's getting outside the pocket and getting away from people
and making throws. I felt I feel like he had
(13:07):
the knee brace on his entire career. You kept yelling
run for us, run alright, sorry, too easy a joke.
So this is where things sit. The ambush at Mile
High was upon us. It was supposed to be a
route for the Broncos. It was anything. But how did
it happen? And what happened to these teams following? Keep
it right here? This is special teams with Jason Smith
(13:28):
and Mike Armon. So Denver comes into this game as
(13:49):
four team point favorites and it starts out like it's
going to be a route. Denver scores two touchdowns in
the first quarter. Vaughan hebron has a touchdown run on
four down, the extra point gets blocked. Lay throws a
touchdown to Shannon Sharp. They missed the two point conversion.
Jacksonville doesn't have a first down in the first quarter,
and it was gonna be easy, all right, Well, it's
(14:11):
all right, Well, obviously we're not gonna get drawn in
this playoff game. It's twelve nothing. They missed the extra point,
two point conversion, But this is it. The Jaguars are
going nowhere against this Broncos team, which made the comeback
all the more shocking because here's a young team that
doesn't know anything on the road in the playoffs. You're down,
the crowd is loud, you're on the road. Okay, it's
just not gonna work for us. We won our big
(14:32):
game against the Bills. It would have been easy to
quit and go home and say, hey, it was a
great year and you know, another year of seasoning. We'll
come back and try it again next year. What's curious
is if you go back and watch the telecast, as
you know, a nerd like me is want to do
uh not often did you have the uh the score
and down in distance and time that would disappear for
(14:53):
long stress like where are we at? What do we do?
Who's paying attention? This is the days of the ten
minute ticker, where getting the scores three ten minutes? Oh great,
Oh we got the scores coming up soon. Yeah. And
then finally, you know, it settles in towards the end
of the first half where you see it a bit more.
But it's like, all right, how do you run clock? Right?
I mean, you got lway, you got all this potent
(15:14):
offense to it, but how do you get the clock
to keep moving well? And this year Denver's defense was
really good. You know that the era of the Broncos,
we spent a lot of time talking about Elway and
Terrell Davis obviously, but this Denver defense was terrific. There
was nothing that was gonna tell you that the Jaguars
are gonna be able to mount any sort of come back.
And then the second quarter came and it was like
(15:35):
they flipped a switch. The Jaguar score on three straight possessions.
The game completely changes an inverse from the first quarter.
Jacksonville takes a thirteen twelve lead a halftime, and it
turned into everything that Jaguars were you know, watching this
game again. It's big plays from wide receivers, it's big
runs by the running backs, it's choke yardage, and Jacksonville
(15:57):
would wind up scoring on six straight possessions in this game.
And it was what just happened. It was a shock
to everybody whoa we got a game here and at halftime,
the Broncos going to the locker room going what the
hell is going on? We were in control of this
game and now we're losing at halftime. Yeah, it looks
like you're gonna go runaway and hide and slows down.
And when it's all said and done, the opportunities lost, right.
(16:20):
I mean, you see the frustration start to mount because
what started so easily isn't clicking. Now, this game turned
out to be. Instead of the birth of a superstar
from Mark Brunel, it turned out to be this was
his finest hour. He throws a touchdown past to McCardell
in the third quarter and a touchdown past to Jimmy Smith.
This after a thirty yards sideline to sideline run they
(16:43):
still talk about in Jacksonville. Al Right, it was a
big play to take them down to the twenty one
yard line. The touchdown past gives Jacksonville a ten point
lead thirty to twenty. But this run where he starts
off on one side of the field, comes all the
way back to the other side. I mean, this was
the defining play of the Jaguars of this season, of
Mark Brunell's career. I mean, they had a ten point
(17:03):
lead in the fourth quarter. Nobody knows how they got here,
how they were able to suddenly run circles around the
Broncos defense. Denver does come back to make it thirty seven.
Elway throws a touchdown to Ed McCaffrey, but Jacksonville gets
the on side kick. They win a game. And I
know still it was probably years later, and you have
people walking around going, yeah, I get the Super Bowls.
(17:26):
I understand how we but I don't understand how we
lost that game to to the Jacksonville Jaguars. I don't
understand what happened in the second and third quarter us
how suddenly we couldn't stop them. I don't understand how
Mark Brunell was able to do anything he wanted to do.
But really this was the apex, and what you thought
was the beginning was really the top of this run
by the Jaguars. Don't you try to just throw that
(17:46):
one away. Everybody's allowed one of those in your history.
You you're the Jets, you've got tons of them. I'm
I'm a barrass fan tons, and I've certainly got thirty
of those tons of top. Yeah. So if you're a
Bronco fan, you just eight that never happened. No, that's no, no, dude,
we didn't. We didn't play that year. What happened? Yeah, no, no,
we decided not to play. We took the year off
(18:07):
and then won the Super Bowl the year after. That's
what we did. I like, you know, Brunel. The thing is,
this is really about him because he was now at
this point the next great superstar quarterback in the NFL.
He orchestrates this upset over the Broncos and and for
all the Look, obviously quarterbacks are going to get more
attention than anybody else. And look, they had tremendous weapons
(18:28):
around him, and that's something that you know, as we
go on years and years, you wonder, boy, how did
they not win with all these great weapons. But they
always had a running back, whether it was you know,
James Stewart and whether it was Natron Means, whether it
was Fred Taylor, whoever it was. They had the wide receivers,
they had Jimmy Smith, they had Keenan McCardell, they had weapons,
and this was really the biggest win. They've gone further
(18:50):
in the playoffs and in subsequent years, which we're gonna
get to, but this really this win. This was the
biggest moment for the organization. And he was gonna be
a big star, but twenty touchdowns was his high with Jacksonville.
He didn't really run for a lot of yards and
really turn into Steve you know, he was more like
Steve Young light. He never really hit that next level.
He was kind of the same quarterback at the end
(19:12):
of his career that he was at the beginning of
his career. He never really took that that jump going Okay,
now I'm learning what the defenses are giving me, and
I'm gonna take a step here, take a step here,
and now become that great, great quarterback. No, he kind
of peeked early and he was good. But in the NFL,
you're not really gonna take advantage of what you shoot
in your career if you're the same player year two
that you are year eight and year nine. And that's
(19:34):
kind of what Brunel was. No, he's he's a guy
that I remember him getting a little bit of fantasy
love for a couple of years off the al Right,
he runs a bit, Right, that was the calling card
and the wishing and hoping based on the players that
were assembled there in right, I mean it was he
sold a lot of a lot of hope when it
came down to it, Right, you had the one big
(19:55):
run up year and come back to two thousand five
as a member of Washington. But for the Jaguars, its
just you can never curb the turnovers and and eliminate,
you know, just the mistakes overall, right to get to
that next level. Not to mention, you know, trying to
be gaudy with your stats. That's not really something that
(20:17):
jives with what Tom Coughlin wants to do either, and
just call it and stylistically that's not his thing. To
just open it up. So the Jaguars move on, and
we'll left more on them in a few minutes. But
for the Broncos, they go home in a game that
John Elway said was the most embarrassing of his career
up until that point because they should have won the
Super Bowl. And they should have, all right, this is
(20:39):
a year in which we actually saw the Patriots advanced
the Super Bowl and play the Packers. Had the Broncos
won this game, they would have had the Patriots at
home for the a f C Championship, which was Bledsoe
and Curtis Martin. Now, the Patriots were surprising, but they
were kind of a weak number two. See even though
ourselves was the coach and look at what he's doing here,
Denver wins that game at home easy, and I think
(21:00):
they would have beaten the Packers in the Super Bowl.
The Patriots gave the Packers a much better game than
anybody expected. Packers came in his favorites and how good
can the Patriots be? And without Desmond Howard's big return
for a touchdown, the Packers might have lost this game.
And so this should have been the first championship for
the Broncos. And this is why we should be talking
about them. Is the only NFL three Peters because this
(21:21):
was the beginning of their incredible three year run thirteen
and three, twelve and four fourteen into two super Bowls.
I mean, this should have been it. I mean, this
was a lost Super Bowl for the Broncos. But watching
this game and you you know, and and seeing this
as we're going back for the podcast, it's like the
Broncos played this entire game like what's happening? We were
(21:41):
not really processing what's happening. We should be winning this game?
Why is this going on? One of those things where
you you're kind of a deer in headlights, you don't
really see how it's going on, and by the time
you get your your bearings again, it's too late, and
and and that's kind of how this game played out
for the Broncos. They just couldn't stop the Jaguars at all.
Like I said, six straight possessions and the Broncos go
(22:02):
home when it should have been a Super Bowl year
for them. The Broncos came into this game with a
game plan, but then when they got punched in the mouth,
they had no way of coming back, Like, we're gonna
impose our will on this game, and what's the old saying.
Everybody's got a plan until they get punched them up.
I don't think they thought they were gonna get punched
in the mouth. We're not gonna this is the this
is the Jaguars. We're gonna win this game. And then
when it happened, you know, you get lulled in to
(22:23):
that sense of security after the first quarter they had,
and then it gets to the second quarter and it's
it's it's a it's an avalanche, and it just keeps coming.
There's no way to stop it. You couldn't even adjust
at halftime. I thought, you know, going in at halftime,
all right, this is where the Broncos go, Okay, let's adjust.
Well look what they did to us scoring those three
possessions in the second quarter. Nope, couldn't do it. Couldn't
do it. And Mark Brunell did whatever the hell he
(22:43):
wanted to in the second half. And that was the
big stunning part. So why didn't the Jaguars turn into
the team of the late nineties early two thousand's, Well,
one word definitely is responsible for that. We have that
coming up next Where are they now? And the rest
of the short, but illustrious and an incredible career of
Terrell Davis. This is special teams with Jason Smith and
(23:03):
Mike Armon before we get to the Jaguars and what
happened to them against the Patriots and in subsequent years,
(23:25):
you know, we spent a lot of time talking about
John Elway and and yes, they wound up winning two
Super Bowls and Terrell Davis was terrific and he was
the guy that finally brought glory to Denver when Denver
really ignored the running back position for the vast majority
of Elway's career, but suddenly was oh, hey, look now
we got a running back and now we're winning. But
after this year, Davis really only had two more years
(23:48):
in the NFL. And that's it. You know, it's hard
to believe he's a Hall of Famer because he he
only had three fantastic years, one good one and that's it.
He had a bad knee injury when he tried to
make a tackle an interception against the Jets in the
game in and that did it for him. I mean,
up until then, he was fantastic. The mile high salute,
(24:08):
you know, the Y two k for him is he
gonna get to two thousand yards and Terrell Davis was
gonna be the it guy in the NFL. But that
was you know, there's only really two more years. And
because he was so good and they won two Super Bowls,
they put him in the Hall of Fame. But boy,
you're really stretching the limit of of how long does
the guy have to play they get in the Hall
of Fame in the National Football League. It's one that
(24:29):
still leaves me uneasy. As brilliant as those three seasons were,
that that's enough to get you in, right, Not that
you want to be a stat at a stats aggregator, right,
because we've got some of those in the mix as well.
Right where there's certainly, you know, the guys that are lifers,
and you say, all right, they got to this giant
(24:50):
pile of receptions or or yardage and and all of
those things. But it's it's just a snapshot. And and
I guess because he got way over that gets him in.
I mean, because it's dominance for a couple of seasons.
But we've got a couple of guys that we'll have
to have conversations about in coming years that were dominant
(25:12):
for a half decade and their induction might be curiosities. Right,
I don't know if the career by time folks listened
to this down the line and it's living in the
podcast world forever, whether Antonio Brown gets back on a
football field. But six seven years about as good as
you've seen as a receiver, chad Ocho sinko, Is he
(25:33):
getting one? Is he getting a bust to go along
with that canton coat that he wore all those years ago?
I mean, he was about as good as it was
for a receiver for four or five years. But again,
does he get lost to history because of the numbers,
you know, whereas here you've gotta have flash for just
three seasons, four good, three great, and he's in the
(25:57):
Hall of fame. I don't begrudge him. I mean, he
know me. It's a museum and you're celebrating the best.
So let's just build a bigger museum and get more
busts in there, more tourism. I always say, but it's
it's one of those great debates. Hundred yards and thirteen
touchdowns in this year, hundred yards and fifteen touchdowns the
(26:18):
next year, and then two thousand and eight and twenty
one touchdowns. You look, it's it's hard you take any
running back from the past twenty years ago. Okay, do
you have three years like that? No, but it still
is only three years. Yeah, you know, it's it's it's
still only three But you win this. Winning the Super
Bowl sometimes does that. And he he was the guy
(26:39):
that Broncos were so good for so long they could
never win. But finally they get him and they win
back to back Super Bowls. But I mean, by way
of contrast, right, you look at saying going into Ezekiel
Elliott's played four years in the league, forty touchdowns. He's
already had three seasons with at least undred fifty rushing yards.
(27:01):
He's got forty eight touchdowns altogether, including a lot more
prominent role in the passing game than Terrell Davis ever did.
So he's at almost seven thousand total yards already, which
is right about where Terrell Davis finished. I mean, just
to put it in perspective, Look, it is like I said, Look,
(27:22):
I was stunned when he got in. I was surprised.
I didn't think that he deserved just because he didn't
play long enough. And and I remember we talked to
Jason Cole, was Pro Football Hall of Fame voter, and
he was like, you know, the conversation wasn't really that
big a deal. It was like Terrell Day, Yeah, Terrell
Davis is in. It's like wow. So it wasn't It
didn't even sound like it was controversial. It was like, yeah,
d D he's in, he's in, he's and he's in.
(27:43):
I'm like, okay, greatness, he's stamp a man and let's go.
So for the Jaguars, they were going big game hunting.
They returned back home and there were forty thousand fans
greeting them at the airport after they beat the Denver
Broncos again a game that nobody saw coming. So now
they got New England in the A f C Championship Game.
Could a team in their second year in existence go
(28:06):
to the Super Bowl? But what killed them in this
game killed them every time they got within a step
of greatness. Turnovers killed them. Early on in the game,
they had the high snap on a punt. Brian Barker
gets tackled at the four yard line. New England scores
a touchdown. Chris Hudson fumbles a punt. New England gets
a field goal. All right, Brunel gets picked in the
(28:26):
end zone. James Stewart's fumbles its return for a touchdown.
Brunel throws another pick, and the New England Patriots are
going to the Super Bowl and the Jaguars are going home.
But you think, okay, all right, it happens they were
a team. They the clock struck midnight for them. Look,
they weren't supposed to beat the Broncos, but they did.
But here comes their era of dominance. Well in ven
(28:47):
they go eleven and five. Here they are, but they
lose the rematch to Denver in Denver seventeen. Denver takes
care of business on their way to the Super Bowl.
All right, but this begins their four year run of
almost for the Jaguars, right, They lost the Jets in
the playoffs and night they lost the a f C
title game to Tennessee in nine nine the only team
(29:09):
they lost to in nine they were fourteen and two.
They lost the Titans three times. What were the common
themes in these games? Turnovers? Four turnovers against the Jets
in ninety eight, including Key Shawn catching an interception on
the final play of the game, when the Jaguars are
throwing up a hell Mary six turnovers against Tennessee in
the a f C title game in h that's true. Yes, hey,
(29:33):
we're not nine in seven this year. We're gonna be great.
But this is what this is what did the Jaguars
in It wasn't that, oh we played a better team here,
a better team, but no turnovers crushed them. It killed
them in the game against the Patriots for the a
s C title game, killed them against the Jets, killed
them against the Tennessee Titans three years later. Had you
just stayed away from that, had you been able to
(29:53):
hold on to the football, you probably win at least
one of those games, and maybe it's a super Bowl
for the Jaguars that you're talking about being the the
ultimate for the organization. But instead it's this game, this win,
the ambush ap mile high. You look back and say,
what's the greatest win in Jaguars history. This is the
game you look back at. But you know, me, the
devil always in the detail, the greatest predictor of wins
(30:15):
and losses to some eight three percent in the National
Football League. Hold on to the stinking ball. That's it.
I mean, don't be errant and passing. And that's the
other thing is is Brunell had an arm to get
it down field, but he had a lollypop kind of
throw off in times. Yeah. Right, there was a lot
of air because there were a number of you know,
(30:36):
near misses. Going back and watching just clips of him
as get ready for the podcast going, you know, reminding
yourself of of all the little things of aret, why
didn't they get over It's like, yeah, that that long
wind up and delivery to the outside. Cornerbacks were licking
their chops on occasion. You know that he just leave
one up a little too much. You know, they were
(30:59):
a team of almost that you thought, it's shocking that
they weren't any better. They didn't at least get to
the Super Bowl. One's not they gotta win one or
win two or be dominant. But boy, they seemed like
they were. And they kept their big three together for
a long time, and like I said, they segued into
Fred Taylor, who was phenomenal pretty easy. You you look
back and go, man, how did this team not win more? How?
(31:21):
How did they wind up shooting themselves in the foot
the whole time? The the Jaguars were the era of
never was. They were almost there and then they never
were And and it doesn't make any sense. A lot
of talent, a lot of stars and big names. And
again you know, talking about Jimmy Smith and how he's
oft forgotten in lists of receivers and you know, talent
(31:43):
over the last twenty years. Fred Taylor's that guy too.
Write Oftentimes it's like, and by the way, don't forget
fred Taylor would have been third on this Listen, Wait
what it's like? Can you remember how good he was?
But then you put the numbers behind it and it
just one of those Sorry, don't forget about them just
because they play in Jacksonville, because that's the norm now, right,
(32:05):
it's just Jacksonville. Uh send him to London. Uh send
him relocate them wherever. Whatever shot Collen wants to do, go,
they don't matter. I mean that's kind of the general attitude.
Even if you have a minshumania for a while, it's
still the all right, it's gonna become Jacksonville again. All Right,
I'm a little where are they now coming off this game?
(32:26):
Let's go defensive lineman Don Davy h He's part of
a wealth management company. Disciplined equity is what it's called.
That's pretty good. Well, you gotta be disciplined if you're
gonna make money. I want to name a horse. Disciplined
Equity's gotta be sixteen letters, right, all right, I'll work
on that. Work on that. See if you can shorten that,
(32:47):
like it's a license plate. Mike Hollis uh doing someone
Hemp based wellness products? Wow, okay, I liked help based
well this' but hemp based is different. Well, you know,
hemp based. You know one of those. You get the
p h Lionel Washington, defense coordinator for the Southern Jaguars
after some coaching stints in the National Football Leagues. Mike Lowdish,
(33:09):
sales manager for clover Dale Equipment, Construction, Equipment and Company. Uh,
and then you got Reggie Rivers, the Galla Team author
does a bunch of stuff helping nonprofits with fundraising strategies,
kind of like you do on air. Sometimes you'll say, Hey,
I've got a good strategy for this company, here, there, everywhere.
(33:31):
That's what Reggie Rivers is doing in his post football career.
So there it is. The where are they Now? The
ambush at Mile High, the big moment in the sun
for the Jacksonville Jaguars, and a lost chance at the
Broncos to be the first team to win three straight
Super Bowls. Jason Smith and Mike Harmon. You can listen
to our show on Fox Sports Radio Monday through Friday,
(33:52):
ten pm to two am on the East Coast, seven
to eleven on the West Coast. If you have an
idea for a future Special Teams broadcast, Hey, let us
know on Twitter at how about a Fresca. Mike is
at Swollen Dome. We'll talk to you next week for
another big NFL game here on Special Teams. Before you go,
(34:21):
rate and review the show. Whether you're listening on I
Heart Radio, I Heart Radio, apps, Apple, whatever it is,
give us a rate, tell us you like it. We
will love you, forever and ever and ever Special Teams
(34:44):
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