ENGLEWOOD, Colo. — Three times during his Hall of Fame playing career, John Elway slogged through the rubble of a Super Bowl landslide.
Forty-eight hours after Denver’s devastating 43-8 defeat by Seattle in this year’s Super Bowl, the Broncos’ boss was asked how long it took him to get over those big blowouts.
“I’m not over them yet,” Elway said. “I just add this one to it.”
Elway understands Broncos fans are struggling to come to grips with just how the highest-scoring team in league history self-destructed and five-time MVP Peyton Manning managed but a single touchdown throw against the Seahawks.
“It was a great year,” Elway said. “We came up short, but it wasn’t due to lack of effort or lack of want-to. We didn’t play very well two days ago. I know that’s what everybody is disappointed about. We’re disappointed about it, players are disappointed. But, it was a hell of a year. We went through a lot of different things, but I’m proud of the team.”
A half-hour later, with coach John Fox by his side and the season-ending news conference wrapping up, Elway asked to add one thing because he felt the need to remind everyone that this season wasn’t an utter failure.
“Right now the focus is on what happened instead of how we got there and what we did this year, what we went through as a team. But I say that the farther you get away from this, the less you concentrate on just that one game, the more you recognize the whole season and really what we did as a football team and really as an organization,” Elway said. “And I’ll tell you what, I’m very proud of that.”
Sure, changes need to be made, he said, but not the wholesale kind.
After the Broncos’ crushing loss to Baltimore in last year’s playoffs, Elway created what Manning called an “uncomfortable atmosphere” around Dove Valley, a reminder of the scar that loss left.
It served as the impetus for this 15-4 season that came up just short of a championship.
Now, Elway’s promising to navigate this offseason with the notion that this Super Bowl loss will drive Denver to next year’s title game in the Arizona desert, and this time, he hopes they’ll be better prepared for the big stage.
“The goal has not changed and it will not change,” Elway insisted. “We will use this as an experience that we went through, be disappointed that we didn’t play better, but the bottom line is this organization and what (team owner) Pat Bowlen wants from this organization — that has not changed and it will not change.
“The bottom line is we’re going to work as hard as we worked this year, if not harder, and continue to do that with the mindset that we want to be world champions and we’re going to do everything we can to get there.”
WR Fitzgerald agrees to restructured deal
PHOENIX — Larry Fitzgerald says he has restructured his contract with the Arizona Cardinals, reducing a big salary-cap hit from his old deal and creating room for signing other players.
Fitzgerald announced the move on Tuesday via his Twitter account. The receiver said the move was made to help the Cardinals “get better for 2014.”
Under his old deal, Fitzgerald would have earned $12.75 million next season and counted a whopping $18 million on the cap.
Texts published in bullying episode
As the football world waits this week for Ted Wells’ report on the Miami Dolphins’ bullying scandal, fresh context into the relationship between Jonathan Martin and Richie Incognito emerged Monday.
USA Today published more than 1,000 text messages between the two former teammates late in the day, a back-and-forth that would seem to suggest that Martin was more participant in bawdy behavior than victim of it.
The two men would often profanely discuss their sexual conquests and taste for nightlife. The correspondence appears to support Incognito’s contention that the two men were friends, but certainly, the language used would be offensive to many.
By wire sources