The Denver Broncos were one of the most successful teams of the 1990s. The biggest reason for that, arguably, was the connection between veteran quarterback John Elway and young tight end Shannon Sharpe.
Advertisement
Despite being a tight end, Sharpe put up numbers similar to a wide receiver thanks to the attention Elway paid him. From 1992 to 1998, when Sharpe was a bona fide starting tight end, he totaled 6,338 receiving yards from his quarterback, Elway. It was the ninth most in the league during that span and nearly 1,500 more than the next-best tight end.
Sharpe had three 1,000-yard seasons over that time, the final one coming in 1997. He finished with 1,107 yards that season, earning a $100,000 bonus from the team. He had fallen five yards short of that milestone in the penultimate game of the season. When he told this to Elway, the quarterback assured Sharpe that he would get his number.
“I said, ‘Man, if I got 1,000 yards I’d have got $100k, I only needed five yards,'” Sharpe remembered telling Elway.
“And you [Elway] looked at me, and you said, ‘Don’t ever let that happen again. I don’t care if you need 25 yards, you tell me, I’ll get you the ball,'” added the former tight end.
The Broncos were coming off two losses going into that final matchup with the San Diego Chargers. They were 11-4 and still pushing for the AFC West division crown. They ended up dominating the hapless 4-12 Chargers by a score of 38-3 to finish the season 12-4.
Denver was still behind the 13-3 Kansas City Chiefs. But they got the last laugh with a Wild Card playoff win over that squad the following week.
Elway knew that he was going to have to get Sharpe involved early in the game against the Chargers since the Broncos took a big lead. But it didn’t matter eventually, as Elway fed him seven targets in the first half to get Sharpe over that 1,000-yard mark.
“And then, we got back out there the following week, and you threw me 13 for 156! I said I needed 13 for a buck-56 last week,” Sharpe recalled, laughing.
View this post on Instagram
With a 24-3 lead coming out of the half, Elway capped off Sharpe’s big day with a 68-yard toss to the big tight end, who scampered all the way to the end zone to put the game out of reach. Sharpe finished with eight receptions for 162 yards and a TD on the day.
Denver got their win, Sharpe got his bonus, and the Broncos went on to win the first Super Bowl in franchise history. It was all coming up aces for you if you were involved with the Denver Broncos in 1997. And Elway and Sharpe were the primary orchestrators.
