When Denver Broncos icon John Elway orchestrated the team’s last road win over the Philadelphia Eagles in the 1980s, he never would have imagined it would take another 39 years until the next one.
Elway helped the Broncos win three World Championships as a player and general manager. Denver got the Philly monkey off its back on Sunday, and the magnitude of the four-point win resonated with the Hall-of-Fame legend.
“Understanding that they’re a good football team because they’re a young football team, and the confidence that they have to be able to go into Philadelphia and defeat the… defending champs, it gives them that feeling that they can compete with anybody in this league,” Elway said, via Forbes‘ DJ Siddiqi. “They’re as good as the Eagles are, as good as there are in this league. To be able to go into their backyard and beat them is just a tremendous boost for the Broncos and the organization and the fan base.”
Ultimately, past history tells us that big statement victories only hold water if a team can use it as a stepping stone to more wins. On that particular front, the Broncos’ energy-sapping trip to London to face the winless New York Jets adds layers of difficulty to contend with.
Even so, Elway is well aware that a major springboard moment just happened for this emerging Denver team, although he’s somewhat reluctant to call it a “signature” victory.
“Even though the Broncos made the playoffs last year, it’s been 2015 since we’ve been to a Super Bowl,” Elway told Forbes. “Working our way back to that, you don’t like to say regular season games are signature wins, but I think with where the Broncos are, I think it’s as good a win for them as far as just confidence.”
After the statement win over the reigning Super Bowl Champions, the young Broncos are proving to themselves what they might already have known. That they’re a force to be reckoned with.
Elway has ridden in enough rodeos himself to understand how all young teams with lofty ambitions absolutely need and crave that seismic moment to really announce themselves.
“When you’re young and you have a young football team, that’s the hardest thing to get—is to understanding how good they are,” Elway told Siddiqi. “I think this really helps them get to that point that they can beat anybody in this league, and they can compete for Super Bowls.”
As important as the 21-17 coming-out party on the East Coast was, the Broncos are far too talented to already have two last-second losses on their record. Elway appears to lament how the Broncos let those two games slip away at the final gun to the Indianapolis Colts and Los Angeles Chargers, but that simply has to be put down to experience.
“They’re 3-2 now. They had two really tough losses to Indy and the Chargers, and two games they should have won and could have won—but they didn’t—and that’s the NFL,” Elway said. “But to be able to do this, I think, will just hopefully vault them into the rest of the year and they can continue to grow on this victory and understand how good a football team they are.”
Given the feisty and never-say-die nature of the Broncos’ 18-point fourth-quarter comeback in Philly, the message has been sent across the league that Sean Payton’s team can take a punch and come back stronger.
Championship seasons often feature major streaks being broken along the way, and while it’s a little too early to tell conclusively yet, the Broncos’ first win against the Eagles in Philadelphia since 1986 has some gravitas to it.
Just ask Elway.
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