Fifty for 150: John Elway leads Denver Broncos to first Super Bowl win in 1998

On Jan. 25, 1998, a 37-year old John Elway lined up on the 12-yard line at Qualcomm Stadium in San Diego. It was the third quarter of Super Bowl XXXII, and Elway’s Denver Broncos, tied 17-17 with the Green Bay Packers, needed a first down.

This story is part of Colorado at 150. Each Fifty for 150 story focuses on an event that helped define Colorado over 150 years of statehood. Newsline is publishing one Fifty for 150 story every weekday in reverse chronological order until the sesquicentennial, Aug. 1, when the final of 50 stories, about the declaration of statehood, will appear.

Elway took the snap and dropped back, but he couldn’t find an open receiver. So he dashed off to the right until he dove forward as he met three Packers defenders who sent him spinning in the air. It was a spectacular conclusion to a key play that’s come to be known as “The Helicopter.” Elway got the first down, and two plays later running back Terrell Davis, who was playing with a migraine, scored the go-ahead touchdown.

The Broncos, founded in 1960, had a rough early go as a pro team. The franchise didn’t have a winning season until 1973. But soon the team entered a decades-long era of success, endearing themselves to local fans and becoming the object of Colorado lore. The team made it to the Super Bowl for the first time in 1977, then three more times before the 1997 season, though it failed to capture the championship in each of those games.

A big reason for the team’s growing success was Elway, a college star who joined the roster in 1983. He led the Broncos to the Super Bowl after the 1986, 1987 and 1989 seasons. The team’s luck would turn around during Super Bowl XXXII in San Diego. After The Helicopter, the Broncos maintained their dominance over the Packers and won their first NFL championship. They’d go on to repeat the feat the following year, when they beat the Atlanta Falcons 31-19 in storybook fashion: Elway was voted the Super Bowl MVP, and it was the last professional football game he played.

The Broncos appeared in three more Super Bowls, winning one, for a total of eight. Only the New England Patriots have made it to more Super Bowls (11).

“The Denver Broncos have been one of pro football’s biggest winners since the merger of the American and National Football Leagues in 1970,” according to the Pro Football Hall of Fame. “The Broncos’ on-the-field success is more than matched by a spectacular attendance record of sellout crowds.”

For many years, those crowds gathered to watch their team at a site west of downtown Denver at first known as Bears Stadium, when it sat 35,000. The facility was later expanded and dubbed Mile High Stadium. The team’s current home opened in 2001, immediately south of the old site, as Invesco Field at Mile High, but that stadium is expected soon to be replaced. Future Broncos fans can plan to watch their home team play at a new stadium with a retractable roof at Burnham Yard, just southwest of downtown. The facility is scheduled to open in 2031.