It Worked For Elway, But What About Manning?



John Elway had The Drive, a 98-yard tour of the football field in a last-minute rally to defeat the Cleveland Browns in the 1986 AFC Championship Game.

Yet let us not forget he also was author of The Snub, which could be the blueprint for what Eli Manning might visit upon the San Diego Chargers this afternoon.

Just as Manning insists he won't play for the Chargers, Elway made it clear to the Baltimore Colts in April 1983: If they selected him with the first pick in the NFL Draft, he would not report.

The Colts selected him, anyway, then dealt him off to the Denver Broncos six days later, and the rest is, well, you know, history.

The Manning/Elway story is replete with connections. In 1983, shortly before the draft, the Colts, rather than go to the wall with Elway, were close to swapping him to the Chargers.

And the general manager at Baltimore 21 years ago was Ernie Accorsi, then 41, who today is general manager of the New York Giants, to whom the Chargers probably will deal Manning.

Accorsi isn't giving advice to the Chargers, but he'll defend forever drafting Elway -- at least taking a chance that he would change his mind.

"Answer me one question," Accorsi told reporters in New York a few days ago. "Would any of these coaches have said, `Yes, I'll take Elway in his prime.' How many are going to say, `No, I'm not going to take him. I'll go with what I have.' No, they're going to take Elway."

Shortly after Elway was elected to the Pro Football Hall of Fame in January, his first NFL coach, Dan Reeves, recalled in an article he wrote for those crazy days in 1983, when for a time, he thought there was no way the Broncos would pry Elway loose from the Colts.

Denver had worked hard to trade with Baltimore before the draft, but the Colts were holding out for multiple first-round picks plus players.

"The morning of the draft Colts head coach Frank Kush called me and asked who I thought we would take with our pick, No. 4 overall," wrote Reeves. "I told him if things go the way they go, we liked Chris Hinton, a tackle from Northwestern."

Kush then broached the possibility of a deal.

"At the time, I thought they had made a trade with San Diego, who had the pick after us [No. 5], and the Chargers would get Elway. So I told him we probably weren't interested, but if it comes to that point and things fall that way to give us a call."

The Colts took Elway, just as the Chargers today probably will take Manning. Denver selected Hinton at No. 4, and the controversy hit full force. Elway made good on his threat, and the Colts, if they weren't previously convinced of Elway's resolve, were now.

But a few days later, Denver owner Edgar Kaiser told Reeves a deal was in place. The Broncos would get Elway and the Colts would get quarterback Mark Herrmann, Hinton and a first-round pick in 1984. "What else?" Reeves asked. "That's it," Kaiser replied.

Reeves shot back: "In a heartbeat." Kaiser might have added that he also paid Baltimore owner Robert Irsay $1 million, but that really didn't affect Reeves.

One Denver newspaper called it The Rocky Mountain Heist.

However, other than sharing a refusal to report to Baltimore or San Diego and the fact that they're both quarterbacks, there are major differences between the Elway and Manning situations.

If the Chargers draft Manning and hold onto him for a season, he loses a year of football. He can sit home and chart plays on the TV set for brother Peyton.

Elway, however, was a very good baseball player who had been drafted by the New York Yankees, and that gave him leverage.

It wasn't Baltimore's 0-8-1 record in the strike-shortened 1982 season that fired Elway's dislike for the Colts. It was Kush, an arch-enemy of his father, Jack Elway. Kush and Elway had run-ins when Kush was coaching Arizona State and Elway was at San Jose State.

Elway wasn't the only first-round quarterback to refuse to sign with his drafting club. In 1987, Kelly Stouffer of Colorado State, over-drafted by the St. Louis Cardinals at No. 6 in the first round (five picks after Vinny Testaverde), didn't like the money being offered and never signed.

Teams have one year to sign a player after he's drafted. If they're unsuccessful, he goes back into the next draft.

On April 23, 1988, just before the succeeding draft, the Cardinals, who had since moved to Phoenix, dealt Stouffer's rights to Seattle for a fifth-round pick in '88 and first- and fifth-round picks in 1989. Stouffer had a four-year career in which he threw eight touchdown passes and 19 interceptions.

No one expects numbers like that from Manning.

Charles Bricker can be reached at

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