Montana-Elway, 15 Years Ago Today

It was a chilly evening in Denver 15 years ago on the evening of October 17, 1994.

But the action on the field at Mile High Stadium was hot. And epic, and unforgettable.

The Chiefs against the Broncos. Joe Montana versus John Elway. Monday night football.

Several years ago, ABC conducted a poll to determine the greatest games in the history of Monday Night Football. The ‘94 victory by the Chiefs over the Broncos ranked among the five most memorable games in what is now a nearly 40 years for the historic national TV broadcast.

“Those kinds of battles you get in are the fun games for a quarterback,” Montana said several years ago. “You’re going against the guy that can, you know if you let him back on the field, he’ll do the same thing back to you.”

It was not a night for only the future Hall of Fame quarterbacks. It was an AFC West showdown. It was Marty Schottenheimer against the Broncos, which always made for a great plot. Derrick Thomas, Marcus Allen and Shannon Sharpe were on the field. So were another 60 or so players who all helped shape an evening to remember.

This game was tied 7-7, then 14-14 at half-time and 21-21 at the end of the third quarter. There was just about four minutes to play in the game when Chiefs K Lin Elliott knocked through a 19-yard FG to give the Chiefs a 24-21 lead.

And then Sharpe fumbled the ball and the Chiefs recovered. They had the ball. They had only a few minutes to kill and the guy who had led five comeback victories against Kansas City was on the sideline.

It wouldn’t be that easy. Allen fumbled the ball right back to the Broncos and Elway led his team on a six-play, 39-yard drive that ended with his four-yard TD run. With the PAT kick, Denver now led 28-24 with 1 minute, 29 seconds to play.

Montana led the Chiefs offense on the field, the ball at their 25-yard line and they had to have a touchdown; a field goal wasn’t going to be enough. Montana began picking apart the Broncos defense. Like a surgeon, he sliced away at the unit, taking the short underneath throws that were wide open. Montana ended up hitting seven of eight throws in the drive.

And he spread the ball around. There was the 11-yard pass to FB Kimble Anders, a 12-yard throw to TE Derrick Walker and then a 19-yarder to rookie TE Tracy Greene who got rocked by the Broncos on the tackle, but held onto the ball.

Then, Montana threw to his right, where WR Willie Davis grabbed the ball, did a tight rope on the sideline and the goal line pylon and got in for the touchdown. The PAT made it 31-28 with eight seconds to play.

“He makes a great catch, squeezes it in the end zone, and, and it was right in front of my wife and daughter who happened to be on the field,” said Montana. “She was working for one of the TV stations there, and I kind of knew in the back of my mind that it was closing in on the end of my career, and to be able to do that and have them there was pretty special.”

Montana finished the night 34-for-54 for 393 yards, 3 TDs and 1 INT. Walker caught eight passes for 98 yards and Davis, WR J.J. Birden and OT Joe Valerio caught touchdown passes. Allen ran for 63 yards on 16 carries. The Chiefs defense had six sacks, with Smith getting 2.5 of those and Thomas one sack.

But it was the showcase of Montana and Elway, under the lights that made it one of the most memorable games in Chiefs history. Plus, it was one of the few times that Kansas City was able to beat Elway in Denver.

“You can’t afford to give a player that relishes being in that time of the game any time on the clock,” Montana said of Elway. “And the best thing you can see is when it says zero, because then you know, even if he’s got the ball in his hand, he can’t do anything with it.”

On that night 15 years ago, it was Joe’s Night, not John’s.