The Refusal 1983 — John Elway, the Colts, and the QB Class That Changed Everything”

The letter is polite, direct and devastating.

It says essentially, do not draft me.

I will not play for you.

I will play baseball instead.

I'm serious now.

The Colts have the first pick.

And their head coach, Frank Kush, was sued for a million dollars by a punter at Arizona State who claimed Kush punched him in the face.

Their owner, Robert Irsay, was a volatile alcoholic who once traded hall of Fame tight end in the prime of his career.

The franchise is by any measure a disaster.

At this point, the letter changes nothing.

Quarterback Stanford Elway is at home in California.

He doesn't smile, he doesn't put on a Colts cap.

He does tells the cameras, I have to make a decision because between football and baseball, the most consequential draft standoff in NFL history has just begun.

Johnny Unitis had built the foundation.

Memorial Stadium was one of the loudest places in football.

And then the wheels came off.

It was never the same.

The defense allowed more points than any team in the league that year.

And presiding over it all was Robert Irsay.

He fired coaches compulsively.

He traded away stars.

He inserted himself into the football decisions he had no business in making.

Players despised him, coaches feared him, and Baltimore fans, once among the most loyal in football, started staying home.

And then there was a head coach, Frank Kush, now at Arizona State.

Kush built a powerhouse program on discipline and intimidation.

His practices were notorious for their brutality.

Kush denied it, but the suit still dragged on for years and the allegations followed him everywhere.

Into this environment.

The Colts wanted to draft John Elway, the son of a coach, the most polished quarterback prospect anybody had seen in many years.

Now, John Elway's father, Jack, was an assistant coach at Stanford at the time, and he knew Frank Kush's reputation.

He told his son and told reporters publicly that John would not play for Kush.

Not for the money, not for the prestige, not for the first overall pick.

Now, this wasn't about losing.

The Colts were bad, fine.

The rookie quarterbacks joined bad teams all the time.

This, this is about a franchise that in Elway's family's judgment was fundamentally broken from ownership to the sideline.

And this was no place for a 22 year old kid about to start his career.

It shows John Elway in a New York Yankees uniform.

The pinstripes, the interlocking NY on his chest and a wooden bat in his hands.

And he has a batting helmet pulled low.

He's standing in the batter's box at Damansky Field in Oneada, New York.

And he looks like he belongs there.

And that is because he did belong.

And in the New York PEN League, a class A short season affiliate of the New York Yankees, he hit.318.

He drove in 25 runs and he stole 13 bases.

He led the team in batting average.

The Yankees saw a future big league right fielder and with power, speed and a kind of competitive makeup that you just can't teach.

And when Elway told the Colts he'd play baseball instead of, he wasn't bluffing.

He had a contract offer.

He had a path to be a major league baseball player.

And here's the thing.

Elway understood that most draft picks didn't.

The lnfl draft was a monopoly.

One team, one pick, no options.

You went where you were told and you or you didn't play at all.

But Elway had something that no top quarterback pick had ever had before.

A viable, lucrative alternative career in another professional sport.

His agent, Marvin Dimoff, framed it simply.

John is not saying he won't play football.

He's saying he won't play football.

For the Baltimore Colts, it was a power move that the NFL had never seen.

A 22 year old kid telling the system no and having the leverage to mean it.

Ernie, of course he was the general manager of the Baltimore Colts then and he was in an impossible situation now.

The Colts knew that Elway wouldn't play for Baltimore.

Elway's agent had told him directly.

Jack Elway had told him publicly.

The letter, had said it in writing.

Every other team in the league knew it too, which meant trade offers were depressed.

Why give up a fortune for a player who might play baseball?

But Irsay, the owner, insisted draft Elway, trade him if you have to.

Do not pass up the most valuable asset in the draft.

Of course he drafted Elway and then he went to work.

Two teams emerged as serious suitors.

The Los Angeles Raiders and the Denver Broncos.

The Raiders, with Al Davis, were always aggressive, but the Broncos had something that the colts wanted.

The Colts sent John Elway's rights to Denver in exchange for Chris Hinton, the fourth overall pick.

It was by the standards of franchise altering quarterback trades, modest.

Hinton was a legitimate building block.

The first rounder had value.

But for John Elway, for a quarterback who would start five Super Bowls and win two and enter into the hall of Fame, the cost was negligible.

Now the Broncos were not in an obvious destination.

They had made the playoffs only once in the previous four years.

Their quarterback situation was unstable.

Steve Deberg, a journeyman, was the incumbent.

Their head coach, Dan Reeves, was young and unproven.

But they were a stable organization with a strong defense and a fan base.

Desperate for a franchise quarterback, La signed a five year, $5 million quarterback, at the time the richest rookie deal in NFL history.

The rookie season was humbling.

Elway started 10 games, he won four, he completed 47 1/2% of his passes, and he threw only seven touchdowns and 14 interceptions.

His passer rating was a dismal 54.9, and he was benched for Steve DeBurgh at times, including a playoff game against Seattle when The Broncos lost 317 and Elway watched most of the second half from the sideline.

By any statistical standard, it was a bad rookie season, but stats don't capture what the Broncos saw under.

It was LA's first game in a city that he'd refused to call home.

The Colts fans, what was left of them, booed him every time he took the field, and by halftime The Colts led 19 0.

The boos were justified.

Elway had done nothing.

And then in the fourth quarter, Elway did what Elway would do for the rest of the next 16 years of his career.

He threw three touchdown passes in 10 minutes and eight seconds.

Of 47 total 35 in a regular season and 12 more in the playoffs.

The Colts and the franchise Elway had refused were eliminated from playoff contention by the quarterback they drafted and then traded.

Now The Broncos finished 9 and 7, and they made a playoffs for the first time in four years.

Elway's rookie numbers were ugly, but everyone whoever watched knew that the Broncos had found their quarterback.

They appeared in 17 Super Bowls.

They won seven, and it just almost didn't happen that way.

Now Dan Marino fell to 27th, 27th.

Five quarterbacks were drafted before the greatest pure passer in NFL history.

The Pittsburgh Steelers, needing a quarterback to replace Terry Bradshaw, instead took a defensive tackle, Gabriel Rivera, Senor Sack, who had played six games before a drunk driving crash left him paralyzed.

Kansas City also needed a quarterback, and they took Todd Blackledge seventh overall.

Both Jim Kelly and Dan Marino were still left on the board, and Blackledge started 24 games for Kansas City, threw more interceptions and touchdowns and was out of the league in seven years.

Jim Kelly went 14th to Buffalo, but only after the Bills drafted him.

Six he played.

He led Buffalo to four consecutive Super Bowls.

Ken O' Brien went 24th to the Jets, a pick widely mocked at the time because Marino was still on the board.

O' Brien became a two time Pro Bowler and threw for over 25,000 yards.

Tony Eason went fifth to the Patriots.

He led New England to Super Bowl 20 and was sacked more times in that Game 6 than any other quarterback in super bowl history.

And Elway, he went first.

He fought it, he won and he became the face of an entire franchise.

We are so glad that you joined us here today for some great football history.

1983 Is our week.

That's on our timeline.

If you haven't checked out yet, go to PigSkinDispatch.com timeline you'll see if you just go to PigSkinDispatch.com you'll see timelines up at the top.

You can pick by the year, you can pick by the day.

We're going to bring you the history from that year along with our timeline to help guide you.

So many things to do on Pigskin Dispatch and we hope you enjoy them all.

We hope you're enjoying this podcast and don't forget our YouTube channel and our many games that we have on pigskindispatch.com as well the gridiron themed games.

Mahjong is our latest for some great football.

If you're getting into all your football stuff and you're letting that percolate in your head a little bit, all the football history, you want to take a little bit of time to detour, but you still want some football.

Football majong on pigsian dispatch.com is just for you.

Keep you busy, keep you thinking, keep those gears well oiled to take some more football history in the next time.

Until next time, we wish you all a great, great Irish.