It’s been 20 years since the last time a highly-touted quarterback pulled a John Elway and refused to play for the team that was poised to draft him.
Not everybody was a fan of it at the time (or later) including legendary Steelers quarterback Terry Bradshaw who was very vocal about Elway’s decision back in 1983.
He didn’t want to go to a team that needed his services. The thing in the National Football League is the team with the worst record gets an opportunity to improve by picking the best player. And Elway going to Baltimore would have helped them a lot. And by him saying, ‘I don’t want to do that,’ to me, it was a slap in the face to the draft and to the National Football League.
The former No. 1 pick went on to say that he could’ve pulled the same thing when he was entering the NFL but didn’t and was all the better for it.
I could have come out of Louisiana when I was the first player picked and said, ‘Well, hold it. I don’t want to go up to Pittsburgh. It’s ugly, it’s cold, the people don’t understand a southern boy, and I want to be close to my mama.’ I could have done the same thing, but I didn’t. I went. And the thing why I went was because they were 1-13. I said, ‘Well, I’ll go up there and I’ll make them a winner.’ And we did. So, the challenge of that and proving to him everybody that I was worthy of being the first draft choice was what inspired me to go on and do the things that we’ve done.
Bradshaw even went as far as saying that Elway should’ve played baseball because “he’s not the kind of guy you win championships with.”
Nine Pro Bowls, two Super Bowl rings, an MVP and a gold jacket later it’s clear Elway made the right decision (even if it took him a little while). The irony: Bradshaw was the one to hand Elway his career-capping Lombardi after back-to-back championships in 1998.