This was a few days after John Elway was named the Broncos’ executive vice president of football operations on Jan. 5, 2011. Elway was sitting in the office of his boss, Joe Ellis, Denver’s team president, and the two men were exchanging ideas, talking shop, talking about the future.
“I’d like to pick the brains of some longtime GMs,” Elway said. “But to be honest, I don’t know a lot of GMs.”
“Well there’s one guy you should definitely talk to,” Ellis said.
“Who’s that?” Elway asked.
“Ernie Accorsi,” Ellis said.
Elway started to laugh, gently at first, then heartily, and said, “I’d be happy to talk to Ernie Accorsi if he’ll take my call.” He laughed some more.
Ellis was puzzled.
“What’s so funny?” he asked.
“Well,” Elway said. “there’s a little history there.”
Yes. There’s a little history there. In 1983, Elway was the clear No. 1 choice in the NFL Draft out of Stanford. Accorsi was the GM of the Colts, who owned the No. 1 pick that year. Elway had leverage: He had played minor league ball with the Yankees’ farm team in Oneonta the summer before. And he didn’t want to play in Baltimore, or for the Colts, who, by 1983, were nearly finished as a viable NFL franchise.
Don’t draft me, Elway warned. I won’t report.
Accorsi drafted him anyway.
“I came up with the Colts,” Accorsi said. “And because of that I was deeply affected by the fact that we got John Unitas because the Steelers cut him. And I said, ‘I’ll be damned if I’ll go down in history as the guy who traded John Elway, or didn’t pick him when I had the chance to pick him.’ So I picked him.”
On May 2, Accorsi was watching a playoff game between the Celtics and the Bucks on ESPN when an announcer broke in with a bombshell: Colts owner Robert Irsay had just traded Elway to the Broncos. That was news to Accorsi. He dialed up his coach, Frank Kush, and screamed, “Are you watching the basketball game?”
“Hell no,” Kush growled. “I hate basketball.”
“Well, we just lost our quarterback.”
Accorsi can almost laugh about that now, 31 years later. And he certainly can laugh at the irony of receiving a telephone call from John Elway, seeking counsel on how to be a GM three decades after nearly ending Accorsi’s own front-office career before it began.
“Only a funny thing happened,” Accorsi said. “We hit it off beautifully.”
Accorsi had been the one who had given Ozzie Newsome a front-office shot in Cleveland, and he is enough of a sports buff that he says, “Ozzie’s one of only two all-time great players who had what it takes to be a great executive. Jerry West is the other. Maybe Larry Bird, if the Pacers win it all this year. And I think John is right there, also.”
Accorsi’s advice to Elway was a simple one, and a familiar one to Giants fans: Get yourself a franchise quarterback.
And get yourself some defenders who know how to tackle the quarterback. It’s funny, when Broncos coach John Fox was his defensive coordinator, he used to tell Accorsi: “You think the quarterback is too important.”
With those words in mind, Accorsi playfully asked Elway, “John, I’m going to assume you agree with me that the quarterback’s the most important player on your team, right?”
“Yes,” Elway said. “Yes I do.”
Elway did more than seek Accorsi’s advice; he implemented it. From afar, Accorsi has admired what the Broncos have done, marveled at how comfortable Elway is in the job, same as he does with Newsome.
“When Ozzie played, he played with his eyes opened,” Accorsi says. “Guys like that see the world differently than you or I. And after one conversation with John, I felt the same exact way.”
Elway was grateful for the advice. Especially considering … well …
“You know what? With John, it really wasn’t the fact he didn’t play for me that bothered me most,” Accorsi said. “It’s that when I was GM in Cleveland, he beat us three times in the AFC Championship Game. That’s what really stings.”
And, really, the old football man in Accorsi’s soul never could be that mad, because he always goes back to the ’83 East-West Shrine Game — which, amazingly, is the only time the two men ever talked face-to-face. Accorsi had to rush home, was able to see one play: the kid from Stanford whistling a ball off his back foot, across his body, which traveled 80 yards if it went an inch. Accorsi never saw that before. Or since.
“I’ve seen enough,” he said that day.
Accorsi picked the player, and it didn’t work out so well. Thirty years later, the player picked Accorsi’s brain. That’s turned out a lot better.