The Denver Gazette reports that former Denver Broncos quarterback Craig Morton has died at 83. Morton was a Ring of Fame member and the quarterback who led Denver to its first Super Bowl appearance after the 1977 season, a turning point for a franchise that had not yet become the orange-and-blue institution Colorado knows today.
The story notes that Morton played 18 NFL seasons, including six with the Broncos from 1977 to 1982. In that magical 1977 run, he was named the AFC Offensive Player of the Year and PFWA Comeback Player of the Year, helped Denver win its first playoff game, and carried the Broncos to Super Bowl XII against his former team, the Dallas Cowboys. The ending was not exactly a Disney movie. The Cowboys beat the tar out of Denver. But the beginning mattered. Morton helped make the Broncos matter.
Sports is not usually my lane. I talk politics, issues, passions, Jesus, and the occasional bureaucratic clown show that crawls out from under a state statute. But today, a piece of Colorado’s past died. And for a lot of us who grew up with Craig Morton under center, that hits in a place box scores do not reach.
The Bullet Point Brief
- Craig Morton, the former Broncos quarterback who led Denver to its first Super Bowl appearance, died Saturday at 83, according to the team and his family. That is not just sports news. That is Colorado memory.
- Morton came to Denver in 1977 and helped turn a franchise into a statewide obsession. Before that, the Broncos were mostly a hobby for patient people with orange coats and strong coping skills.
- His 1977 season was the stuff of old-school football myth: new coach, new quarterback, rowdy fans, big wins, and a city discovering it had a team worth standing up for.
- The Super Bowl did not go well. Denver ran into the Dallas Cowboys and got kicked around like a coffee can in a gravel driveway. Still, getting there changed everything.
- Morton finished his Broncos career with major franchise records at the time and was inducted into the Ring of Fame in 1988. That is how you know a man left tracks deeper than the stat sheet.
My Bottom Line
I do not pretend to be a sports guy. Never have. I have loosely followed the Broncos my whole life because I am a Colorado homer, and they are my team in the way your hometown diner is your diner even when you do not eat there every week. I checked out of the NFL for a while when it got so painfully woke it became less football and more sermon with shoulder pads. Bo Nix brought me back a little. Youth, grit, promise, and a little bit of fun can do that.
But Craig Morton was the Broncos quarterback when I was in high school. That matters. He was part of the background music of a simpler time, or at least a time that seems simpler now because memory has mercy. He took Denver to its first Super Bowl, and then, yes, promptly got his ass kicked by the Cowboys. But every Broncos fan of a certain age remembers the ride more than the crash.
Pieces of my past are starting to die. Maybe yours are too. The athletes. The voices. The places. The old landmarks. The people who remind us of who we were before mortgages, meetings, politics, deadlines, surgeries, and funerals started taking up more room on the calendar. Can I be far behind? Can any of us? No one knows the date or the hour.
So yes, I write about things that matter. Elections matter. Budgets matter. Corruption matters. Liberty matters. But none of it matters more than remembering we do not wear opposing jerseys in real life. We are all Team Human. More importantly, we are all children of God. Our days are numbered, and maybe we could stop shouting each other down long enough to extend one another a tiny fraction of the grace He extends to us.
Rest in peace, Craig Morton. I remember you fondly.
Source: The Denver Gazette
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