Draft Day Drama: The Colts and the Elway Saga

On April twenty sixth, nineteen eighty three, the Baltimore Colts select John Elway as the first pick in the NFL Draft, creating one of the first ever trade demands in NFL history. When John Elway said he refused to play for the Colts, he was a story behind this iconic moment. Today on Daily Sports History, Welcome to Daily Sports History. I'm Ethan Reese, your guide to a rapid deep dive in sports history every day. John Elway was the son of a football coach. His dad, Jack, had been coaching basically his entire life, and by the time he entered college, he was actually the head coach at San Diego State and he offered John scholarship, but John decided to go to Stanford, a much larger and more established program, as John was one of the top recruits in the whole nation. While out Stanford, he proved to be one of the top quarterbacks in the whole country, and by his senior year, he finished seconds in the Heisman voting behind Herschel Walker and he was rejected to be the number one pick in the NFL Draft. But John Elway's father didn't like the coach, Frank Cush that was coaching the Colts and didn't think John would fit in their system, so they told the Colts in the nation that he would never play for the Colts. But the Colts were in dire straits. They were a team struggling. They had lost Johnny Unitis and they needed their next great quarterback and John Elway looked like a can't miss Hall of Fame quarterback coming out of college, which he did become, so they weren't wrong. But they also thought that if they drafted him and he actually came to the team, he would suit up as he saw how much the city loved the team and how great of a program they had. But John had something up a sleeve. See. John was also a great baseball player. In college, he had a batting average of over three hundred. It was actually selected in the second round of the nineteen eighty two MLB draft by the New York Yankees and was given contract worth one hundred and fifty thousand dollars and Elways said, if you draft me, I will go play baseball. And he had actually played with the Yankees in the Winner League, having a lot of success. Although many scouts debate whether he would have been a great baseball player. All kind of agree he would have been a starter, but maybe not an All Star or MVP level like he was in football. So they thought football was his better sport and he would make much more money being a starting quarterback in the NFL than a possible starter in a couple of years in Major League Baseball. But this goes to show you how much John and his father Jack did not want him to play for the Colts. Another option that John actually had was the USFL, which was an upstart spring league that already signed Heisman Trophy winner hersher Walker to the league and were looking for other high quality players out of college, and their team, the Oakland Invaders, negotiated and offered a contract to Lway worth roughly two hundred and fifty thousand dollars a year, not a bad contract, but John would actually go on to sign a contract with the Denver Broncos worth over one million dollars a year, and he also wanted to maintain its amateur status to play to play baseball that year, so he decided not to sign with the USFL, but it may have been an option. If the Colts continue to keep Ohway, then comes April twenty sixth, nineteen eighty three, the NFL Draft is about to start and the Colts are on the clock with the first pick, and they pick John Elway. Despite all the options, Elway has and repeatedly sitting he does not want to play for the Colts, But the Colts could miss the chance at having possibly the next great Hall of Fame quarterback in Ernie A. Corse. The general manager couldn't risk that chance. But the moment they drafted him, every team started to call with offers. But the Colt shem Ernie was not gonna let go John Elway, but his owner, Bob Ersay may have had other plans. See, he had been talking with the Denver Broncos owner edgark Heiser about possibilities that maybe they could make a deal for Elway. Now we've talked about Bob Ersay in a previous episode about the Colts leaving Baltimore going to Indianapolis, and this was right around that time when they were discussing this, and many think that Bob Ersay actually traded John Elway just so he could move the team, as he had already started looking for locations, and that may have been the case. Because Bob Ersay agreed to a deal with the Denver Broncos, going over the head of his general manager, and on May seconds a deal was finalized, sending Chris Hitton, an offensive lineman and the Broncos first round pick that year, along with backup quarterback Mark Herman and the Broncos first pick in the eighty four draft, along with cash to the Colts for John Olway. Now, Chris Hinton was number two on the Colts board to Dreft, which is the main reason they made this deal because they really liked Chris Hinton as well. But this changed the course of each team, as the next year the Colts would move to Indianapolis and not make the Super Bowl until two thousand and six, whereas the Denver Broncos would go on to make five Super Bowls, winning two of them in John Elway becoming a nine time Pro Bowler and a League MVP in a Hall of Famer. Lots of dominoes had to fail for all this to happen. This changed the course of the league, but if the Colts would have got John Elway, they never would have got Peyton Manny as their careers overlapped, so it's hard to argue who got the better end of the deal, but it's easy to say the Broncos got the better end of the deal getting two Super Bowls to the Colts only getting one since then. But this moment also led to showing the power players have and giving them power versus the owners and the teams. Because even if John Elway never planned to go play baseball, if he was just bluffy, it still gave him the option to stand up for himself on where he wanted to play, which in the eighties was very hard as free agency didn't happen until the nineteen nineties. In the NFL, this trade will always be in the NFL history as a player first move, showing players actually do have power to stand up for themselves. And we see all the time where players get put in the wrong situation in their careers, go downhill, or never get started. Sometimes the right place is all you need to be, so search out for the right place in your life. The right place for you tomorrow is more Daily Sports History, so follow and subscribe. Wherever you're at, the right place for you is Daily Sports History.