N.Y. Jets at Denver


Breaking down the Jets and Broncos


Testaverde, Elway square off in intriguing battle


Focal Point: Shanahan vs. Parcells


Theismann: Guide to the title games


Budding backs remain buddies


Smith: 'Little General,' big results


Jets must get off runway quickly


Tackling the Tuna

John Elway's Mile High career has to end Sunday the way Michael Jordan's career ended last summer in Utah, the way Ted Williams' career ended with a Fenway Park home run so perfect and poetic only the great writer John Updike could do it real justice.

	John Elway hopes to exit Mile High Stadium bound for his fifth Super Bowl.

It has to end this way: Jets lead 27-21 with 54 seconds left, the Broncos' ball on the 27-yard line, two timeouts left. Elway enters the huddle, looks around, flashes that toothy smile, says, "Now let's not score too quickly, boys," and fashions a ridiculous, five-play, 73-yard drive, replete with laser-like passes down the middle and absurd scrambles, chaos turned to choreography, the Last Drive, the perfect denouement.

"The way I see it, he has to go off that field Sunday a winner," teammate Keith Burns said. "If this is going to be his last game (at Mile High Stadium), you can't let him walk off the field any other way. It just wouldn't be right. The legend of John Elway starts and ends with the fact he's the most winning quarterback in history. His career, especially here, can't end with a loss."

It cannot end the way it ended for the legendary Joe Montana. Some of us were there that afternoon in Miami in 1994. It was a first-round playoff game, a Kansas City loss to the Dolphins, and afterward, Montana sat in a steamy corner of the visitors' locker room fending off the retirement questions, getting agitated, looking smaller than he had ever looked before. A few days later, he stood at a podium in a city where he did little more than borrow a few more years and retired. There was no poetry there, no nobility.

It cannot end the way it ends for so many members of sports royalty: Willie Mays circling hopelessly under a pop fly, Magic Johnson being hounded from the game by fears about HIV, Larry Bird reduced to lying flat on the floor with back spasms, or any one of a number of boxers who ended up punch-drunk, aimless and pathetic.

Now this team that scripts its first 15-20 plays can help script the perfect Elway ending, the kind of ending we almost never see in sports -- unless, of course, it involves Jordan. The Broncos gave Elway his championship last year. This Sunday, they can go one better: Give him the enduring memory of a final Mile High afternoon, leaving the field on his teammates' shoulders, being swallowed up by the shadows of the South Stands, the din of gratitude echoing like a half-million thank-yous.

"I don't know if John has given it much thought, but I have," said his father, Jack. "It wouldn't surprise me if this is his last game here. It's not something we've talked about, so I can't tell you he's told me what he's going to do. But it's entirely possible. It's been a long, long run.

"When it happens, there's going to be a part of me that's going to be really happy for him and what he's accomplished, but a part that will be sad that the era is over. It'll be very bittersweet, for me and, I think, for a lot of people."

And what might Jack Elway think about as he watches his son play here for what everybody expects will be the last time? The funniest thing: He will recall how John didn't want to play quarterback.

It's true. Jack was leaving for a recruiting trip for the University of Montana, and before he left, he told his wife, "When you sign John up for pee-wee football, sign him up as a quarterback."

When Jack returned from the trip, he was informed John had signed up as a running back and linebacker.

"Dad," John told his father, "quarterback is too boring."

Nearly 30 years later, he is poised to leave the game as one of its greatest quarterbacks, if not the greatest. And he is ready to do it in a rare and stylish way, with his game and health intact, with his legacy secure, in the knowledge he is leaving before anybody had to ask him to leave.

"This game retires a lot of guys," Broncos guard Mark Schlereth said. "If you can go out on your own terms in this sport, you've accomplished something."

So Sunday is it.

On Sunday, Elway gives his valedictory in the house he, for all intents and purposes, built. On Sunday, a sports era ends here, with Elway saying his goodbyes, and Denver paying homage. The days of civic denial are over. Sunday, finally, is it, even if Denver's most important athlete still refuses publicly to confront the possibility, the primary reason being his desire to put the game ahead of his farewell. But his head coach knows, and his tight end knows and, well, everybody in that locker room knows, and for the first time this week, they were willing to acknowledge the fact for the record.

Take a cerebral snapshot Sunday. Embrace the moment Sunday. Bring your love Sunday.

"I'm going to have a hard time controlling my emotions," Jack Elway allowed.

He is not alone.

Bob Kravitz writes for the Rocky Mountain News.