N.Y. Jets at Denver


Mile High exit? Elway leads Broncos back to Super Bowl


Elway takes the fifth


Davis' legs steady wobbly Broncos

DENVER -- Special teams and the wind -- it's a combination that can produce the most unlikely of events on a football field.

	Even Jason Elam's mistakes were cause for celebration Sunday.

On Sunday afternoon, Mother Nature helped blow the Denver Broncos back on course toward Super Bowl XXXIII in Miami.

The Broncos will get the chance to defend their title thanks to a 167-yard rushing performance by Terrell Davis, just enough of John Elway's arm in his farewell to Mile High Stadium and three field goals by Jason Elam.

But, strangely enough, Denver's 23-10 victory over the Jets can also be partially attributed to a faux pas by Elam.

A simple third-quarter kickoff by the strong-legged Elam helped turn the tide in Denver's favor. Elam's kick got caught in the wind, landed somewhere around the Jets' 25 and was recovered by the Broncos' Keith Burns.

That kickoff with 8:23 left in the third quarter helped the Broncos tie the score at 10-10 on Elam's 44-yard field goal four plays later. It also was the turning point in a 20-point explosion by the Broncos, who had been shut out in the first half of a game for the first time since 1993.

"It was supposed to be deep -- but it wasn't," said Elam, whose 48-yard field goal with 2:58 left in the quarter gave the Broncos the lead for good at 13-10.

"It seemed like at different levels of the stadium, the wind was blowing in different directions. So I was trying to hit line drives most of the day. But I got up under that one a little more, and the wind just held it up and then knocked it down."

Expecting another deep kick by Elam, the Jets had a middle wedge set up for Dave Meggett. But the ball never got to the return specialist.

Instead, it hit just behind an advancing Jets wedge, bounced about five yards back from where it landed and left Meggett as a one-man wall against a stampede of Broncos.

"The Jets weren't expecting it obviously, and they didn't have anyone there to field it," Elam said. "We were able to get on it.

"That was a pretty big part of the game. It was right at a time when we were kind of seizing the momentum back. We were able to grab it and put some points on the board. It turned out to be a big play."

Burns wasn't the first Denver player to get to the ball, but he dove into the pile and found what he was looking for.

"I saw it when it hit, and I saw Meggett running for the ball," Burns said. "Their front-line guys never saw it. Once I got on top of it, I had the most prized possession on the field. So the last thing I wanted to do was let it go.

"It was just survival of the fittest. Everybody was trying to get to the ball. I just tried to take my time and not rush it, zero in on the ball. Once I got it, I just held on for dear life. They were clawing and scratching under that pile."

Burns, a member of the Broncos' punt team, was actually on the other end of the game's first big special teams' play.

He and the Broncos allowed Blake Spence to break clean up the middle and block Tom Rouen's punt that New York recovered at the Broncos' 1-yard line. Curtis Martin scored on the next play for a 10-0 Jets lead.

But a three-play touchdown drive -- highlighted by John Elway's 47-yard pass to Ed McCaffrey -- was followed by the Elam kickoff that killed any remaining Jets' momentum.

"It's always the most unexpected thing that will turn the game around in a game of this magnitude," Burns said. "But we never would have thought it would have taken a special teams' play like that to get us jump started.

"I still don't think the Jets know what hit them in the third quarter."

The recovery by Burns was the third of what would be six turnovers by the Jets. John Hall also missed a 42-yard field goal.

"This game was 60 minutes, and our whole team understands that," Meggett said. "I don't think that one play is a turning point."

Maybe not, but the winds of change sure helped the Broncos escape what could have been another Mile High mess.