How John Elway ALMOST Got Drafted by the San Diego Chargers | 1983 NFL Draft 

"Which is worse than if you spike the ball into the ground every play" These videos aren't complete if I don't hear that line at least once!

We need t shirts with the words “which is worst than if you just spiked the ball on every play” on them. Lol

Talk about how the league stopped the Raiders from drafting Elway. Another screwjob to the Raiders. "The Raiders tried to execute a three-team trade that would have sent Howie Long to the Chicago Bears and John Elway to L.A. Owner Al Davis was convinced that Commissioner Pete Roselle conspired against and ultimately stopped it."

What I find far more interesting is that Bill Walsh almost pulled the trigger on a deal to send Joe Montana to the Colts for Elway. Remember, Montana had only won the 1981 Super Bowl by then.

Say the line JaguarGator9. “Which is worse than if he spiked the ball every snap.” Yay!

Just watch 30 for 30 Elway to Marino 1983 draft every team wanted to trade for John Elway not just the Chargers.

Future video idea: How the Chiefs, Raiders, and Steelers passed on Dan Marino.

Please do the story of the 1985 Broncos who finished 11-5 and did NOT make the playoffs. Thank you.

Fantastic video about something I had never hear of about the Chargers and Elway.....and congratulations on the JG9 Store--Looks amazing. Good luck

As a life long Broncos fan this is a nightmare scenario.

We got it @ 4:49!! Damn, I love that phrase! It should be the title of JaMarcus Russell's autobiography.

Byrd went on to intercept Elway nine times, more than any other player did.

Man Elway under the tutelage of Coryell or Walsh would have been awesome to just see how it turned out. Love Joe Montana, but Elway is my favorite prospect ever. Would have been interesting to see him go to a team with a better offensive mind in place, and better offensive talent. San Francisco and San Diego were the best places for that.

I watched the 30 for 30 and NFL Network Draft series on the Elway stuff and many teams that needed a QB passed on him and Marino that's what made this draft so fascinating. The Colts was the only team that really had an excuse because Elway's father did not want the Colts to draft him. I think the one team that really should've drafted him was the Raiders they were in a situation to draft him and not drafting him really kept them from keeping their bad boys era going through the rest of the 80s into the 90s. If the Chargers drafted him or Marino they would've been the air apparent to Dan Fouts who was eventually going to leave the game in a few years' time.

0:57 The then-San Diego Chargers wore royal blue back then, not that azure/collegiate blue they wore through 1973.

Congratulations, I've seen this channel grow from 6k to now13k!

There were alot of teams that wanted Elway, almost the entire league had at one point tried to get him

Elway owned the Changers , just like Landamion owned my Broncos

Thank you for posting this! As a CHARGERS fan since the days of Air Coryell, I find this absolutely fascinating! I've never been an Elway fan (obviously since he was a baby that didn't wanna play for the Colts and went to Denver instead), but I wonder if an Elway-led Chargers team would've made it to the Super Bowl? Wow, what a interesting possibility! Anyway, just found your channel this past week, great work pulling together your videos! Keep posting your "Dumb Decisions" videos! Thumbs Up and Subscribed! -- Creeksider1

Chargers could have just picked Dan marino

The Redskins and Broncos were close to a trade for Elway before the 1991 season. Denver wanted Jim Lachey, but the Redskins didn't want to give him up. Mark Rypien ended up holding out in training camp and was not particularly special prior to 91, so it's doubtful the front office could have predicted Rypien's play that season.

I wonder where Fouts would have ended up had they let him walk because in 1983 he was still productive. He was the offensive player of the year in 1982. Can't imagine where he would have ended up had he never signed. Looking at the teams of the time, who would have needed an aging but still effective QB? The Jets? Packers? Raiders?

38 Years Ago

Chargers fleeced the Packers with WR John Jefferson. He had 3 consecutive 1000+ yard seasons with SD and never had a single season with 1000 yards in his Packers Career. He was famous for dropping everything.

Geez, if that's not a kick in the nuts. The Chargers got good players, yet couldn't overcome Elway going to a division rival.

As a San Diego Chargers fan since the 60's until they moved, I had mixed emotions about not trading for Elway, at the time we had Fouts who is my favorite SD Charger of all time, but I knew Elway was going to be a star. In the end it worked out for Elway, The Spanos family who bought the Chargers in 1984 would have screwed something up and he never would have won a SuperBowl . Great Video

I love your videos, I just wish they weren't so quiet

Cover how Russell Wilson almost got drafted to the Broncos

MY GOD, ELWAY in a Don Coryell offense. THAT would have been scary, with him having 4 seconds to throw the ball.

I’m unusually late to the commenting party for this video and haven’t read through all the comments, so I apologize if I’m restating what others have said. But the 30 for 30 feature Elway to Marino said the Colts wanted the Number 5 pick from the Chargers so they could draft Dan Marino. The feature also said the Raiders tried to acquire the Number 6 pick from the Bears, but the deal fell apart because (among other things) the Raiders didn’t want to trade Howie Long. But imagine if the Raiders agreed to trade Long... -The Bears would have traded the Number 6 pick to the Raiders for Long, who would have fit in perfectly with the 46 Defense. -The Raiders would have traded the Number 6 pick (with other picks and players) to the Colts for the rights to John Elway. -The Colts would use the Number 6 pick to take Dan Marino. Instead the Bears kept the Number 6 pick and drafted Offensive Tackle Jimbo Covert. If the Bears didn’t take Covert, then what team would have taken him? The next offensive lineman taken that year was Bruce Matthews at Number 9 to the Oilers. The next lineman to go was at 25, when the Bengals chose Dave Rimington. Otherwise that potential deal would have impacted Long, Elway, Marino, Covert, and Matthews. Five men forever enshrined in Canton (once Covert officially gets inducted).

@official JaguarGator9 I have a crazy story for a video topic. In 1989 Randall Cunningham kicked a 91 Yard Punt the 3rd longest Punt in NFL History. If you could make a video explaining the story behind this would be fantastic! Love your channel keep up the great work!

Elway would have won 10 super bowls with the Niners. Elway is the real goat.

Just a thought......while you are working on picks to send to the Colts for Elway, be looking for packages for Fouts. You could replenish the picks and/or get a veteran defender as part of a package. I think a team close to a playoff run or someone who was looking to go deeper would be a potential landing spot. One possible...the Rams. They ended up in the playoffs in 83 with a top 2 at QB of Vince Ferragamo and Jeff Kemp. They wouldn't give up the 2nd pick ( which became Dickerson ), but IF you are looking to upgrade the D, you could get Gary Jeter ( a very good pass rusher and only 28 at the time ) , one of their 2nd rounders ( they became Henry Ellard and Mike Wilcher ), a 4th ( one of which became safety Vince Newsome ), and maybe something from the next draft. Now the Rams have Fouts for a window of about 4 years to pair with Dickerson and the Chargers get Elway.

"Imagine if Elway traded the Bronco blue for the power blue of the San Diego Chargers." Well, the Chargers weren't wearing their powder blue uniforms in the '80s and '90s, so Elway wouldn't have swapped for that color just based on technicality lol.

Also, bad timing for the Chargers since after 1982 Fouts started to miss games, and would never start a full slate again.

I'm from San Diego. We weren't all that hot-to-trot about Elway because of the leverage he had with his Yankees contract. He'd been playing minor league ball and was a decent prospect. Fans knew that he could just sit out and play baseball until someone in the NFL got it done. No, he didn't (originally) have the antipathy towards the Chargers he had towards the Colts, but it was really good leverage. We were glad to keep Fouts and, as the video describes, the draft picks we used were on really good guys. Ahhhh...Air Coryell. No Super Bowl wins, but an awful lot of fun. That team really captured the city. But when owner Gene Klein sold the team to a family of idiots, it began a slow slide that eventually resulted in their return to L.A. We're good with that in San Diego, if you wanted to know.

Great video but 8:11 I think you mean 'All Pro' All Conference is a college term.

Colts didn't turn down the trade from the raiders. It was vetoed by the commissioner.

3 teams in the same division were trying to get Elway. They knew what was bout to happen. Lol

Coming up on the 40th anniversary of this draft, man it was something else!! It's interesting to hear Ernie Accorsi's side of this story. He actually had one hell of plan to rebuild the winless Colts from the previous season. Instead, Bob Irsay got involved and traded Elway for basically next to nothing.

I think the Chargers would have had a better shot if they didn't include Luther 😂

I really don’t get how Elway made 3 out of 4 Super Bowls in the 80s, he was garbage statistically even for the era and had more career interceptions than touchdowns up until 1993. Neil Lomax, Ken O’Brien, Dave Krieg, Bernie Kosar, Cunningham, Boomer Esiason, Warren Moon, Marino, and Montana outperformed him every year.

Honestly, if John Elway went anywhere else besides Denver, you wouldn’t have “The Drive” and “The Fumble”, two of the darkest days in the history of the Cleveland Browns and Art Modell most likely wouldn’t have moved the Browns to Baltimore. It’s an alternate reality that would’ve eased Cleveland’s history of broken promises and dark clouds earlier than the Cleveland Cavaliers winning an NBA championship with Lebron James and sadly for Denver they most likely would still be in a playoff drought because of several other good teams in the AFC besides Cleveland like Miami and the LA Raiders at the time.

Irsay had a deal worked out with Dallas (which included Danny White) but when the Colts' GM heard about it, he quashed it.

At the time, players could use USFL as leverage.

He was actually closest to being drafted by the Houston Oilers not Chargers. If the Oilers had lost their final game of the 83 season then they would have had the #1 pick which would have been John Elway

I don't know if this would have worked, but why not offer them the rights to Fouts and a 1st rd pick or 2?

I wonder where Fouts would have ended up if he The Chargers Drafted Elway and waived or traded Fouts. Houston, New Orleans, LA Rams, Pittsburgh, Colts and Cleveland. Probably LA Rams.

I never realized that the Chargers were that serious about drafting Elway. The narrative about using his name to force Fouts into a contract was, what I assumed, was true. Great research man.

If not for Robert the drunken Irsay he should have been a Baltimore Colt and saved the franchise.

This is one that everyone knows. Just like the situation with Eli. Do Marino. His 93 Draft would be just as interesting.

This is one of my greatest NFL What-Ifs. I've known about this story for a long time now. Can you imagine Fouts handing the torch off to Elway? Elway would've been cooking with gas under the Coryell system. I daresay that if Elway was there then Coryell doesn't get fired due to Al Saunders' manipulation to get the head coaching gig. I think the decline still would've happened but with Elway there it doesn't last as long and Coryell could survive to see the first flourishes of the Elway dominance in San Diego. Elway in San Diego probably prompts the political PTB into getting a new stadium done at some point and the Chargers would still call San Diego home as well.

Don't forget the other underlying story going on and that was Robert Irsay was an untrustworthy owner and liar. Elway's didn't trust Irsay and suspected he was up to something. The next year Irsay loads up mayflower moving vans and moves Colts to Indy like a coward in the middle of the night. Could do a video on that as well.

First of all when you’re talking about the BALTIMORE COLTS in 1983 never mention indyNOPLACE. This is well known, from the 30 for 30 and anyone who was around. You missed the fact that the SD Chargers wee contending for the SB and they needed defense. They thought Billy Ray Smith was their answer. That didn’t work out. They were more concerned about winning a SB than their future. Fouts was likely, and as it turned it, signed his last contract. Smith’s father Billy Ray Smith Sr played for the BALTIMORE COLTS SB 5 winning team.

Chargers would never make a good move like this trade ownership too cheap.

See that low block at 2:29.

Bolts had the fifth pick in '83 draft and tried to make an Elway deal once he said he wouldn't play for colts. Half of the nfl tried to make that deal as well. Walsh and Niners (even with montana) tried as well but had no firsts. Bolts had draft capital and three firsts, including six and 22 from niners. Pats, Bears, Raiders as well but word is nfl would nix that trade. No way Rozelle lets Elway go to Al Davis. Bolts take b r smith at 5. Elway a week later get his trade wish to broncos for package including mark hermann, chris Hinton.

Lateral move at best

The colts should’ve called his bluff

Dallas was closer to getting Elway than San Diego was!!

The colts was about to draft Eway John elway would play baseball instead of the colts

IMO this was not a pox on the Chargers..this was stupid on the Colts. They should've taken those 2 1st rounders for a guy who already told them wasn't going to play for them. In the end they got neither the extra 1st round picks or Elway 🤦🏿‍♂️

Elway under Air Coryell would have been interesting. Would have fit Elway better than Reeves' system though the 1980s Chargers defense would have wasted him.

How about how the Cowboys past on Randy Moss

Can you imagine a player making a million dollars a year The league would surely fold😏

Indianapolis? Its 1983

Dude Dan flouts was never the best quarterback in the nfl and in 1982 Joe montana was the best quarterback in the nfl by far

DENVER BRONCOS #1🏈🏈

Always with 'understatement' and QB rating spiking the damn ball. Stop script recycling. It kinda got old after almost 400 videos. Sorry, not sorry. I love the videos but knowing the script before the script is not good

Let's be real the colts didn't decline the Raiders Pete rozelle nixed the trade

ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-Ze91vZoqVmk.htmlstart=5330 Al Micheal says that this could be the 'ugliest offensive series in the history of football' Naturally I thought of JagGator!! ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-Ze91vZoqVmk.html If that doesn't work its 1992 Week 13 Broncos at Seahawks! Midway third quarter, Seahawks down 7, with the ball, and it all goes, er, wrong?!? Er, yeah, pretty wrong...

By having a pick in the draft elway was in. No need to watch the video

I do enjoy your channel, but this one is pretty mediocre. There's an entire 30 for 30 on this, and... yeah. The Chargers knew full well that the Colts weren't taking anything less than 3 first round picks, as they'd told literally everyone that. The Chargers were, at least from the viewpoint of Elway's agent, making a play at Elway in order to improve their negotiating position with Dan Fouts. The Colts didn't decline the Raiders' offer. The Raiders had acquired the picks they needed to make the deal, I think from Chicago?, and then after a call from the league offices Chicago randomly pulled out of the deal citing misunderstandings and said they wouldn't reopen conversation. Al Davis at that time was in one of his legal disputes with the NFL, and the thought seems to be that the league got in touch with the Bears to stop Davis from getting what he wanted. When the Bears pulled out, the Raiders no longer had the draft capital and weren't in the deal anymore. The only reason the Broncos got Elway from the Colts is because the Bronco's owner sidestepped the GM who was holding out for a haul and worked directly with the owner for a trade that was much worse than ones they'd already been offered. Also Elway would have been playing for the Yankees (he played both in college, and the Yankees had drafted him on the off chance the Colts tried to force him to play for their team which he had flat out refused to do) if the Colts hadn't traded him, so fun times all around. So yeah, not really much chance of this actually happening. Chargers making a show to sign the guy they already had.

You Know the Chargers 😂 are Cursed Right?

Greatest Bronco of all time? As far as QBs go, Manning is the guy. Overall? Give it to TD.

The 3 players the Chargers did pick were okay, but if they had 20/20 hindsight, they could have had 5 hall of famers in that draft without moving any other picks. Marino would have been pretty good with Coryell