DVD BATTLE: COLTS VS. BRONCOS

Hello sports fans and welcome to another CHUD DVD Battle, where two titles enter, one title leaves. It’s been quite a while since we’ve had a good head-to-head (Flightplan vs. Red Eye) and when you have two similar DVD offerings such as Colts– The Complete History and Broncos – The Complete History, they’re practically begging for combat. Now normally, the Colts and Broncos would meet on a cold Sunday at Mile High or perhaps a Monday night game in the RCA Dome. And in fact, they got it on earlier this season, a seesaw contest won in impressive fashion by the Colts. But this contest ain’t about who’s got the better quarterback, receiving corps or secondary, nor is it about fantasy football implications or whether or not one of the teams beats the spread. It’s about who’s put together the better disc. But just between you and me, take the Broncos and the points.

Formerly hailing out of Baltimore, where greats such as Johnny Unitas and Bubba Smith laced up some cleats, The Colts were NFL Champs in ’58 and ’59 and have one Lombardi Trophy in the front office (Super Bowl V). But they blew town in the dead of night in 1984 thanks to some shady dealings by the team owner and set up shop in Hoosierville. The Colts today are lead by Marino heir apparent, Peyton Manning, and are pretty much laying waste to the rest of the NFL with their high-powered offense. But as good as they’ve been in the Manning era, they can’t get it done in the postseason, with home losses to eventual AFC Champion Tennessee (2000) and Super Bowl XL Champs Pittsburgh (2006), as well as consecutive road playoff losses at Foxboro to the Patriots (2003, 2004).

Meanwhile, the Denver Broncos are synonymous with one name more than any other, legendary Hall of Fame QB John Elway, who took them to five of their six Super Bowl appearances. In the ‘70s, their defense was known as the Orange Crush, and Denver had a pair of phenomenal AFC Championship games with the Cleveland Browns in 1986 (The Drive) and 1987 (The Fumble). Unfortunately, both of those games preceded crushing losses to the Giants (SB XXI) and the Redskins (SB XXII), and an embarrassing 55-10 thrashing by the 49ers (SB XXIV) made three losses in the big game within four years. But during the ’97 and ’98 seasons, the Broncos rode the Elway bandwagon back to the dance with a stirring upset victory of defending champion Green Bay (SB XXXII) and a convincing win over the upstart Atlanta Falcons (SB XXXIII), capping Elway’s farewell tour.

The Kickoff

Well one thing that makes this match up a bit unusual is that both the Broncos and Colts discs are put out by the same entity: the NFL, and their spectacular archival unit, NFL Films. Now I’ve covered several NFL Films discs recently and I say with every review, that NFL Films is simply the best at what they do: taking the fan into the world of sports (in this case football) and presenting well-written, thorough and engaging histories of players, teams, coaches and so on. They mic the sidelines and the huddles, and mix things up with bone crunching sounds of the game and excellent slo-mo recaps of pivotal action. This is the crux of what NFL Films does and like I said, they’re the best. So instead of comparing apples and oranges, what it really comes down to is comparing two apples and seeing which one tastes juicier.

First of all, the Colts history is split into two chapters over the two discs, the history of the Baltimore and Indianapolis versions of the franchise. I’d have to say that the Baltimore version definitely has more teeth as there’s so much more history to cover with Unitas and the gang who played in a number of legendary games including The Greatest Game Ever Played and Super Bowls III and V. The Indianapolis version does a good job of covering things that have happened since the team switched area codes, but truthfully, there’s not been that much to report aside from the brief Eric Dickerson stint and also not much before the Manning era. There was, however, a great playoff run in ’95 for the Colts, led by Jim Harbaugh. They went to San Diego, knocked off the defending AFC Champ Chargers, then beat the Chiefs the next week, and played their hearts out before a crushingly failed last-minute Hail Mary against the Steelers in Pittsburgh. I remember that run and it was fun to watch, having come from Indiana myself.

EDGE: COLTS

The Broncos Disc 1 features two 45-minute In Their Own Words features, one on Mike Shanahan, the other on #7. Both of these are in-depth and feature the best and the worst of both men’s careers and lets you get inside their heads as you hear them speak about their careers. Disc 2 is features two more Inside Their Own Words for John Lynch and Jake Plummer; but it’s curious that they give equal time (45 minutes) to both as neither of them has done anywhere near as much in the Broncos organization. Hell, John Lynch, who’s had a long career with the Bucs, has only been with the team since 2004. Nevertheless, the two features are good and there are also features on players Floyd Little, Tombstone Jackson and John Rolston. And the entirety of the main program of Disc 2 is a 65-minute recap of the 1986 AFC Championship game between the Broncos and the Browns that featured “The Drive,” Denver’s 98-yard odyssey to tie the game, which eventually lead to their sealing the championship in overtime.

For Colts, there’s a criminally short three-minute piece on Unitas. Johnny U. was given his props in the main story but to just allocate three minutes for him here is a travesty, I’m sorry to say. I’m not saying that I’m a big Unitas fan because his final year with the Colts was my first year anywhere; but I recognize one of the greats when I see him. Then there’s other pieces on Colts players Ray Berry, Mike Curtis, John Mackey, Big Daddy Lipscomb, Jim Parker and Jimmy Orr, as well as the ’67 Colts and Memorial Stadium that average around five minutes each. But the big feature on Disc 1 is an hour-long feature on the Greatest Game Ever Played from all angles that is well worth seeing.

EDGE: BRONCOS

The Postgame

So when all is said and done, both discs are true to the NFL Films tradition of covering the gridiron and the storied history of both teams. It was a tough, back-and-forth battle that could have gone either way. But the Broncos rallied late in the game with slightly better features and it was the intangibles that proved to be the difference, such as not shortchanging their best player the way the Colts did with Unitas. Broncos had everything that Colts did but their In Their Own Words were a bit more prevalent and added to the bottom line. Colts could definitely have benefited by giving one of those segments to Unitas, even if it would have to be completely through archival footage as #19 has moved on from this mortal plane. This was a shootout to be sure, but in the end, the final score is