Kiszla: Why Dan Reeves might be the most underappreciated legend in Broncos history

Now that he’s gone, no longer around to stare daggers into my heart, I can say the truth about Dan Reeves, who passed away Saturday at age 77.

Coach Reeves was a real pain in the butt, prickly as a cactus and too proud to admit he was wrong, even when botching my name.

“Hey, Kriz-el … Kissler …  whatever your name is. Where do you come up with this stuff you write,” Reeves would angrily mumble back in the early 1990s, wondering how a know-nothing columnist could criticize coaching decisions in a sport too complicated for a knucklehead like me to understand. “You’re un-BULL-ievable.”

But know what? I loved the guy.

Beneath his gruff exterior beat a heart of gold. When all the authoritarian bluster was peeled away, Reeves understood that any truly outstanding coach was first and foremost a servant, dedicated to making everybody better.

And that included a young head-strong quarterback with a Herculean arm named John Elway. So let me dispense with some nonsense that has been woven into the fabric of Broncos lore.

Reeves did not prevent Elway from becoming a champion. The ornery coach with a southern accent as thick as molasses helped shape a quarterback who once tried to do it all himself into a leader who figured out, long after Reeves departed Colorado, that sometimes the best way to win is to give Terrell Davis the rock and let somebody else do the heavy lifting.

While Reeves can be faulted for his failure to applaud Elway’s ability to learn lessons in tough love, the coach made his quarterback realize there can be no dramatic comeback in the fourth quarter by a gunslinger who throws the game away before halftime.

Despite teaming with Elway to lead the Broncos to the AFC championship three times, the beginning of the end for Reeves in Denver began with the 1992 NFL draft, when he tried to show Elway who was boss by selecting UCLA quarterback Tommy Maddox in the first round.

“I was standing at the baggage claim (at the airport), and we needed a wideout,” said Elway, when I asked in 2019 his most vivid memory of the day his working relationship with Reeves was irreparably wounded.

Back in ‘92, with everyone in Broncos Country wondering how a team that had lost the Super Bowl to the New York Giants, Washington and the San Francisco 49ers would ever get over the hump, Elway was hoping Denver would take Tennessee receiver Carl Pickens.

“I said: ‘Oh, Pickens must have been gone,’ ” Elway recalled. “He didn’t go until the second round.”

Elway took the knife out of his back, then showed Reeves he was messing with the wrong guy.

“How’d that work out?” said Elway, with a hint of smug satisfaction.

When it became obvious this dusty old cowtown was no longer big enough for Elway and Reeves, franchise owner Pat Bowlen made the only smart choice in a league where a Hall of Fame quarterback can live by his own rules.

Reeves left Denver as a villain, moving on to coach the Giants from 1993-96 and the Atlanta Falcons for seven seasons, losing to Elway and the Broncos 34-19 in Super Bowl XXXIII. Despite winning 110 regular-season games with the Broncos, he might be the most underappreciated legend in team history because he left on bad terms with Elway.

But what I remember most about Reeves was a letter published in The Denver Post not long after he was dismissed from the Broncos. A woman wrote of being stranded on the highway with a flat tire. Car after car passed her until a stranger stopped, changed the tire and followed her car to make certain she got home safely.

The good Samaritan was Reeves, the gruff coach with a heart of gold.

On the winter morning when his old foil died, Elway issued condolences: “The football world lost a heckuva coach and a man today in Dan Reeves.”

And, in retrospect, Elway showed grace and gratitude for his first NFL coach.

“Dan was a winner. I owe a lot to him. He was instrumental in my career and growth as a quarterback,” Elway said.

“With Dan, you knew you were going to be in every game. You always had a chance with him on the sideline. As the head coach, Dan was tough but fair. I respected him for that. We may not have always seen eye to eye, but the bottom line is we won a lot of games together. Looking back, what I appreciate about Dan is how he gradually brought me along to help me reach my potential.”

Now that he’s gone, here’s hoping Reeves won’t mind me telling one story that belied his stern image.

On a Sunday morning in the early 1990s, we took our daughter to be baptized. After the service, a man waited at the back of the church to say hello.

“Well, maybe you know more than I give you credit for,” a grinning Reeves told me, “because you certainly have a beautiful family, Mark.”

It was the first time the gruff coach with a heart of gold ever got my name right.

Originally Published: January 1, 2022 at 3:34 PM MST