'Our time to shine'

Broncos defense steps up, shuts down Dolphins

Click here for more on this story

Posted: Saturday January 09, 1999 09:32 PM

Romanowski had six tackles and an interception that set the tone early for the Denver defense AP

DENVER (AP) -- A maligned Denver Broncos defense, made the scapegoat for the team's late-season struggles, established a dominating tone in the very first minute of Saturday's AFC divisional playoff game.

The result was a 38-3 romp over the Miami Dolphins that left some defensive players grasping for comparisons.

"We set the tone early," linebacker Bill Romanowski said. "We blitzed them the first three plays of the game. We were like, 'You're not going to do to us what you did the last time on Monday night. We're going to be aggressive, we're going to go after you, and we're going to make you earn everything you get.'"

Miami quarterback Dan Marino shredded the Denver defense in a 31-21 regular-season victory 19 days ago, throwing for 355 yards and four touchdowns. Lamar Thomas had three TD catches as the Miami receivers had their way with Denver's secondary.

"We were not going to let it happen again," cornerback Ray Crockett said.

On the Dolphins' opening series on Saturday, O.J. McDuffie dropped a short pass on first down, Bernie Parmalee ran for 3 yards and Stanley Pritchett dropped a third-down pass, forcing a punt with only 1:09 expired. The Broncos responded with the first of their three straight touchdowns.

"I told [McDuffie] he was scared," Romanowski said. "I told him if he caught that ball, he was going to get hit and he was going to get hit hard. It seemed like, overall, it worked a little bit."

Romanowski had six tackles and an interception. He also was responsible for dumping Marino hard just after the Miami quarterback released a pass.

Linebacker Glenn Cadrez said the strategy was to "make sure they heard the sounds of our pads."

The Broncos held the Dolphins to 252 total yards and a second-quarter field goal. Marino completed 26 of 37 passes for 243 yards, but most were in the 5- to 10-yard range. The Dolphins had only 14 yards rushing on 13 carries.

Asked if he had seen a more dominant defensive effort in a game of this magnitude, Crockett said, "No, not at all. I've never seen a defensive unit come out and dominate the way we did today, especially against a team and a quarterback like Marino is. And we didn't let up, not in the third quarter or the fourth quarter."

Broncos coach Mike Shanahan said his defense "did a great job of keeping Marino off balance. Any time you can do that to a quarterback of his caliber, you know that you've played a complete football game on defense. To hold Miami and Dan to three points is really a credit to our defense."

Backup cornerback Darrius Johnson, who led the Broncos in tackles with nine, said the victory was sweet redemption for a defense -- and secondary -- that had been the target of scorn in recent weeks.

"There had been a lot of talk about our secondary being real soft," Johnson said. "I guess when you lose a couple of games, you always have to have somebody to point your finger at.

"We knew it was either have a bad game and go home, or put it all on the line. And we did."

Added Crockett, "We took a lot of heat in the past four or five weeks. A lot of it stemmed from that last Miami game. We had been counted out by everybody, by the media, by the NFL, by ESPN. We kept reiterating all week that if we wanted to go to the championship game, to the Super Bowl, the defense had to step up. This was our time to shine."

 

Related information
Stories
Davis, Broncos run all over Dolphins 38-3 Marino sees another season end short of NFL title
Multimedia
Click here for the latest audio and video
Search our site	Watch CNN/SI 24 hours a day
	Sports Illustrated and CNN have combined to form a 24 hour sports news and information channel. To receive CNN/SI at your home call 1-888-53-CNNSI.