The 1962 Denver Broncos - the Team's Last, Best Hope (for quite a while) ...

 by Jeffrey J. Miller

The Denver Broncos of the American Football League do not get much love. Rightly so. They are the only one of the original eight AFL franchises which never made it to the post-season in the league’s ten-year existence. The Oilers, Chiefs/Texans, Chargers, Bills, Raiders and Jets all won league championships, while the Patriots at least made it to the post-season once.  But the Broncos?  Bupkis.

The sad-sack Broncos would, of course, go on to win three Super Bowls after the AFL-NFL merger in 1970, taking home the Lombardi trophy after the 1997, 1998 and 2015 seasons.  But the 1960s were not kind to Denver fans, as the Broncos posted nine seasons of sub-.500 ball in the league’s ten years.  There was one year, however, that gave football fans in the Mile High city hope, a year in which the club actually held a winning record going into the final game of the season.

The year was 1962, a season in which the AFL and many of its teams were still trying to find their footing. Broncos management were determined to improve their team’s on-field performance after going 4-9 and 3-11 in their first two seasons. The first step toward respectability was discarding the hideous vertically striped socks the players had worn during those first two years. The second was hiring Jack Faulkner, the former defensive backfield coach of the Los Angeles Rams and San Diego Chargers, as their head coach.    

Denver Broncos first-year head coach
Jack Faulkner, pictured during his time
with the Los Angeles Rams, late 1950s.

The changes appeared to work, at least initially. The Broncos season got off to a very fast start, going undefeated after to weeks of action with wins over San Diego and Buffalo.  After a Week 3 loss at Boston, the Broncos relit the fuse and won their next four, knocking off the Titans, the Raiders twice and, most impressively, the Houston Oilers (the previous year’s champions). Standing at 6-1, the Broncos then hosted the Bills and lost in a shootout, 45-38.  They bounced back the following week, defeating the tough Chargers for a second time this year to improve to 7-2.

But here is where the saddle fell off the horse, as the Broncos lost the final five games of their season to finish 7-7. It turned out to be the team’s only .500 record in the entire decade. It was also to be the latest in any season the Broncos would still be in contention for a playoff berth.  Sadly, it would be another 11 years before they posted an actual winning record (7-5-2 in 1973) and 15 seasons before Denver fans felt the thrill of real success as their beloved boys in orange finally made the playoffs AND the Super Bowl (though they lost to the Cowboys in SBXII).   

So what happened?  Why the collapse? How could a team starting with a 6-1 run end with a 1-6 mudslide? It doesn’t appear to have been the personnel.  Most of the team’s star players, such as split end Lionel Taylor, flanker Bob Scarpitto, tackle Eldon Danehauer and defensive back Goose Gonsoulin played in all 14 games. Taylor even led the AFL in receptions with 77. 

Lionel Taylor, 1961

The team’s biggest star, however, was 35-year-old quarterback Frank Tripucka. On paper, Tripucka appears to have had a fine season, leading the league in passing attempts and completions, total passing yards and average passing yards per game. Those numbers earned Tripucka a trip to the AFL All-Star Game.  

Broncos quarterback Frank Tripucka,
1962.

Tripucka started 13 of the Broncos’ 14 games that year, finishing with a 6-7 record. In the first eight games he started before the team’s collapse, Tripucka averaged 284 passing yards, throwing 14 touchdowns (1.75 per game) and 16 interceptions (2.0 per game). However, in the final five games (all losses), Tripucka’s passing-yards-per-game fell to128 (a 55% drop!), while he threw just three TDs (an average of just .6 per game) and nine interceptions (1.8 per game). 

This is not to place all of the blame on Tripucka. It says here the team’s overall on-field performance also fell sharply after Week 9. In those first nine games, the offense averaged nearly 28 points while the defense gave up 20. They averaged 371 yards of total offense in the first nine games while allowing 293. In the last five games, however, the Broncos managed just under 21 points per game while surrendering almost 31. Their total yardage-per-game fell by nearly 100 (273) while yardage allowed ballooned by almost 90 (381). 

Frank Tripucka on a quarterback keeper versus
the New York Titans, September 30, 1962.

One could also fault coach Faulkner’s failure to replace the struggling Tripucka while having veteran George Shaw—who had been victorious in his only start for the club that season—riding the pine.  However, bringing the Broncos to the brink of respectability, no matter how briefly, earned Faulker Coach of the year honors. Still, regardless of how one slices it, whether the quarterback, the offense, the defense, the coach, there was plenty of blame to go around. 

The Broncos were clearly never really that good during the 60s, but 1962 gave their fans something to cheer about, even if it was only for part of a season. They would have their time in the sun, it was just going to take a few years, and an awful lot of patience!