2014 NFL Tournament of Champions First Round: John Elway Bracket

Hope you all had a wonderful Valentine's Day! I'm still doing one more celebration of it tonight with my fiancee. Until such time, I wanted to attack this age old question a little further.

Yesterday I eliminated eight of the 48 Super Bowl champions in history, and today I will eliminate eight more. We'll start with four though, since I'm doing this by bracket. If you want to see how we got to where we are so far, you can view yesterday's results from the Joe Montana and Larry Csonka brackets at the respective links.

So today, the namesake of this bracket sees both of his title teams go at it, both times at home. We also have a battle of New Jersey (because let's face it: the New York thing is a misnomer and always will be). These games are just an appetizer to what's to come though. Look at the teams that get first round byes in this quadrant!

We have several good teams waiting to go today though, so that takes precedence. Like yesterday, I will simulate these as a best-of-three, but the "clinching" game will go down as the official result. Weather forecasts will be taken into account for the home team (the higher seed). All simulations are provided by WhatIfSports.com. Let's get going.


(XXXIV) '90 New York Giants @ (XXXI) '68 New York Jets
Game 1: '90 NYG 23, '68 NYJ 13
Game 2: '68 NYJ 27, '90 NYG 21
Game 3: '68 NYJ 13, '90 NYG 12
The snow and wind didn't stop Raul Allegre of the Giants from hitting all four field goals he attempted, but with the G-Men only converting three third downs all game and were kept out of the end zone. Each quarterback threw for less than 200 yards and two picks. Matt Snell had the lone touchdown of the game when he scampered for 31 of his 87 yards to the house for the Jets.

(XLVII) '11 New York Giants @ (XVIII) '97 Denver Broncos
Game 1: '97 DEN 30, '11 NYG 21
Game 2: '11 NYG 27, '97 DEN 24
Game 3: '97 DEN 35, '11 NYG 31
John Elway hit Vaughn Hebron from 11 yards out with just over a minute to play. On the ensuing drive, Eli threw a deep incompletion, then was sacked before his final two passes were broken up to seal the win for Denver. Elway finished 17 of 23 for 230 yards and two total touchdowns, but was picked twice, while Terrell Davis ran for 142 yards and a pair of scores. Manning did pace the Giants with 296 yards on 18 of 25 passing. He threw two touchdowns and a pick in the loss.

(XXXIX) '81 San Francisco 49ers @ (XXVI) '98 Denver Broncos
Game 1: '98 DEN 31, '81 SF 17
Game 2: '98 DEN 29, '81 SF 16
Elway went 13 of 24 for 213 yards but had three touchdowns in the victory. Terrell Davis also had a monster game, picking up 227 yards on 25 carries. Joe Montana threw for 132 yards and a touchdown, and might have had more if the Broncos hadn't sacked him five times.

(XLII) '01 New England Patriots @ (XXIII) '93 Dallas Cowboys
Game 1: '93 DAL 30, '01 NE 16
Game 2: '93 DAL 23, '01 NE 15
Both teams ran the ball successfully. Emmitt Smith ran for 102 yards and two scores for Dallas, who didn't get much from Troy Aikman (nine of 20 passing for 103 yards and an interception). Tom Brady was sacked three times to offset a 206 yard performance with a touchdown and a pick. Antoine Smith led the Pats with 135 yards rushing.

To see the bracket so far, click here.

Another good batch of games, but no shutout in this bracket. We also didn't see any upsets here either, after a slow first day for upsets. It definitely lends credence to PFR's formula. Recency bias was not a factor though, as only one newer team advanced beyond this round. A couple games needed three simulations to figure out what would happen, but at the end, chalk is rocked.

I've got a busy day ahead, so the final post for this round will go up hopefully tonight, though it may get delayed to tomorrow depending on how much I have to do. Hope you're enjoying the process here!