For the first time in his life, Craig Morton decided to stay down.
For 83 years, he had gotten up. Improbably. Painfully. Morton could hardly run, his old teammates remember, when the veteran quarterback first walked into the Denver Broncos’ locker room in 1977. He was still a young man, then. It got worse. Eighteen seasons of absorbing hits in the NFL left him nearly broken. After retiring in 1982, wife Kym Galloway remembers, Morton had shoulder surgery, back surgeries, hand surgery, two stints in assisted-care living and four knee-replacement surgeries. An infection entered his body during one of those surgeries and never left.
Last week, the infection caused sepsis, as it had before. Sepsis caused fluid to fill his lungs, as it had before. Eventually, a quarterback and a “warrior” — as former Broncos receiver Rick Upchurch called Morton — could fight no longer.
On Saturday, he died peacefully from sepsis at his home in Mill Valley, Calif., surrounded by family.
“He was tired of being sick,” Galloway said. “He was tired of his back, he was really in a lot of pain with his back. And he just said, ‘I give (up). I’m ready to go. I don’t want to do this anymore. I’ve had an amazing life. And I’m just tired.
“And then … he said, ‘I’ve never said I give (up), in my life.'”
Those who knew Morton at the dawn of the Broncos’ glory days indeed remember the quarterback as a man who did not give up and gave plenty to Denver in the process. Since the news became public on Monday, fans and teammates alike have resurfaced to champion Morton’s long-winding career — a Broncos Ring of Fame quarterback who sacrificed his body as the bridge that transported Denver to 40 years of franchise greatness.
“He represented the franchise in the community because Denver was starting to obtain an identity,” said former Broncos teammate and running back Dave Preston. “And I think he helped in that transition from, just a cow town into — hey, a leader against the hated Raider Nation and (Pittsburgh’s) Steel Curtain.”
Morton’s arrival in 1977 brought a “spiritual awakening” for a quarterback in the twilight of his career, said former Broncos linebacker Bob Swenson. And for the Broncos, too, as the franchise reached its first Super Bowl behind Morton’s steady arm in 1977.
“The players now do not realize that the brand of the Broncos, the national status, the whole thing has become so big in terms of community impact that — if it weren’t for Craig Morton and those guys in ‘77,” Swenson said, “they wouldn’t be there.”
“Taking us to that first Super Bowl,” former Pro Bowl linebacker Tom Jackson added, “I believe, really legitimized the Denver Broncos for the successes they’ve had moving on after that.”
A rebirth in Denver
The legitimization of the franchise, then, came from an unlikely source. In 1976, the Broncos won nine games, their most regular-season victories ever after 16 years of existing in futility. They had the young beginnings of the soon-to-be-famed “Orange Crush” defensive unit. They had a new, promising head coach in Red Miller. They did not have a quarterback.
So Denver traded for a 34-year-old Morton, a one-time Cowboys standout whose career in previous years with the New York Giants.
It was not immediately well-received.
“When I first saw Craig, I was like, ‘How — what can he do?’” Upchurch, a former four-time All-Pro receiver and return man, recalled. “I mean, honestly, his legs. He was knock-kneed. He couldn’t run. He wasn’t real strong. It wasn’t like he was in the weight room, and those types of things.”
Morton, at that point, was already on his last legs. At one time, at Cal in the early 1960s, he was a dual-sport athlete in football and baseball, athletic enough to be selected No. 5 overall by the Cowboys in 1965’s NFL Draft. But 13 previous years of hits had robbed Morton of any real speed by the time he came to Denver. He had “little wobbly legs,” former Broncos defensive tackle Rubin Carter chuckled. He was “fairly immobile,” Jackson said.
And yet former linebacker Ferguson has never forgotten the day that Morton walked into Denver’s locker room for a reason. The 6-foot-4 quarterback had an aura, Ferguson recalled. Charisma. Mystique.
“What did they say about George Washington? He could be standing among 3,000 soldiers, and you would know — he would stand out,” Ferguson said. “That was Craig.
“He just had something.”
The natural state of being, as a quarterback, is to move and slide and pirouette in the pocket to avoid blows from bull-rushing men dozens of pounds heavier. Morton was simply incapable of doing so, former teammates recall. This was decades before the NFL under a roughing-the-passer penalty, and when defenders would tee off on signal-callers from the head to the legs. The Broncos’ quarterback would linger in pockets knowing full well, as Upchurch said, that he was a sitting duck.
Morton had enough juice in his arm and savvy with his eyes, still, to lead Denver to a 12-2 record in 1977 and finish second in the league’s Most Valuable Player (MVP) voting.
“I couldn’t believe some of the stuff he did,” said former Pro Bowl cornerback Louis Wright.
In a divisional-round win over the Steelers that season, Ferguson remembered, Morton took such a brutal hit that his leg turned black, from blood draining. He checked into a local hospital, multiple teammates remembered. He missed that week of practice, heading into an AFC Championship Game against the Raiders. Nobody in the locker room expected him to play.
That Saturday, they learned Morton was suiting up. That Sunday, on a frigid New Year’s afternoon in 1978, he threw for 224 yards and two touchdowns to lead the Broncos to a 20-17 win and a Super Bowl appearance.
“I always said — it was so cold out there, but his body didn’t feel it,” former Broncos receiver Haven Moses chuckled, “so he was OK with the bruises.”
A warrior until the end
Morton’s son, Michael, all these years later, looks back on his father’s NFL career with a mixture of pride and sadness. The Broncos went on to lose that Super Bowl in 1977, as a hobbled Morton threw four interceptions. For five more seasons to come, the quarterback could barely walk after some games, as Wright remembered. Denver never truly knew the healthy self of a man, after retirement, that would never truly reveal how much pain he was in, as Michael remembered.
And yet they embraced him, as they got the best version of Morton: two top-five MVP finishes in six years, playing until he was 39.
“I think they knew how difficult it was for him to stay upright,” Jackson recalled, speaking of Denver’s fanbase. “I think they knew that.”
Family members remember Morton never being one to turn down an autograph request. Teammates remember him as an ambassador. After retirement, Morton fostered a child for three years in Oregon; he was a tough man, son Michael said, who also “loved fiercely.”
At the end, he put on one last performance before he broke down once and for all. Morton’s grandson curled up with him on his bed last weekend and rested on his shoulder, Michael remembered. Morton’s granddaughter made him a bracelet that he tugged on. In previous stints in the hospital, Morton would tell his family to leave so they didn’t see him as weak; this time, he called for them to stay.
And on Saturday, Kym held one hand and Michael held the other, as the family had a moment. And then Morton spoke up, and told them no more crying.
“And that was just him,” Michael said. ‘No more crying.’”
