Broncos Ring of Famer Charley Johnson, who died this week, ‘taught us how to win’

Charley Johnson, who died Tuesday aged 85, was not the quarterback who guided the Denver Broncos to their first postseason appearance or Super Bowl spot. He didn’t even play all that long in orange and blue: he lasted four seasons and 41 starts from 1972-75 before retiring after 15 years in professional football.

But his effect on the Broncos was profound.

As his No. 1 wide receiver, Haven Moses, would later say, “He taught us how to win.”

The Broncos had their first winning season with Johnson slinging passes. They made their first Monday Night Football appearance with Johnson at the helm in 1973, and the veteran quarterback led the Broncos to a dramatic 23-23 tie that showed the nation the depth of the passion that existed from Colorado toward its beloved team.

This excerpt from my 2016 book, Tales From the Denver Broncos Sideline recalls Johnson and his impact on the Broncos.

The Broncos’ futile search for a franchise passer after Frank Tripucka’s final retirement was a root cause of the team’s inability to even hit .500 after getting there in 1962. It took a Ph.D. to stop this cycle — literally, because Johnson is Dr. Charles Johnson, having earned his doctorate from Washington University in St. Louis in 1971. He played for the St. Louis Cardinals from 1961 to 1969 and the Houston Oilers the following two seasons before coach John Ralston acquired him for a third-round pick.

It was a small price to pay for someone who profoundly changed the Broncos. Johnson didn’t start his first five games as Bronco; that distinction belonged to Steve Ramsey, a holdover from the Lou Saban era who also started the last five games of 1971. But with the offense struggling against the Vikings on Oct. 15, 1972, Ralston inserted Johnson.

“He taught us how to win,” wide receiver Haven Moses would later recall.

The Broncos fell short against Minnesota, but at Oakland the next week, Johnson completed 20 of 28 passes for 361 yards and two touchdowns as the Broncos built a 24-3 lead and held on for the 30-23 win. It would be the first of twenty-seven consecutive starts for Johnson, who held down the position for all but two games until the accumulation of injuries began to catch up with him midway through the 1975 season.

“Before the game, they would stand him up on a table and tape him from head to toe. We called him ‘The Mummy,'” Moses later recalled. His body had been ravaged over time. But he was a smart quarterback. He was a very patient quarterback.”

Johnson retired after the 1975 season widely considered the best Broncos quarterback to that point, and his role in the Ralston revival helped ensure his eventual inclusion in the Broncos’ Ring of Fame.

The football life of Charley Johnson ended before the Broncos ever made the postseason. But his life’s work was just beginning. The doctoral degree for which Johnson spent his football offseasons studying led to his life’s work, first in a successful business — Johnson Compression Services — and then in academia, becoming the head of the chemical-engineering department at his alma mater, New Mexico State University in Las Cruces. He worked for NASA at one point. He even served as NMSU’s interim football coach for a brief spell 14 years ago.

But he remained a Broncos legend. He returned for alumni weekends from time to time over the years. The emotion with which he’d speak about his career revealed just how much those brief four years meant to his life’s course.

And he will forever be recalled as the quarterback who did what some thought couldn’t be done: He made the Broncos a winner.