Who is marlin briscoe

With the Broncos, Kambui will be responsible for conducting film breakdowns, preparing scouting reports and assisting the team's offensive coaching staff. I was only 10 at the time I've seen some of the tape. Man, he was quick and fast and elusive. He looked like a guy that could actually still play today even though the game has changed so much.

I think it's a great honor for him and it's a nice gesture by the Broncos. Briscoe joined the Broncos as a 14th-round draft choice prior to that season, with the team intending to transition him to another position. At the time, pro football's decision-makers were largely beholden to racial prejudice that dictated that since quarterback was a cerebral position, Black men were deemed unfit to play under center. But because of injuries and the team's lack of talent at the position, eventually the Broncos could no longer deny Briscoe's talent and keep him at defensive back.

Back at quarterback, Briscoe appeared in 11 games, starting five, and threw for 14 touchdowns as he boosted a struggling offense and became a sensation among fans.

Even today, Briscoe's rookie season ranks highly in Broncos record books. In five starts he threw for 1, yards and 14 touchdowns while rushing for yards and three touchdowns.

He won two Super Bowls with the Dolphins, including being a part of the Dolphins team which finished with perfect record. Kambui recently held the role of graduate assistant at Georgia Southern University in , will spend the season conducting film breakdown and scouting reports while assisting the offensive side of the ball. The Broncos will visit the Minnesota Vikings in the first preseason game of the season at 2 p.

Briscoe earned the start the next week against Cincinnati, but after he struggled in the first half, Saban substituted a mostly healed Tensi for him. With a fourth-quarter touchdown pass, Tensi saved the game for the Broncos and at last got them into the win column. With Denver's expected starter back in the fold, Briscoe returned to a reserve role.

A week later, Tensi threw a touchdown and Denver's defense picked off Joe Namath five times to top the eventual Super Bowl champs. In Week 7, though, Tensi's collarbone woes returned. Midway through the second quarter against the Chargers, he left the game after reaggravating the injury. Though trailing , Briscoe gave a good showing.

Now having practiced for about a month as a quarterback, Briscoe was able to rely on his arm more and completed of passes for yards, three touchdowns and two interceptions. He also added 68 yards on the ground. Battling through his shoulder injury, Tensi remained the starter for the next game against Miami, but it didn't go much better. Before what was then the largest home crowd in franchise history, Tensi completed one of nine pass attempts and threw three interceptions in the first half.

After halftime, the Dolphins promptly drove for a touchdown to go up Saban called on the plucky backup to spark something, anything. With running backs Floyd Little and Fran Lynch pacing the offense, Briscoe picking up yards here and there and a little help from a timely holding penalty, the Broncos moved into the red zone. On second down from the yard line, Briscoe scrambled from the right side of the field to the left for a touchdown.

On the ensuing kickoff, the Broncos recovered a fumble and scored the tying touchdown soon after. In the fourth quarter, with both teams knotted at 14 and less than five minutes remaining, Briscoe became a hero to the Mile High faithful. He found Van Heusen downfield for a yard gain and then threw to Crabtree for 9 more yards as Denver drove deep into Miami territory.

On first-and-goal with left, Briscoe approached the line and surveyed the defense's formation from the yard line. Upon noticing that the safety and middle linebacker had vacated the middle of the field to better defend the outside threats, he changed the play [8] to a quarterback draw.

Slicing through the defense, Briscoe scored the game-winning touchdown. As the game ended, Provost took note of the crowd's reaction, as "more than a thousand fans were waiting in the south grandstand to hail the conqueror. The paper the next day was a whirlwind. Inside the section, four stories about him took up a full page [10].

Still, the Broncos retained Tensi as their starter for the next three games. For fans and media alike, the move was somewhat befuddling. Tee [12], a sports editor for The Louisville Times. Maybe it's a choice between a helter-skelter offense that may explode for points at any time, or a set system that in the long run may produce a consistent winner. Briscoe's kind of offense is more exciting for the spectators. The implication that Tensi would lead Denver to winning football in the long run wasn't looking too good either, though.

In the three weeks after the Dolphins game, he helped Denver get a blowout win over the Patriots, but then he mustered just one touchdown in the two losses that followed. In the second, a game against Houston, Tensi completed just one pass before reinjuring his shoulder. This time, he was done for the year. Regardless of whether the Broncos, pro football or the country were ready, here came Marlin Briscoe, starting quarterback. Early in the morning, after he had arrived at the Broncos' headquarters, he sifted through the letters addressed to players.

Maybe there was a note here and there for him, but that's not what he was looking for. He was searching for envelopes addressed to Marlin Briscoe. It wasn't a constant stream. Some days he'd take a peek and leave, happy to be empty-handed. On the bad days, he took what he found and deposited it in the trash.

For nearly 50 years, Briscoe never knew. The subject would come up at times in his conversation with other Black athletes, and he'd marvel at his luck compared to his contemporaries. After the Broncos announced his first start in October, he received plenty of mail, but he said the only letters he got were nice. Such was the territory that came with being Black and playing quarterback — and racial tensions were especially high in About six months earlier, Martin Luther King Jr. Denver, despite its reputation even at the time as a progressive haven, was not exempt from conflicts either.

As close to three days before the Broncos' season opener, unrest exploded in north Denver after an incident between a Black teenager and a white store owner [2]. Having the first Black quarterback in , when '68 was the most pivotal year in our country's history, to break the barrier at that position was unique. A lot of it was divine intervention, I don't know. King, you had just so many different scenarios for Black and white life back in those days.

Amid all of this, being a pioneer for Black Americans put a spotlight on Briscoe, and whatever potential for glory Briscoe held was balanced by a potential for animosity.

The sport had been integrated at almost every level for some time, but that wasn't necessarily the case at every position. The game's decision-makers deeply abided by racial stereotypes in shaping their rosters, and as such, they decided — whether consciously or not — that Black men were not capable of playing positions that were seen as the realm of the intellectual athlete.

When Briscoe broke that barrier at quarterback, some could not handle what they viewed as an intrusion on the natural order of things. To many fans at what would come to be known as Mile High Stadium, though, Briscoe may have been considered a welcome interloping figure. To them, he was nothing short of a rookie sensation for a Broncos needing an injection of excitement. In his first career game, he came off the bench and nearly led a successful comeback against the Patriots; the home crowd gave him a standing ovation, according to the World-Herald [3].

About a month later, he again came off the bench; this time he scored two touchdowns in battling back from a deficit to beat the Dolphins. After the game, a fan told him he could run for mayor, some 23 years before Denver would elect its first African-American mayor. In his role, Briscoe took on an enormous weight, both in trying to lead a pro football team as a rookie and in essentially representing his entire race.

Johnson told William C. Rhoden in Third and a Mile [4]. When they fumbled, it was if all African-Americans were fumbling that ball. They carried that burden with them, just as many other pioneers did. I couldn't be a quarterback and think, If I throw an interception, is somebody going to come at me? Verbally or whatever. If I throw an interception, it's part of the game. I'm not going to let it get me to the point where I can't perform.

Beyond that, there was also the implicit understanding Black athletes carried with them when they were compared to whites. Many evaluators — coaches, managers, fans, media, whoever many of whom were white at the time — already saw Black players like Briscoe at a disadvantage compared to white counterparts simply because implicit biases predisposed them to such thinking.

On the field, there were basically three areas Briscoe had to prove himself because of the racial bias at the time. Briscoe didn't need to do much work on his throwing ability. His unique elusiveness may have been his calling card, but his arm talent was evident. He confuses the defense. The next of the three aspects that came was the leadership.

The concern was that a Black quarterback, expected to garner the unquestioned commitment from other players as the maestro of the offense, would have trouble leading white players. But I never thought about it. Some white players took quickly to supporting Briscoe.

Left tackle Sam Brunelli was a good friend "from the beginning" who encouraged him and "urge[d] the guys to give it extra effort," Briscoe said in [1]. Not all were so open-minded. Crabtree recalls going to a dinner with several of the team's white players and hearing one of his teammates call Briscoe the N-word.

For some rookies who attended southern universities, it was possible they had never even played with or against a Black athlete, as the majority of the SEC schools had yet to integrate. But Briscoe thought little of these concerns. From the time playing youth football to his high school and college years, he had always played alongside white and Black players alike.

The reason was I played quarterback all my life on integrated teams. Instead, Briscoe preferred to let his play speak for him. If he could help them win, he figured, they would have to give him at least some modicum of respect — even the racists who called him the N-word behind his back.

In his first action, when he came off the bench and nearly beat the Patriots with a fourth-quarter comeback, Briscoe began to sense a sea change. That's basically what I had to do and did do.

Since the Broncos had him practicing at cornerback until three weeks into the season, he did have some ground to make up as far as learning the offense. I threw quite a few interceptions, but that was because I didn't know what exactly was I supposed to do against these teams. As he re-settled into the position, he set to catching up on what he'd missed.

This may be easy for players today as they peruse as much video as their heart desires on team-issued tablets, but Briscoe had to take home a reel-to-reel projector and canisters of film in They didn't know what I was doing at night.

I was at home in my apartment. He absorbs everything. A record home crowd saw the evidence of this on Oct. From one week to the next, Briscoe was showing he could handle the game at its most important position. Now, with a chance to settle into the starting role for the final four games, it was time to prove he could handle the duties on a weekly basis.

After re-entering the starting lineup for the final stretch of the season, it seemed like little was going right. In the first quarter of this game against the lowly Bills, Briscoe followed up an underthrow with an overthrow on the first drive and didn't attempt a pass on the second. Then an open receiver dropped a deep throw. As the quarter's end neared, Briscoe had started 0-for-5 and had been sacked once. After an offsides call, Denver faced second-and That pressure was all Briscoe needed.

From the Broncos' own yard line, he dropped back and threw to Denson for 38 yards. Two plays later, they connected for 17 more. On the first play of the second quarter, Briscoe scrambled and found Brendan McCarthy for a yard touchdown. He followed it up with two more efficient touchdown drives in the second quarter.

Briscoe found Crabtree for a yard score on the first, and on the second, he floated a screen pass over a leaping defensive lineman for a play that Little took to the house from 66 yards out. In the second half, the Broncos struggled to continue their hot streak.

Briscoe threw a painful pick-six, though he soon atoned for it with a his fourth touchdown of the day. Entering the final quarter, the Broncos held a commanding point lead, but it would soon evaporate. The Bills quickly scored a touchdown and converted the two-point try. After Denver missed one of two field-goal tries, Buffalo blocked a punt and scored on the next play, cutting the lead to two points. After a failed onside kick with left, the Broncos seemed at last to have the game wrapped up.

Then disaster struck. Little, running to his left on sweep, tried to elude a tackler behind the line, but he stumbled and lost the ball. Buffalo recovered and took it to the yard line. For whatever reason — perhaps to avoid losing yards or losing the ball themselves — the Bills opted to immediately kick the field goal and go up by one point with about 30 seconds left.

After the fumble, the notoriously explosive Saban fired Little on the spot. As Little walked toward the locker room, the offense gathered for their first play. I called a timeout. Halfway to the locker room, Little decided he had nothing to lose. He put himself back in the game and told Lynch to go back to the sideline. In the huddle, Briscoe dialed up a play just for Little to capitalize on his speed in a one-on-one matchup with a linebacker deep down the right sideline.

Briscoe scrambled to his left as the pass rush closed in, eventually heaving a bomb from near the numbers at his own yard line to the yard line on the numbers on the right side — a throw that traveled about 60 yards through the air. Little made a spectacular catch and then drew a facemask penalty. With 10 seconds left, kicker Bobby Howfield made the yard field goal to win the game.

To the victor went the spoils, and on top of a hard-fought win, Briscoe earned several records. Until John Elway arrived in Denver, Briscoe held the franchise's single-game rookie records for passing yards with and touchdown passes with four. Today, those marks are second and tied for first, respectively, in team annals. Until , Briscoe was the youngest player in team history to throw for at least yards. After topping the Bills, Denver prepared to take on their three division rivals, each of whom were far above.

Against the high-powered Chargers, Briscoe did his best to keep pace and threw for yards, three touchdowns and zero interceptions, though his Still, with San Diego putting up 47 points, you couldn't put the blame on Briscoe.

After those two starts, he was making history, and not just because of his race. Briscoe was the first Broncos quarterback ever to throw seven or more touchdowns across two consecutive games. To this day, he is still the only rookie in franchise history to accomplish that feat. For Broncos fans, Briscoe was a welcome departure from the Broncos' hapless run of searching for a quarterback who could capably lead their offense.

In just the previous two seasons, Denver started an astounding six different players at the position. Yet, Denver mustered perhaps it's finest effort in going toe-to-toe with the Raiders on the road. Briscoe had his ups and downs in the game, but it's unquestionable that his efforts were key to Denver playing the game as close as it did.

Early in the fourth quarter, with the Broncos trailing by 10, Briscoe led an eight-play, yard drive. He accounted for 55 of those yards — 15 on the ground and 40 through the air — including the yard touchdown pass to cap the drive. On the next drive, though, Briscoe watched as one of his passes bounced off the hands of one of his receivers and those of a Raiders cornerback into the grasp of Oakland linebacker Dan Conners.

The Raiders turned the takeaway into three points, pushing their lead to six. Late in the game, Denver got one more chance, needing a touchdown. On fourth-and, Briscoe threw his fourth interception of the day. Despite Briscoe's struggles, it was still a promising performance by the team to play the Raiders that close. The Chiefs' top-rated defense was dominant, forcing Briscoe into a for passing day.

He threw for yards, one touchdown and two interceptions, but Kansas City's pass rush gave him fits all day. It was humbling, but Chiefs head coach Hank Stram, a future Hall of Famer, was nonetheless impressed.

Briscoe may have won only one of his four final starts, but that record could not diminish his accomplishments nor the talent that was so easily visible. A runner-up for AFL Rookie of the Year honors [9], Briscoe finished his rookie season with 1, passing yards, 14 touchdown passes, 13 interceptions, rushing yards and three rushing touchdowns — all in just five starts and 11 games. The passing touchdown mark still stands as the franchise's single-season rookie record.

Very few quarterbacks were putting up numbers like that back then. Int Career Player Split Finder. Regular Season. Lower-case means part-time starter. Minimum receptions to qualify as career leader. Minimum rushes to qualify as career leader. Minimum touches to qualify as career leader. Available for player games since Sign up for the free Stathead newsletter and get scores, news and notes in your inbox every day.

View a sample email. It's also available for basketball, baseball and hockey. Sign Up For Free.