[Flash Walken]

Thirty years ago this week, the NFL teetered on wobbly legs.

It was coming off the 1982 player strike, Raiders owner Al Davis had just successfully sued the league for the right to move his team to Los Angeles, the USFL was poaching players -- including Heisman Trophy winner Herschel Walker -- and John Elway, who would be selected No. 1 overall in the draft, was threatening to play for the New York Yankees if the Baltimore Colts used the first pick on him, which they did.


That’s the backdrop for the ESPN Films “30 for 30” documentary “Elway to Marino,” which debuts Tuesday at 5 p.m. PDT and re-airs at 6:30 p.m.

It’s NFL Films’ first piece for the critically acclaimed “30 for 30” series, and is directed by Ken Rodgers, who runs the “Hard Knocks” show.

“Elway to Marino” is a behind-the-scenes look at how the first round of the 1983 draft unfolded, using as a roadmap the just-revealed personal diary of agent Marvin Demoff, who represented both Stanford star Elway and Dan Marino, who tumbled nearly to the end of the round before being selected 27th by Miami.

Rodgers called the first round a “transformative” moment for the NFL, which had yet to emerge from the shadow of Major League Baseball as America’s most popular sport.

“The draft, the power of the ESPN relationship, and the players on the field,” he said, “changed generations on this day, April 26, 1983, and especially in those three hours, 14 minutes of the first round when six Hall of Famers were drafted and the fortunes of players, coaches, franchises, owners all changed. You can see just by looking at the list of who was drafted, what the next 10 years held for certain franchises.”

The best example of what might have been belongs to the Pittsburgh Steelers, who passed on hometown hero Marino at 21 and instead selected Texas Tech defensive lineman Gabriel Rivera. The Steelers reasoned they still had at least a couple of years remaining with quarterback Terry Bradshaw.

One quarter into the 1983 season, Bradshaw suffered a career-ending elbow injury. Rivera lasted six games before driving drunk and getting into an accident that paralyzed him.

http://articles.latimes.com/2013/apr...arino-20130422

I really enjoyed this. NFL Films does such a spectacular job.