Elway Netflix Documentary was Decent, Missed the Mark on 90s Nostalgia

The Elway documentary on Netflix was good, but not great.

Kind of like those three Super Bowls in the 80s led by Elway that got uglier and uglier, which were featured in the film.

There was a major focus on the 80s, which was fine, but the filmmakers missed out on 90s nostalgia.

Spoiler Warning: Mild spoilers ahead, though they shouldn't ruin the film, and you should still watch even with the criticism if you're a Broncos or John Elway fan.

Elway Doc was good, could've been better

I watched "Elway" on Netflix last night, and it was very good. But, it could've been better.

The 1:39 running time was mostly about the 1980s and his upbringing, a smidgen on the 90s, with an overarching theme of his family life. It featured interviews from John Elway himself, his ex-wife Janet, his four children, and even had some historical interviews from his mom, dad, and sister.

When it came to former Broncos, Shannon Sharpe and Mark Jackson, as well as Terrell Davis and Rod Smith, were all featured, along with Mike Shanahan and former trainer "Greek" and media guys Adam Schefter and former Broncos PR man Jim Saccomano.

While there were many angles to take in this lifelong pursuit of sports greatness, the creators zeroed in on family first and foremost. The biggest takeaway was that John Elway focused everything on playing football. And gave little attention to his family.

That's sad. It left me feeling somewhat somber.

As a kid, born in 1985 in Denver and raised a Broncos die-hard, Elway was my favorite player. His football story is worthy of a Hollywood feature, not just a documentary. Elway tasted the highest of highs in sports—he was the No. 1 overall pick in the NFL—and lowest of lows, losing three straight Super Bowls. But he overcame it all and won back-to-back Super Bowls before riding off into the sunset.

In "Elway" he said, "Winning was the most important thing. That was at the sacrifice of my family." John Elway sacrificed his family to be the best player in the history of the Denver Broncos.

If you asked me 30 years ago, I might've said, "Good! It's helped him be the greatest football player ever."

But now, as a father and 40-year old, I can't imagine putting all my time and effort into my career and letting my marriage fall apart, like John Elway did. Even if that is as glamorous as being an NFL superstar.

"Whether he won or lost, there was definitely a mood shift," one daughter explained. "I was definitely intimidated with him," son Jack said of John.

It seems that the documentarians purposely added in an interview with parents Jack Elway and Janet Elway, where John's dad talks about how great a football coaches' wife Janet is. She looks down as he answers, seems sad and like she's even trying to hold in tears as Jack says how his job has long days and late hours, how he has to be away from the house most of the time.

And while no one said it explicitly, it seems that John followed in his dad's shoes. He was praised by former teammates for putting in a lot of film study during the offseason. And any football fan knows the days are long for these guys, whether it's on a road trip away from family, training at the facility, or playing dice or cards with the teammates, as Sharpe said he did.

That part—John following in Jack's football-obsessed shoes—reminded me of the Tiger Woods documentary "Tiger" in which it was revealed Woods learned how to womanize from his dad.

Obviously, being football-obsessed and away from your family—playing poker, drinking, etc.—isn't on the same level of egregiousness as cheating on your wife and then dating porn stars like Tiger did. But neither are positive traits to learn and emulate.

Maybe we're all destined to repeat what our parents do, even if it's a destructive behavior.

The Duke of Denver explained in "Elway" that the years following his retirement were the toughest for him. Elway retired in 1999, then he and Janet were divorced in 2003, before he was inducted in the Hall of Fame in 2004.

As a 19-year old kid, I attended the Hall of Fame induction ceremony, traveling from Denver to Cleveland alone, and then taking the Greyhound bus to Canton. It was a special day; there were 20,000 Broncos fans and a sea of orange. Even if John was one of four players—including Barry Sanders—being enshrined that day, it felt like. a home game at Mile High Stadium. Barrel Man was there. Shanahan, Ed McCaffrey, Sharpe, and many other former players were there.

Elway cried, I cried.

They glossed over his post-retirement to when he became the Broncos GM in 2011, and Elway said it helped pull him out of that tough time. I also found it interesting they didn't mention his second wife Paige Green, the former Raiders cheerleader.

And they finished the doc with Elway in Cour d'Alene, Idaho, where he has an incredible mansion on a lake. His kids once called Jack their "poppi" and now John at 65 is "poppi" to many grandkids who visited him.

It was as though the filmmakers wanted to paint the story that Elway, who pushed aside his family as a player, finally embraced family as an older man. He learned his lesson.

"Elway" missed out on 90s nostalgia

Again, making a documentary must be challenging work. You're taking thousands of hours of footage and distilling it down to an hour-and-a-half. You're telling a man's story of 65 years in that short running time.

And maybe my biggest beef isn't that it focused too heavily on the family aspect, it's that the doc could have been longer. If the filmmakers wanted to focus that much on the family, they could have made it a series instead of a film. Run an episode on the family, sure. Then one on his playing career in the 1980s. One (or multiple) episodes on playing in the 90s. And then an episode on the post playing career.

It's an unfair comparison, sure, but I wanted "Elway" to be a lot more like "The Last Dance."

If you're a 90s kid like me, and if you enjoyed basketball 30 years ago, I implore you to go watch "The Last Dance" right now. The 10-episode series went through Michael Jordan's life, his upbringing, with a look at how he helped build the Chicago Bulls and simultaneously the NBA with his stardom. They left no stone unturned, showed really fun and interesting behind the scenes stuff, and then wrapped it all up with that last championship run in 1998.

John Elway and the Denver Broncos went through their championship run at the same exact time!

The filmmakers missed out on capitalizing on 90s nostalgia that has taken the world by storm lately. If you're a sports fan, you've noticed that NBC is broadcasting NBA games for the first time since 2002.

Again, as an 80s baby and 90s kid, watching Michael Jordan, Patrick Ewing, and Charles Barkley, among others, on Saturdays on NBC was a huge part of my childhood. There's a reason why NBC (and Peacock) brought back Roundball Rock, that incredible 90s song as their intro/commercial outro song.

Nostalgia. Immediate, glorious nostalgia for all of us who experienced those big games together 30 years ago.

If there was ever a time to focus on the 90s—when both Elway and the Denver Broncos were in their heyday—it's right now. When everyone wants more 90s; from the clothes, to the music, to the simpler times before the internet and smartphones, etc.

More Elway watching film, please

Where "Elway" flourished was when Elway was sitting in his movie theatre in the Cour d'Alene mansion, watching old highlights and lowlights alike.

I loved him talking about the 1980s trials and tribulations.

Being a 90s kid, I missed the 80s stuff; I was only 4 in 1989 when they were blown out by the 49ers. A game my dad used to make fun of me for, saying I was cheering for San Francisco.

I knew there was some animosity between Dan Reeves and Elway, but I thought they painted the picture really well. And how Mike Shanahan was brought in to bridge the gap between Elway and Reeves. And then he was subsequently fired because Reeves saw Shanny was getting closer to his QB than he could be.

The filmmakers missed out on an opportunity to really dive deep into Elway watching film. I would've loved to hear the Duke explain what he thought about Joe Montana, Dan Marino, Jim Kelly and other contemporaries like Jordan did in "The Last Dance."

They also completely glossed over the early 90s, when John played some of his best football, and fast forwarded to 1996. All of those experiences were missed. Wade Phillips wasn't even mentioned.

Then, once they got to 1996, they talked only about the Jaguars playoff loss.

All talk about 1997 was boiled down to Super Bowl XXXII and that was it. And 1998, too, was just about Super Bowl XXXIII.

The filmmakers left a lot of meat on the bones here. Again, why an multi-episodic format would've benefited this particular era of Denver Broncos football.

Terrell Davis is the greatest running back ever, Elway proclaimed. And yet, we get very little about him besides a few breakaway run highlights here and there. Nothing on him becoming the fourth ever player to break the 2,000-yard mark in a season. Nor his 21 rushing touchdowns that year, or being a three-time All-Pro.

Shannon Sharpe revolutionized the tight end position and changed it from a blocking job to a receiver who also blocks. Rod Smith is the greatest undrafted receiver in the history of the NFL, and Ed McCaffrey saw his career revitalized and saved with the Broncos.

Then, there's the defensive stars. Hall of Famer Steve Atwater, Bill Romanowski, Tyrone Braxton, John Mobley, Alfred Williams, and more.

Again, I have to imagine the filmmakers—Ken Rodgers and Chris Weaver—intentionally focused on Elway solely. That is the name of the doc, after all. And Elway was always a larger-than-life figure in Denver.

My hope is someone else creates a documentary series surrounding the 1990s era Denver Broncos. Even just the Mike Shanahan Era heyday, from 1995-1998. I would love to feel the nostalgia from watching those old highlights, listening to players tell the stories of those games from their own memories. And reliving that special dynastic era for the Broncos.

Maybe we'll get that. Here's hoping.

Still, "Elway" was very good. Again, I encourage you to go watch it on Netflix if you're a Broncos or John Elway fan. And comment here; what were your thoughts of the production?

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