ENGLEWOOD, Colo — Denver Broncos owners Greg Penner and Carrie Walton Penner along with the recently revised Ring of Fame committee have decided it's never too late to honor yesterday’s heroes.
In a vote that corrected decades of wrong, the committee announced Thursday it has elected two of the most prominent players from its first Super Bowl team, tight end Riley Odoms and cornerback/safety Steve Foley, into the Broncos Ring of Fame.
Denver’s famed Orange Crush era is almost always associated with the 1977 season. That team has been reprised in 2024.
In February, Randy Gradishar, the leading tackler for the Orange Crush defense, was elected into the Pro Football Hall of Fame. In April, Barney Chavous, a longtime defensive end in the Orange Crush’s famed 3-4 system, was inducted into the Colorado Sports Hall of Fame. Now two of their teammates, Odoms and Foley, will have their names hung on the Empower Field at Mile High Ring of Fame façade and their pillars will be added to the Ring of Fame Plaza outside the stadium’s South Stands.
“It’s been a lot of years but all highways are not straight,'' Odoms said to 9NEWS from his home in Houston. "But we got there and I’m excited about it.”
Said Foley: “It’s just surreal. Greg Penner called me about 9 and let me know. I actually thought he was calling about something to do with Randy (Gradishar) in Canton. I’m floored. I’m humbled, I’m honored, I’m floored.”
Foley, who has stayed in the Denver area and is still active in real estate, will be out at Broncos' headquarters later Thursday morning with his wife Cindy, brother Joe and daughter Natalie and her family.
Odoms and Foley were the first players to receive the nod from the Broncos’ revised Ring of Fame committee that was formed last year. Led by the team’s owners, the new ROF committee also consists of former head coach Mike Shanahan, Hall of Fame safety Steve Atwater, radio play-by-play announcer Dave Logan and former longtime public relations director Jim Saccomano. The committee met in person this week at the Broncos’ Dove Valley headquarters.
The elections of Odoms and Foley were long overdue. Foley has held the Broncos’ interception record with 44 since 1986. Subsequent Broncos’ Pro Football Hall of Fame defensive backs like Champ Bailey and Atwater have fallen well short of Foley’s record.
Odoms is one of 13 Broncos who were twice selected first-team All Pro during their careers and one of only of two from that group — left tackle Ryan Clady the other — who had not been elected into the Broncos’ Ring of Fame.
How Odoms fell through the Ring of Fame cracks is mystifying considering he outproduced two other tight ends from his era who were inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame.
Dave Casper was considered an Oakland Raider legendary tight end who has been in the Hall of Fame since 2002. Former Detroit Lion Charlie Sanders became a Hall of Famer in 2007.
Casper and Sanders may have received the NFL’s ultimate individual honor, but they were no Riley Odoms:
- Charlie Sanders
- 1968-77 (10 years): 336 catches, 4,817 yards, 31 touchdowns.
- Dave Casper
- 1974-84 (11 years): 378 catches, 5,216 yards, 52 touchdowns.
- Riley Odoms
- 1972-83 (12 years): 396 catches, 5,755 yards, 41 touchdowns.
Odoms smoked Sanders in all three significant categories of catches, yards and touchdowns. Odoms also outproduced Casper in catches and yards. Odoms had 18 more catches and 539 more yards than Dave Casper? And the Raiders had a fine passing game. The Broncos during the 1970s and ‘80s played to their defense, not opening up their offense until it reached midfield.
"Really and truly I had great years playing the game but I never got a chance to say thank you to our great fans out there,'' Odoms said. "Everything happened so quickly back then and boom, I’m back in Houston. I used to come out there and play golf, which I can’t do anymore – I don’t have any knees that work anymore. I get around but anyway, even though it took me a long time to get in, the players I played with were absolutely fantastic.’’
The other 1977 Broncos have long pushed for Odoms' place in the Ring of Fame.
“Riley was a fantastic athlete. He could crash down on the O-line,’’ said Broncos’ receiver Haven Moses for the book, 50 Greatest Players in Denver Broncos History. “He was very instrumental in the run game and the softest hands for a tight end I had ever seen. He ran great routes. That’s what made us so successful because when you have a tight end like that it puts a lot of pressure on the strong side of the defense. He should be in the Ring of Fame. To me he is the foundation of the tight end history here with the Broncos.’’
During that magical Orange Crush season of 1977, when the Broncos went 12-2 during the regular season, Odoms made perhaps the biggest play in the team’s first-ever postseason game, a 30-yard touchdown reception from Craig Morton that broke a 14-14, third quarter tie against the mighty Pittsburgh Steelers, who were in the midst of their 1970s dynasty.
Foley was both a consistent and extremely versatile player. The seventh of 13 Foley children raised by Ivan and Jane Foley in a converted Catholic convent home in New Orleans, Steve Foley was a three-year starting quarterback at Tulane.
He converted to defensive back in his first professional season of 1975 with the Jacksonville Express of the World Football League.
After one season in the WFL, Foley returned to the Broncos, who had taken him in the 8th round of the 1975 draft (No. 199 overall, the same spot where 25 years later the Patriots would select a quarterback named Tom Brady), and started to play cornerback. He came off the bench in the first 10 games of the season, but replaced the injured Calvin Jones as the starting right cornerback for the final six games. Foley never left the starting lineup again, except for injury and his retirement after the 1986 season.
“One of the greatest guys, ever,’’ said Tom Jackson, a starting outside linebacker all 11 seasons of Foley’s career, said in the “50 Greatest Broncos” book. “And an anchor for what we did. One of the most fun and beloved guys in that locker room.’’
It was halfway through the 1980 season that Broncos’ defensive coordinator Joe Collier shifted Foley from right corner to free safety. A few years earlier, Collier made the same move with Billy Thompson. And a few years later, Collier arranged the cornerback-shift with Mike Harden and Tyrone Braxton.
Foley got his first interception as a safety in his third game at the position against San Diego’s Dan Fouts, returning it 30 yards. He got another the next week against the Jets’ Richard Todd, returning it 18 yards.
That was the thing about that Orange Crush defense in the late-1970s, early-1980s. They didn’t just force turnovers, they did something with them. Foley had 622 return yards with his 44 interceptions, including a 40-yard touchdown return against Seattle’s Dave Krieg in the final game of the 1984 season.
Earlier that year, in a memorable mid-October game against the Green Bay Packers played in an incredible blizzard at Mile High Stadium, Foley on the first play of the game returned a fumble 22 yards for a touchdown. On the second play of the game, Broncos cornerback Louie Wright returned a fumble 27 yards for a touchdown.
The Broncos were up, 14-0 with 37 seconds gone in the game and wound up winning, 17-14.
“That had to be the most fun game I had ever played in,’’ Foley said. “It was the closest thing to a Little League, sandlot game that you ever played in. You were falling all over. I remember hitting a 235-pound tight end and he felt like he weighed 180 pounds. I said, “This is great.’’’
Foley had 21 interceptions in his 4 ½ seasons at cornerback, 23 in 5 ½ seasons at safety. (He missed all but 1 ½ quarters in 1982 because of a broken arm suffered in the opener).
“He had great hands. Great hands,’’ said Thompson, who played six seasons in the same backfield with Foley, two as a safety tandem.
“Steve was smart and he was fast enough and athletic enough to make plays,’’ said Broncos receiver Steve Watson. “And he knew what was going to happen. He was the beneficiary of Joe Collier and that (3-4) system. And they always talk about (the Chicago Bears safeties’) Doug Plank and Gary Fencik and how those guys hit. Well, I’m telling you, Foley was the same kind of hitter.’’
As a cornerback, Foley averaged 62 tackles a year in his four full years at cornerback. But it was after Thompson retired following the 1981 season that Foley really came on as a run enforcer. He was third on the team with 124 tackles in 1983, compiled a career-best 167 stops in 1984 and 92 in his final season of 1986.
In all, Foley had 877 tackles in his 11 NFL seasons. Take away his injured 1982 season and that’s 87 tackles a year. Not bad for a defensive back who was listed as 6-foot-2, 190 pounds.
"I didn't play to get in the Ring of Fame or anything like that,'' Foley said Thursday. "I played for my team and teammates and coaches and I played to win. I always loved playing football."
Odoms and Foley are the 36th and 37th members of the Broncos’ Ring of Fame and the first since Peyton Manning was inducted in 2021. Both Odoms and Foley have each been eligible for more than 30 years.
That new ownership – which is still learning about the team’s history – was willing to take a close look at why Odoms and Foley were overlooked is significant.
Others who received serious consideration from the Broncos’ ROF committee were Clady, receiver Ed McCaffrey, middle linebacker Al Wilson, outside linebacker Elvis Dumervil and Collier as an assistant coach.
But this year belonged to the Orange Crush.
Foley, Odoms and Gradishar, a Ring of Famer since 1998, will all be honored together — along with the 1977 Super Bowl-appearing team — on what will be Orange Crush weekend during Denver’s week 5 game Oct. 6 against the Raiders at Empower Field at Mile High Stadium.
While there hasn’t yet been an official announcement, game 5 against the Raiders — whom the 1977 Broncos defeated both in the regular season and postseason to snap a long skid — is when the current Broncos figure to wear their new throwback uniforms.
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