By Michael Silver of Sports Illustrated
November 1997

At exactly nine o'clock last Saturday night at an Englewood, Colo., hotel, Mike Shanahan rose from his perch in a darkened room overlooking two Denver Broncos meetings and prepared to give his players their last major speech before they faced the Carolina Panthers the next day. He had spent the previous half hour privately viewing simultaneous meetings of the Broncos' offense and defense - with audio piped through the speakers in his observatory by way of an elaborate sound system. Now the NFL's most thorough head coach walked downstairs to join his entire squad and to speak about special teams. "It's been a long time since we've had a breakout game in that area," Shanahan told his players. "This is the week we've got to put a total game together."

Four days earlier, in a meeting at the Broncos' practice facility in Englewood, Shanahan had challenged his defense, saying of the Panthers, "They're going to try to run the ball right down our throats, I guarantee you that. It's got to be a coming-out party for our defense."

Shanahan issued no such challenge to his offense, despite the Panthers' zone-blitzing scheme and its potential for wreaking havoc. When you have the future Hall of Fame quarterback (John Elway), a burgeoning-superstar halfback (Terrell Davis) and perhaps the most innovative offensive mind since Bill Walsh's, why get overly concerned about a few 300-pound defensive linemen dropping into coverage? As Shanahan said shortly before emerging from the darkness to deliver his Saturday night address, "Our goal is always to score over 30. If we play to our capabilities, we can move the ball on anybody."

Asked which offensive player he thought might have a big game against the Panthers, Shanahan said, "If thing unfold the way we expect them to, Shannon Sharpe will come up huge."

What took place the following afternoon at Mile High Stadium made Shanahan look psychic. The Broncos (9-1), who share the league's best record with the San Francisco 49ers, jumped to a 14-0 lead on a pair of punt returns for touchdowns by Darrien Gordon - one of Shanahan's key off-season acquisitions - and rolled to a 34-0 victory. The Denver defense shut down Carolina and forced four turnovers, including strong safety Tyrone Braxton's 27-yard interception return for a touchdown. Though the offense produced only 13 points, the Broncos neutralized the Panthers' blitzes and moved the ball expertly, with Sharpe, their All-Pro tight end, catching eight passes for 174 yards.

By the time the snowy afternoon had ended and darkness was descending upon Mile High, Shanahan seemed capable of predicting anything: from Sandra Bullock's next love interest to the onset of El Nino. In a league in which coaches such as the Jets' Bill Parcells, the Dolphins' Jimmy Johnson and the Packers' Mike Holmgren seem to will their teams to greater heights through force of their personalities, it may be that Shanahan, a cherub-faced, 5' 10", 180-pound former small college quarterback, has quietly emerged as the mot powerful presence in his profession.

Walsh, the Hall of Fame coach who built the 49ers into a dynasty, calls Shanahan "one of the four or five best men in football." Elway says Shanahan is the No. 1 coach in the NFL and numerous player son other teams - some of whom have met Shanahan only in passing - concur. "The word is out around the league," says Broncos defensive end Neil Smith, a five-time Pro Bowl performer for the Kansas City Chiefs who signed with Denver in the off-season. Shanahan is not only a shrewd strategist but also a demanding yet fair boss who lets his assistants coach and his players live, breathe and smile. As Broncos defensive lineman Mike Lodish, an eight-year veteran who spent his first five seasons with the Buffalo Bills, says, "He treats you like a man, until you need to be treated like a boy."

Shanahan, 45, has grown into his role as Denver's coach and personnel honcho. Ten years ago Raiders owner Al Davis hired Shanahan away from the Broncos, where he was a hotshot offensive coordinator, and made him the league's youngest head coach. The two mixed like filet mignon and Velveeta. Shanahan says he was "totally unprepared" to deal with the overbearing Davis, and their relationship was chilly from the outset. Shanahan went 7-9 in 1988 and was fired after a 1-3 start the following season, the first of two major career setbacks that sullied his reputation. Following the 1991 season, Shanahan, who had returned to the Broncos in the '89 season as quarterbacks coach, was dismissed by then Denver coach Dan Reeves, who accused Shanahan of going behind his back to plot strategy with Elway.

Though he felt wronged on both occasions, Shanahan kept a low profile, resurrecting his career as the 49ers' offensive coordinator from 1992 to '94. He figured that his name would be cleared with the passage of time, and judging by the numbers, it has been. Davis's Raiders are 3-7 and heading for their four consecutive nonplayoff season; they have had three coaches during that span. Reeves, fired by the New York Giants after last season, coaches the 2-8 Atlanta Falcons. Meanwhile, Shanahan's Broncos have won 23 of their last 28 games, with only a shocking 30-27 loss to the Jacksonville Jaguars in an AFC divisional playoff game last January marring their run of excellence.

Inside the Broncos' organization Shanahan is revered, in no small part because he listens. Shortly after the Broncos finished 8-8 in '95, Shanahan's first season, he met with each player to solicit input. Guard Mark Schlereth, who had won a Super Bowl with the Washington Redskins following the '91 season, spoke glowingly of how his former coach, Joe Gibbs, fostered camaraderie and occasionally rewarded players by giving them an extra day off after victories. Shanahan responded by hosting a barbecue for players and their families at this house the following summer - a popular event he repeated in August - and by allowing players the luxury of coming to the facility on their own time for film sessions and workouts the Mondays following a victory. "He's a players' coach," Terrell Davis says. "He doesn't feel a need to bark at you. He's straightforward, and treats his players with respect. In return, he wants you to play hard for him. What else can you ask for?"

Shanahan's most obvious strength is his attention to detail. Virtually every minute of his week is scheduled , and meeting times are as dependable as Big Ben. But unlike many of his hyperintense NFL counterparts, his ferocious drive was channeled into coaching only after a freak accident ended his playing career.

A star high school quarterback in suburban Chicago, Shanahan earned a scholarship to Eastern Illinois. During the spring game of his junior year, Shanahan was tackled hard while running an option play but completed the scrimmage. In the locker room afterward Shanahan urinated blood, then returned to his apartment and began vomiting profusely. He went to the hospital only after one of his roommates called an ambulance, but doctors couldn't determine what was wrong. After Shanahan lost consciousness, emergency surgery was performed, and doctors discovered that one of his kidneys had been split open and had to be removed. "My heart stopped beating for more than 30 seconds," says Shanahan. "A priest read me my last rites. My dad got to the hospital as the priest was walking out."

After spending five days in intensive care, Shanahan was told to avoid strenuous activity. "A few days later he was lifting weights," recalls Denver receivers coach Mike Heimerdinger, who was one of Shanahan's roommates at the time. "Then he was playing handball. About two weeks after the surgery, we took him river rafting."

"That's Mike," says Shanahan's wife, Peggy. "He loves to live dangerously." Pressed for further examples, she cites a trip to Mexico in which Mike went bungee jumping with their two children, Kyle, now 17, and Krystal, now 14. A few years ago, on a trip to Jamaica, Shanahan jumped from a 60-foot cliff into the Caribbean. His tendency to live dangerously was evident in Sunday's game. Four times in the first half the Broncos faced four-and-one, and Shanahan went for it on all four occasions - even though the first two tries were unsuccessful. "I figured if we couldn't make a yard, we didn't deserve to have the ball," he said later.

Shanahan loves to create challenges. He and Broncos owner Pat Bowlen, the man who gave Shanahan a seven-year, $85. million contract following the 49ers' Super Bowl victory in January 1995, have a sizable wager on whether Shanahan can run a five-minute mile before next May. (He's in the 5:45 range now.) While with San Francisco, Shanahan prodded his offensive players to reach record-setting plateaus, and they responded with the most productive three-year statistical averages - including total offense and scoring - in NFL history. "I remember him coming down to our Wednesday-morning meetings with a gleam in his eye, talking about the defensive coordinator we wee going to face," Niners quarterback Steve Young recalls. "He'd say, 'This guy is going to do this, and we're going to gash him this way.' It was like the battle was personal."

Peggy says she has seen her husband cry only once - when, while coaching the Raiders, he was awakened by a late-night phone call informing him that one of his players, safety Stacey Toran, had died in a car accident. But Shanahan's hard edge is tempered by a knack for getting along with people, whether they're corporate schmoozers, autograph seekers or employees.

Two weeks ago Shanahan called veteran defensive tackle Michael Dean Perry into his office and told him, "You're not getting it done anymore. If our young guys keep producing, I'm going to have to release you." That hasn't happened, but Shanahan couldn't have been more direct in discussing the future of a player who hasn't seen action in the past two weeks.

To me the bottom line is that people trust you," says Shanahan. "They might not like what you have to say, but if you're honest and treat them like men, I think they respect you."

Integrity is paramount to Shanahan. When Bowlen didn't renew Reeves's contract following the '92 season, he offered the job to Shanahan, who stunned the owner by turning it down. "Things had gotten so bad with me and Dan the previous year, and everyone thought I was after his job," Shanahan says. "I didn't want to be the a------ who took Dan's job. It just didn't feel right."

Similarly, in the aftermath of the Niners' Super Bowl victory, San Francisco president Carmen Policy crafted a plan in which Shanahan would be anointed the successor to George Seifert, who would coach for one or two more years. "George was urging me to do it," Shanahan says, "but it would have been horrible. I didn't want to be the guy who pushed him out."

Shanahan has been adaptable throughout his career, assimilating the positive qualities of various employers: Barry Switzer, for whom he served as a graduate assistant at Oklahoma in the mid-'70s (bluntness, people skills); former Florida coach Charley Pell, his boss from 1980 to '83 (organizational skills); and Seifert (the ability to sublimate his ego for the good of the team). Though he and Al Davis are bitter enemies, Shanahan lauds the Raiders' managing general partner for "leaving no stone unturned in his preparation" - something virtually everyone in the Broncos' organization cites as one of Shanahan's strengths.

Name an aspect of Danver's operation - strategy, personnel, salary-cap management, meals on airlines - and Shanahan's hands are al over it. He studies as many as 70 videocassettes of each week's opponents and tapes every Broncos meeting, even though he watches some of the live in his office on closed-circuit television. For every team he has a list of salaries, enabling him to scan for potential salary-cap victimes who might be available down the road.

Still, Shanahan derives his greatest edge fromhis understanding of the game. At various stops in his career he has been exposed to the wishbone, the run-and-shoot and the West Coast offense. He has modified the last of those schemes to allow for Elway's abilities (through the shotgun) and for a power running attack. "But he also has a great grasp of defensive theory," sayd Denver defensive coordinator Greg Robinson. "Few people in football have the perspective he has."

Just ask the Panthers, who managed only seven first downs and 147 yards on Sunday and fell victim to the Broncos' defensive-line stunts throughout the second half. Offensively, Shanahan provided a blueprint of How to Neutralize the Zone Blitz. Leaning heavily on a seldom-used protection package known as 2-Jet, which calls for a second tight end, Dwayhe Carswell, to serve as an extra blocker against blitzing linebackers and defensive backs, Shanahan crafted a game plan that afforded Elway time to take seven-step drops and still find Sharpe, who was often left in man-to-man coverage. The Broncos also attacked Carolina with basic running plays for Davis (21 carries, 104 yards), many of which went against Denver's tendencies and helped set up play-action passes.

Shanahan was fine-tuning the game pan last Saturday night when Bill Harpole, the Broncos' director of operations, was summoned to the unlit observatory. Shanahan wanted the Evander Holyfield-Michael Moorer fight shown on a nearby big-screen television so he and th eplayers could watch it while eating their late-night snack. "We've got five cable-company guys working on it," Harpole said. (The problem ultimately was solved when a 580-foot cable was strung from the hotel lobby to the projection screen, a development that earned Harpole a high five from Shanahan.)

Later, Shanahan went back to eavesdropping on the offensive and defensive meetings. "Most of the players know abou this room now," he said, "but at first, no one knew I was up here. I'd hear them say things about me - how they didn't like something I did at practice, or how I was bugging them in some way. So I'd file it away, and later I'd approach those peopel and say, 'So, you didn't like what we did in practice?' They'd get an amazed look on their face, and I'd just smile and walk away. They'd wonder, How the hell did he know?"

On Sunday the Panther's players and coaches were asking themselves the same question.

Credit for this article should go to Sports Illustrated, with special thanks for pointing it out to '91 alum David Lindquist.