"Ho-hum," says Greg Kragen, "another Super Bowl."
He comes to these things like a lot of housewives go to White Sales. This is his third Super Bowl in the last three years. If you look up the Denver Broncos rosters for XXI, XXII and XXIV you'll see his name: Greg Kragen, nose tackle, Utah State.The natural impression is that Kragen and the Broncos are as close as family, that he is as integral a part of their defense as John Elway is an integral part of their offense; that they couldn't live without this guy.
But in reality, nothing could be further from the truth. Ever since Kragen came on the Broncos' scene, as an unheralded defensive lineman out of Utah State in 1984, they have been trying to get rid of him. That they have had no success, and that Kragen has turned himself into a Pro Bowl player in the process (he and Michael Dean Perry of the Cleveland Browns will be the defensive tackles for the AFC in Hawaii), makes him a survivor in the category of old rubber tires.
How does he do it? "I don't know," he said Wednesday before a Broncos' practice in preparation for Sunday's Super Bowl against the San Francisco 49ers. "Maybe the rest of the guys in the league feel sorry for me."
He said this with a grin, while wearing a T-shirt that said, "I'm Having A Maalox Moment!"
If Kragen doesn't have ulcers, he should have. His pro football career didn't start out on a secure note, and hasn't gotten a whole lot better ever since.
In 1984 - fresh out of Utah State - he first signed on with the Broncos as a free agent. Denver was unimpressed that Kragen had been first-team all-defense in the PCAA in 1983. They cut him.
In 1985 he tried out for the Broncos again. This time he stuck, in a manner of speaking, and he has stuck - mostly as a starter - ever since, again in a manner of speaking.
All the while, the Broncos have been on a crusade to get him outta there. By their own count, they have paraded nine players in and out of town the past five years trying to prove Kragen is replaceable. Their names are Scott Garnett, Tony Colorito, Andre Townsend, Joe Klecko (who went to the Colts for more money), Ted Gregory, Andrew Provence, Shawn Knight (of BYU) and Kevin Brooks.
Every one of these guys was bigger than Kragen - who, at 265 pounds, is hardly a giant in the middle of the field - and every one was drafted in the early rounds, most of them the first round.
After Denver's successive Super Bowl losses to the Giants and the Redskins - losses in which the Bronco defense gave up a combined 81 points - Kragen was singled out as an example of the prototypical AFC small-but-weak linemen. It the training camps following each of those Super Bowls, Kragen was particularly marked as a goner.
"I was a good target. I was the small nose tackle," he says. "They'd keep bringing in guys, and every guy seemed to be bigger and bigger."
But not big enough to dislodge Kragen. Everytime Denver turned around there he'd be, like the smog. They couldn't get rid of him.
They got rid of almost everybody else - including the nine players mentioned above. Just one season removed from the '88 Super Bowl, Kragen is one of just five returning defensive starters who will play in this one. The Broncos even replaced Joe Collier, their 20-year veteran defensive coordinator, and defensive line coach Stan Jones, Kragen's coach for his first four seasons.
"They always wanted to get somebody in here to beat him out, somebody bigger," Jones told the Rocky Mountain News. "But that recommendation did not come from the defensive staff. We knew the only way to stop him was to hit him over the head with a two-by-four . . . The thing that gets me is, the guy was a darn good football player the last couple of years and everybody wanted to replace him. Now people are looking at his technique, studying how to do it."
Nobody's looking at his technique more this week than the 49ers, whose challenge is to neutralize Kragen and keep him away from quarterback Joe Montana. If Kragen has the kind of game he had during the regular season against the Chiefs - when his six tackles, a sack and a returned fumble for touchdown won him AFC Defensive Player of the Week honors - Denver could be ordering Super Bowl rings for the first time in its history.
"My job is to make Montana uncomfortable," says Kragen.
Now there's something he can relate to. Maalox moments - they're his specialty.