Giving It Sharpe Edge Broncos Star Perks Up Proceedings With A Few Brash Observations

Once Denver All-Pro tight end Shannon Sharpe started talking, he got on a roll, picked up momentum, but stopped tantalizingly short of pulling a Joe Namath and guaranteeing the Broncos will beat the Packers on Sunday.

But he left little doubt he expects the Broncos to come away with the second-biggest upset in Super Bowl history and, to top it off, he predicted he will be collecting the MVP Trophy if Green Bay has the audacity to try to cover him one-on-one with a linebacker. And he said enough inflammatory things that he should make an appearance on the Packers bulletin board.

“I like our chances,” Sharpe said. “I don’t care if they got Brett Favre. I don’t care if they got 10 Brett Favres. I like our chances because I know Mike (Shanahan) is going to put us in the best situation to win the football game.

“We’ve come here to win. Anything less is unacceptable. Period. We take no solace in winning the AFC or being second-best. We want to win the Lombardi Trophy. Lombardi has never been to Denver. We need to bring him to Denver. We come into this game expecting to win.”

Green Bay is the latest of the NFC superpowers, but the Pack did lose three games this year, something Sharpe did not fail to point out. And he said that let everybody know Green Bay had some areas that could be exploited, although he puts them in the superpower category with the recent championship teams in Dallas, San Francisco and Washington.

“Until somebody beat Mike Tyson, nobody wanted to fight him,” Sharpe said. “Then Buster Douglas knocked him out and everybody lined up to fight him. Green Bay lost three games. We see some things we can take advantage of. We lost four games. They see some things they can take advan tage of. That’s the way it is.”

Sharpe said the Packers got here with their defense and with strong safety LeRoy Butler blitzing to put pressure on the quarterback. But Butler is also the best the Packers have to try and check Sharpe.

“I don’t see how he can put pressure on the quarterback and cover me,” Sharpe said. “If he can do that, I need to get fired and a lot of other people need to get fired also. It means I’m not doing my job and the offensive line is not doing their job.”

Chances are the Packers will throw a variety of coverages at Sharpe. They will double him. Or have a linebacker bump him at the line before Butler or free safety Eugene Robinson picks him up. Or Butler or Robinson could have him in single coverage. One-on-one with a linebacker, however, probably won’t happen very often.

But if the Packers try to single him up against a linebacker like Seth Joyner or Bernardo Harris, Sharpe is looking for the MVP hardware. “If their linebackers cover me one-on-one, by themselves, the entire night with no help from anybody else, can you say M…V…P?’ But, he was asked, what happens if the linebackers do single him and stop him. “If they cover me one-on-one and beat my butt, I’ll renounce my citizenship, leave the country and leave all my assets in a bank account under your name,” he said.

Can Butler, who enjoyed hearing Sharpe’s comments, cover him one-on-one? “Oh sure,” Butler said. “No doubt.”

Sharpe didn’t quite agree. “Put it like this here, plain and simple, here it is: One on one, my two toughest people I’ve ever gone against to cover me is Mike Shanahan and John Elway. Because if Mike doesn’t put plays in and John doesn’t throw me the ball, I can’t get open. Anybody else is at my mercy. I am the best tight end in the game of football today. Period. End of quotation.”

Super Bowl week rarely provides the lively session Sharpe presided over on Thursday. He had an audience and he had some fun with it. Now he must back up his words.

And he had one other little gem.

“Here’s the thing that got me all riled up,” he said. “They make it seem like we’re a high school football team in Green Bay. We’re all professional athletes. There is a reason why we are here. We took the hard road. Granted, none of those teams we beat are Green Bay. None of them had a three-time MVP. None of them was as well-disciplined or well-organized as Mike Holmgren is going to have his guys. What are we? Fettucine? Chopped liver? Give us a break. We’re here because we deserve to be here.”

So, why no guarantee?

“I don’t get to touch the ball every time,” he said. “If I touched the ball every time, hey, I’d guarantee it.”