Over the years, I can recall reading on several occasions about Pat Bowlen and his interactions with the other NFL owners. The overall thrust of those commentaries tended to be Pat standing up for this idea or standing against that idea, frequently being in the minority.

Each time he seemed to be standing up for what he considered was right, was fair, was appropriate. In the outpouring of love since his passing, the stories upon stories about the life of Mr. Bowlen, the dominant theme was his innate sense of fairness and his willingness to stand up for those beliefs. In an era of convenience, Mr. Bowlen was an outlier, in the best sense of the word.

A tale from the 1990’s was buzzing around the back of my mind, so I asked Denver’s Professor Emeritus for the Broncos, Andrew Mason, if he had any recollections of the story. I remembered that it some point, Pat Bowlen had a powerful effect on how the offensive line was perceived and paid. Mase gave me some direction.

“I don’t recall such a story for certain,” he wrote back,”but the year they traded for Zim [Hall of Fame left tackle Gary Zimmerman] was also the year they signed Don Maggs and Brian Habib in free agency (1993). Bowlen's No. 1 priority was to protect Elway, and the Broncos spent accordingly. Maggs got hurt, necessitating the Zim trade. Zim wanted out of Minnesota because he didn’t get along with Dennis Green, who had become the coach a year earlier."

Mase then added, “Footnote — if the Vikings stick with Jerry Burns after 6-10 and 8-8 seasons in 1990 and 1991 following four straight winning seasons, Zim probably never leaves Minnesota. Burns was very much like his longtime mentor, Bud Grant — a trust-the-players guy who would always err on the side of undercoaching. That said, they were always perceived as underachievers. From seeing them on a regular basis in Tampa, back when the Bucs and Vikings were division rivals, I didn’t buy that notion. They were just a team that was talented at every area but quarterback, as they cycled through a series of serviceable, unspectacular QBs — Wade Wilson, Rich Gannon and Sean Salisbury — in the late 1980s/early 1990s after Tommy Kramer wore down."

Mase's comment on Maggs and Habib brought parts of the story back into focus. At the end of 1992, offensive linemen were relatively low-wage players. The idea had been that they just weren’t worth spending much money.

To wit, the great Hall of Fame tackle, Anthony Munoz, was in Cincinnati at the time, where he toiled for 13 seasons. The Bengals had never paid him much, and he had gone to management about what is, to us, a small raise. They laughed him out of the office. Mase added the rest of the story when I mentioned Munoz.

“The Muñoz story is fascinating because the Bengals didn’t give him the money, but Tampa Bay — coached by Sam Wyche, who had him for eight seasons in Cincinnati — did. The Bucs had some free-agent losses, but spent heavily — albeit randomly — because their owner, Hugh Culverhouse, had cancer and knew he probably had two or three seasons left, at the maximum. Then Muñoz tore his rotator cuff when he made a tackle in a preseason game in Orlando, and he never played again.”

Gary Zimmerman and Pat Bowlen at the former's Hall of Fame induction.

As Mase had mentioned, when Pat was putting the team together in anticipation of what became back-to-back Super Bowl titles, Bowlen had a better idea than the status quo. If you want your quarterback to last, he reasoned, you’d better darned well protect him. The results showed that he was right.

Brian Habib was a 6-foot-7 free agent monster at right guard, and Pat lured him to Denver by paying him well. Habib never forgot, and always referred to Pat as the best owner he ever played for. Although Habib would move on to Seattle for two seasons at the end of his career, I’ll never forget watching him in Super Bowl XXXII, using his athleticism against the bigger, bulkier Green Bay defensive line in the San Diego heat.

Habib's key assignment was fending off the massive 340-pound Gilbert Brown. Habib gave up 40 pounds to Brown, but wore him down until Brown could barely stand by the time Denver cemented their place in history. The entire offensive line, small by NFL standards, rode their zone blocking scheme into the record books.

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Bowlen put together Tom Nalen, Gary Zimmerman, Tony Jones and Habib, and they were the Little Big Men of the NFL. With grudging respect, the San Diego Chargers general manager Bobby Beathard said of them, "They rank at the top of the league. I don't mean that individually but as a unit. Their strength lies in their ability to play together."

It was, but their other strength was that the individuals were remarkable talents. Don Maggs didn’t work out. Although a brilliant left tackle, he was injured in his first offseason in Denver. He only started three games between 1993 and 1994.

Denver needed a left tackle, and Gary Zimmerman needed to get away from Dennis Green. Denver forked over its first and sixth-round draft choices in 1994 and a second in 1995 for Zimmerman, and it proved to be well worth it, as Zim helped pave the way for back-to-back Super Bowl wins in 1997 and 1998.

When the Maggs and Habib signings first happened, some of the other owners were livid, as Michael MacCambridge wrote in his rich, brilliant history of the NFL, America’s Game. Pat was rewriting the contract end of the game, setting the stage for the men that kept the QB upright and who paved the way for players like Terrell Davis to really shine.

They were now going to have to be paid more money, money that would otherwise have stayed with the team, but you can’t put the time back on the clock. Denver’s success shed light on how important the O-line can be. Salary wars over quality O-line players soon became a matter of course.

It was only fair — as Pat had seen, they can be worth every penny. Pat Bowlen saw that you could alter your chances in the playoffs by cementing a high-quality O-lline. In the end, although it meant higher salaries, it also meant higher achievements.

Two Lombardi trophies were the final proof. Achievements, and doing what was right, were what Pat Bowlen was always about. It gave Denver three Super Bowl wins and an endless storehouse of memories. Sleep well, Pat. You gave us so much.