Very late in the evening, after expressing his excitement about the Broncos' No 1 draft choice to a horde of media hangers-on, John Elway, alone and tired, ascended the stairs toward his office.
An interloper interrupted his flight.
"What was your Plan B?" — a reference to John's assertion four years earlier, when Peyton Manning agreed to come to town, that "there was no Plan B."
The Duke of Dove Valley flashed that famous smile and said: "It's been a long two months."
His plans had been B through Q.
This was the end of April.