Denver Broncos: 4 great individual seasons that are largely forgotten

Olandis Gary runs to the forefront, then into obscurity

The 1999 season was a disastrous one for the Broncos, that’s really the only way to describe it.

Coming off of back-to-back Super Bowl wins, the Broncos no longer had John Elway and after an 0-3 start to the season, the team lost Terrell Davis to a season-ending injury in Week 4. The season was all but over right then and there.

With Davis down, the Broncos turned to Olandis Gary. Like Davis, Gary was also a running back drafted out of Georgia but one the Broncos likely didn’t plan on using much his rookie season.

In just 12 games, Gary rushed for 1,159 yards. He cracked 180 yards rushing in a game twice and finished the season with 7 touchdown runs. Not bad for a little-known rookie off the bench.

At the time, his 1,159 rushing yards were a team record for a rookie.

But his run in Denver would be short-lived. In 2000, when Mike Anderson had taken over as the team’s lead back, Gary only carried the ball 13 times. In total, he gained just 455 rushing yards during the remainder of his career with the Broncos.

In 2003, he joined the Buffalo Bills before spending a season with the Detroit Lions. He spent two seasons there and was largely ineffective. He finished his career with 1,998 yards rushing, meaning that 58 percent of his career rushing yardage came during that 1999 campaign.

Gary is nothing more than a footnote in Broncos history and the success he had in 1999 is something that most of Davis’ detractors would so often point to when the debate would be raised of whether or not Davis belonged in the Pro Football Hall of Fame.