The Tim Tebow saga took a strange twist this week when former backup quarterback Brady Quinn revealed to the world that the amazing playoff win engineered by Tebow when he was with the Denver Broncos in 2011 may not have happened if the Broncos had stuck with the original game plan.
“I was going to be going in on every third down in that game,” Quinn said on the CBS Sports Eye on Football podcast. “People don’t know this, but because we we’re throwing the ball so poorly on third down, we basically worked in packages where Tim and I were together in the backfield. He was playing wide receiver. I was coming in to purely just throw drop back passes on third down.”
Luckily for Tebow, he picked that night to somehow rise above his struggles.
“When we got to the game, we had so much success on first and second down — kind of moving the ball — that when we got to third down, they were kind of like, ‘We can’t pull him, he’s doing all right. Then we went 3-for-10, 30 percent, on third down and then it kind of got washed away because we moved the ball on first and second.”
Of course, if that game plan had actually been executed, the lore of Tim Tebow may have been squashed then and there. Throughout the season, Tebow was known for his “miracle” comebacks that helped turn the Broncos around that year. With fourth quarter comebacks against the Bears, Dolphins, and Jets, the legend that Tim Tebow was destined to be an NFL quarterback grew.
His fan base, tired of hearing that Tim wasn’t a “traditional” quarterback, got their wishes fulfilled when Tebow connected with Demaryius Thomas in overtime against the Pittsburgh Steelers in 2011. In fact, his proponents continue to use that game as all the evidence they need to prove Tim’s been shafted by NFL teams ever since.
And now, with Tebow attempting yet another comeback in the NFL, the lore behind that infamous game took a big hit with Quinn’s comments. Cuts are looming as Tim tries to make the Philadelphia Eagles roster . Even Kelly admits, as reported by NJ that it won’t be easy to make a decision as to who his backup quarterback will be.
“It is going to be difficult,” Kelly said. “It’s difficult to get to 75, I think from a coaching standpoint that’s a good thing, but there is still a human factor that gets involved with cutting somebody, and that part is not a lot of fun.”
And for all of his knocks as a quarterback, there is simply no better human being than Tim Tebow.
[Tim Tebow photo credit: Al Bello / Getty Images]
