I’ve got to agree with this sentiment. To quote (or perhaps paraphrase) Vince Lombardi, “Winning isn’t everything, it’s the only thing”. As long as the team keeps winning when he’s on the field, you keep him on the field. And if he should wind up with a hand full of Super Bowl rings, that more than makes up for him being a crappy quarterback. It worked for Terry Bradshaw; you don’t remember that he holds the NFL record for most games with a QB Rating of 0 (three), only that he holds the NFL record for quarterbacking the most Super Bowl victories (shared with Joe Montana).
True enough, though Terry actually got a bit better with age.
From '71 to ‘74 (his second through fifth seasons, in which he was the Steelers’ starter most of the time), his overall QB rating was a very mediocre 61.7; he completed under 50% of his passes, and threw 9 more INTs than TDs. In spite of that, his teams went 29-14 in the games he started, and won Super Bowl IX. It should also be noted that he had a good running game behind him, as well as one of the all-time great defenses…
So all Tebow has to do is find a way to get onto the 1972 Steelers. Piece o’ cake.
Pretty much. 
As a San Diegan, I naturally wish only the worst for the Donkeys, so take this as you will. But as a San Diegan, I also think I have a good perspective on the baseball versus football aspect of this discussion. In baseball, San Diego is a small market town with very little hope of ever winning a World Series. In a league where the Padres have a payroll in the $40 million range and the Yankees spend that much on their utility infielders alone, I’d love to have a guy like Tebow on my team - because my goals (as Padres GM) would be based a lot more on things like ticket sales and Division titles then on winning the World Series.
But in the NFL, San Diego is a town that (currently anyway) expects to be in the Super Bowl every year or the Coach and GM should be run out of town on a rail. Yes, I realize those expectations are absurdly high and are never actually met, but because we have a top tier quarterback and the financial structure of the NFL makes Green Bay and Pittsburgh as likely to win a title as New York or Chicago (and L.A. doesn’t even have a team!), that’s actually the way Chargers fans have been thinking for the last 5 years or so.
And the point is this - in the NFL, the one and only goal of every team is the Super Bowl. When Lombardi talked about winning being the only thing, I imagine he was talking about titles, not games. The Golden State Warriors and Kansas City Royals aren’t winning titles anytime soon, but the Raiders and Chiefs could. So whereas the Nuggets might have been happy to try to score 130 points a game in the Westhead era just to put some butts in the seats, the Broncos were going to the Super Bowl 5 times in the Elway era alone.
In short, in the NFL (unlike other leagues) every team is actually trying to win a championship. Except for the Broncos. Because what they are doing right now with Tim Tebow cannot possibly be seriously thought by anyone in that organization as being the best way possible to win the Super Bowl. Running the veer, or the triple option, or the T formation or whatever kind of 1940s era offense they come up with next is designed for nothing more than to help Tebow not look foolish out there. So 31 NFL teams are trying their damndest to win a Super Bowl, and the Broncos are just trying to sell a few jerseys.
Like I said, I’m a Chargers fan, so it’s fine by me. But if I were a Broncos fan I’d be pissed.
But Orton, who possesses all the QB skills you value so highly…sucks. He cannot win. He cannot motivate his team, make them more than the sum of their parts. He has proven this.
*He had the same team Tebow has *and could not win with them. Actually, Tebow lost some players in the first half of the last game and still rallied his team to a victory.
It sounds like you all would rather lose with a conventional QB than win with an unconventional QB.
How could Orton possible give the Broncos the best chance to win when he loses consistantly and lesser QB wins???
I was unaware that the rules of football forbid a team running a veer from winning a Super Bowl.
You try to win with what you have. If Tebow keeps winning, you’d be an idiot to bench him because he doesn’t look too good.
Maybe he will crash and burn. Or maybe the Denver front office will find a way to add the right personnel to complement him (like a strong defense). But if he wins games, that counts for something.
What can they do? they can’t bench the guy now that they are winning, that would be ridiculous. Sure he is playing like crap but it’s not like denver is a good team to begin with, they are certainly not carrying him. I might dislike him as a person but you just can’t bench a winning qb for a losing one.
Ask any bitter current NFL broadcaster/former NFL player - every week on tv they’re complaining about how the current rules are designed so that wide receivers can get away with murder. The rules may not forbid a rush-only offense from winning the Super Bowl, but they’re most definitely aimed at preventing it.
This is one of those things that you can’t actually know. If Orton played, would the Broncos have won the games? I don’t know, nobody knows because you can’t just rewind history and replay the game with the new QB.
Theoretically, Orton should give you a better chance to win because he is a better thrower, and throwing is a huge part of being a successful QB. In theory, theory and practice are the same. In practice, they are not.
Maybe Tebow’s better running is helps this team more than his lesser passing hurts. Their yards per game is up from when Orton was starting, so they’re adding more rushing yardage than they’re losing through the air. The reduced passing game has also helped with turnovers, cutting them more than half.
You’d think that teams could load up on the run and stop them, but it hasn’t happened. Then, of course, he goes and drops a perfect 56 yard TD to win the game, so you can’t exactly ignore his passing even if it is substandard.
At no point have I suggested that Orton either a) was awesome or b) possessed ALL the QB skills I value.
Orton may not be a good QB, but he also would have been able to beat the Chiefs and the Dolphins. If Tebow can get through the next two weeks with wins, I’ll eat my words.
If that’s your take-away, I suggest checking your healthcare plan for a good ear doctor.
One of these days you’ll pay attention to the other 21 people on the field, and also factor in the quality of the opponent.
And to be clear, I am a Kansas City Chiefs fan. I want to see Tebow play for ever and ever and ever. I want to see Denver invest in personnel that are really only useful with Tebow on the field - because for him to succeed at QB, that’s what it’s going to take. I want to see Denver realize to succeed (or at the very least, be competitive), they’ll have to mirror what made Tebow successful at Florida. Namely, having another QB on the field when having a non-running QB is essential. I want their offense to be so fractured, splintered and specialized that the moment Tebow gets hurt, their entire team becomes irrelevant. I want their payroll to be so spread out, that they can’t afford a single high-profile free agent. And mostly, I want the Broncos and Tebow to be measured by their success against such juggernauts like the current 2011 Chiefs and Dolphins, because it’s so disconnected with reality that it makes watching the NFL bearable this year.
Don’t be so sure of that. I think Orton’s Broncos lose at least one, maybe both, of those games. The Chiefs and Dolphins are bad, but the Broncos are just as bad.
Orton had a better team around him than Tebow. The Broncos traded their best (and only) receiver right before they made Tebow the starter.
Against their only common opponent, Orton’s Broncos lost at home to Oakland, while Tebow’s shorthanded Broncos won a road game at Oakland.
I can definitely see the argument that Tebow shouldn’t be starting because he has no future as an NFL QB, but with money on the line I would bet on Tebow in a single game over Orton. Especially now that Orton wouldn’t even have the one receiver he had before. Orton would just be losing games with interceptions again.
The real test for Tebow will be when he goes up against the Jets defense. We will see what Denver thinks of him when he has to throw against a team that won’t give up much on the ground. A 2 pass, 69-yard day is not going to cut it then. If he can pass that, then we can talk about his chances of being a starting QB. But with the Jets, SD, NE and CHI in the future he will have to be able to really step up the passing.
I don’t care much whether or not Tebow succeeds (though I don’t like his long term prospects), but I do feel a bit sorry for him this week.
The Jets will be looking to make up for an embarrassing loss to the Patriots, and they’ll be taking it out on the Broncos. Somehow, I doubt Tebow will be throwing any 50+ yard passes against the Jets secondary. Maybe the short week of preparation might give them a fighting chance to catch the Jets off guard with that funky offense.
I suspect that at least part of the “this can’t work long-term” hypothesis is that the veer / spread option / whatever you want to call it that the Broncos are running is a gimmick. It’s a one-dimensional offense, and once that trick gets figured out, it won’t work well anymore.
It may be that it’s worked so far because (a) defenses haven’t had to play against that kind of offense, and aren’t sure what to expect / what to look for, and (b) they haven’t played particularly good teams yet.
In the same way that the Wildcat worked for a while, then defenses figured out how to stop it, it’s expected that the veer will suffer the same fate, once defenses get a chance to look at a few games’ worth of film.
OTOH, maybe it will work. Maybe defenses won’t be able to effectively stop Tebow & co. I just wouldn’t bet on it.
As mentioned, the wins are likely coming from Tebow not passing. All other things being equal, he’s choosing to run when he gets pressured instead of making a bad pass that gets intercepted. The result is fewer (humiliating) interceptions that get turned into touchdowns by the other team, and more 1st downs and more touchdowns for Denver. Frankly, I think the offensive line has been as much to blame for Denver’s heartaches as anything else. Tebow’s style (run like hell!) happens to work well with a collapsing pocket.
Sure, he runs too much and he doesn’t complete many passes. But the games aren’t depressing to watch anymore. I don’t have any stats to back this up, but I think his teammates just like playing with him, and that inspires them to some degree.
Still, it’s only been a few games. I’m not overly invested in the qwerky guy, but he’s definitely got the appeal that comes from not. throwing. interceptions. If you’re a Bronco’s fan looking for someone to use an axe on, let’s talk about Prater.
Bring back the T formation!!
Or the Wing T.
In 1978, Marv Levy was the rookie coach of the Chiefs. He realized that he was going to have a lousy passing attack, but he had several pretty good running backs. So, he installed the Wing T (a variant of the single wing, using a QB under center). The Wing T used two halfbacks and a fullback (along with one WR and one TE).
The Chiefs ran for nearly 3000 yards in '78 (with three backs getting at least 100 carries, and both Tony Reed and Ted McKnight averaging over 5 yards a carry), while finishing next to last in the league in passing. It didn’t help a whole lot, as they only won 4 games, but it was a similar sort of strategy to what the Broncos are doing now: play with what you’ve got.
The next season, the Chiefs drafted a QB in the first round (Steve Fuller), and went back to a “normal” offense.
But nobody would be arguing that a loser like Orton shouldn’t be starting in NFL (al least outside of Denver). I have never heard so much clamoring over a quarterback before. You couldn’t see a sports show without hearing “He can’t do this, he can’t do that, that’ll never work in the pro game…”
That argument always leave me scratching my head. “It’ll never work in the NFL!” I was always have to ask “Didn’t the NFL get all of it’s players from the same place where it DID work???” Doesn’t Tebow look over the line and see the a lot of the same guys he played against in college?" I get that they are expected to get better in the pros..shouldn’t Tebow be expected to get better as well?
I say give Tebow the ball and see if he sinks or swims, conventional wisdom be damned. I think he’s fun to watch. I would like to see what he could do with an actual receiver or two and maybe… just maybe, some blocking.