Derek Johnson Muses

So yesterday, I hoped in the Tebow-mania, and published my initial thoughts. Now, I’ll move on to the Broncos’ offense and why there are no trade parnters for Tebow

Of course one of the oddities of the Tebow phenomenon is the Broncos have opted to run a college-style option, that features Tebow running on average eight times a game, and sometimes more than twenty. This does beg some interesting questions on the part of Jon Fox. Clearly, Fox is showing by running this kind of offense what matters the most to him is winning right now, which Denver is. But one must ask themselves this: if Denver’s goal is to win long-term, wouldn’t they be better off having Tebow throw more often? And also, if Elway and Fox’s collective goal with playing Tebow now was to show the fans that Tebow isn’t a long-term answer at quarterback, wouldn’t they be better off just asking Tebow to throw 40 times a game?

My best guess as to why Denver is doing this is simple: Josh McDaniels spent a first-round draft pick on Tebow, and the current regime feels like they just can’t throw it away. It is probable that Denver did shop Tebow in the off-season; Elway admitted that he’d been hoping that McDaniels would get an offensive coordinator job on a team that needed a quarterback, so he could trade Tebow. Perhaps by playing Tebow in this offense, Elway and Fox feel they can at least keep Tebow’s value consistent, so they can get something out of him. And in their poor division, if they could get at least two playoff years in five and be close to .500 in the other three, that may be their best value for Tebow.

But is it worth their time to try to make Tebow into a thrower? When you look at other quarterbacks who’ve come into the NFL, most of them are not protected. Sam Bradford, Christian Ponder, and other rookie quarterbacks were throwing 40 passes a game early in their rookie season, even before they’d been established. Steve Young even said on ESPN that Fox was doing Tebow a disservice by not having him through the ball more. That is certainly possible that long-term, Tebow may not be able to succeed running the option, but let’s at least look at the sustainability of the offense.

Many analyst compare Denver’s offense to the wildcat and say, eventually, teams will see it enough times and figure out how to defend it. I would say, yes, that is partially true. But consider: the wildcat broke into the league with the Dolphins in 2008. By the middle of the season, half of the league was running it, which meant teams were seeing it on a consistent basis. Eventually, it faded out. So far, Denver’s offense has been wildly successful, but no one has copied. No one can: they don’t have a six-three, 235 pound quarterback to run it. In a league were defense are built to cover four wide receivers and show exotic blitz schemes, the discipline to face Tebow’s offense is hard to find. That doesn’t mean it will be successful long-term, but it may have a chance at least. And indeed, it will be curious to see if how the Chiefs are able to defend Tebow when they see him for the second time in Week 17.

While thinking about Denver’s peculiar offense, I wondered if Georgia Tech and their triple option offense would give us a good comparison as to how it would work long-term. So I decided to look at Tech’s record over the last two years against teams who saw their offense every year. There were seven teams who’d played Tech every year, the other five teams in the ACC Coastal division, their protected rival Clemson, and in-state rival Georgia. The record against those seven teams the last two years is 6-8, with only win against a winning team on the road.

One of the problems for this offense is that, it’s hard to get better at it in the off-season. The NFL off-season is designed for teams to make gains in the passing game, to practice with 7-7 and work on routes. With OTA’s, training camps, and in-season practice time cut back, it may be harder for the Broncos to perfect their run-oriented offense, and it may take a while for it to get going at the beginning of the season.

But the off-season may provide Tebow with the time he needs to improve as a thrower. Clearly, as I stated before, Tebow has what many of the athletic quarterbacks who came before him didn’t have: incredible leadership and work-ethic, first person in the facilities in the morningand the last to leave. If he doesn’t succeed as an NFL passer, it won’t be because he didn’t try. And with unlimited practice for Tebow and his receivers during the off-season, it does mean that he has the chance to improve his throwing motion and his passing skills. If Tebow’s success on the field can be carried into an off-season program, it could be enough to at least maintain the success the Broncos are having.

As I wrote before, I think that Tebow has won enough to merit another. Aside from on-field though, I also think it has a lot to do with the trade possibilities that are out there. As I mentioned before, Josh McDaniels took Tebow in the first round, making it impossible for the Broncos to get value for him.

If Tebow had been picked in the third round or lower (as many experts suggested, since he wouldn’t have been a sure-fire starter even if he changed positions), this wouldn’t have even been an issue. In fact, it would have been easier for Elway to trade him, because he could dump him for a low round pick or release him outright. But since Tebow was a first-round pick, Elway would likely have to get a second-rounder just to get value, and that’s not happening. Here’s why.

The only places in the NFL you could trade Tebow to now are places where the fans aren’t going to get fooled by Tebow, meaning they either have a good entrenched quarterback or have seen enough good football not to expect Tebow to be the hero. That list would be the Patriots, the Steelers, the Ravens, the Eagles (although unlikely, given their current mess), the Falcons, the Texans, the Packers (although doubtfully a fit with Rodgers), and possibly the Cowboy, Jets, and maybe the Bears, although I’d doubt Jay Cutler has enough good will to withstand Tebow mania. The problem with any good team is though, Tebow would be a side player and isn’t worth more than a third-rounder. The best Denver could do in this scenario would be to trade Tebow and possibly a sixth-or-seventh-rounder for a 2012 fourth-rounder, a marginal player, and a conditional pick in the 2013 that could become a third-rounder depending upon incentives (basically the Brady Quinn deal).

Denver’s best option would be to get a pick out of a sucker team who is desperate to sell seats and get publicity. Buffalo isn’t likely; while they were devastated when McDaniels beat them to Tebow, they’re committed to Ryan Fitzpatrick, for better or worse. Ditto for Jacksonville with Blaine Gabbert, but the necessity to sell tickets and make a splash certainly would appeal to the new Jags owner. Miami and Steven Ross, never one to pass on celebrity, might be enticed, but there is a coaching vacancy that has to be settled their. Dan Synder also favors celebrity, but Mike Shanahan would likely shun such a move. Probably the biggest sucker for Tebow out there would be Pete Carroll in Seattle, a big fan of flash over substance who likely wouldn’t have a problem fitting an offense to Tebow.

But what is most likely is that Tebow will return for at least another year to the Broncos. What might dictate whether or not Elway feels he has to make a move is who takes the open jobs in the AFC West. If both the Chiefs and the Raiders hire coordinators and not experienced coaches, Elway might as well just stick things out with Tebow. But if Bill Cowher is enticed out of CBS’ studio to the Chargers, a team that runs his style of defense and has a quarterback in place, that could change the game for Elway.

So since I have a blog and like to write about topics, I suppose I now have to write about Tim Tebow, if for no other reason than to draw more people to this blog. Seriously, I do like Tebow and am grateful that a Christian person has such a visible platform in the NFL. Tebow is becoming one of the driving figures of sports talk radio, going on their Mount Rushmore with Bob Knight, Pete Rose and Brett Farve. I began writing my thoughts on Tebow, and it turned into about three thousand words, so I think I will publish them in at least three installments. The first entry are my initial thoughts on Tebow when he entered the NFL, and the perspective of Denver personnel head John Elway and head coahc Jon Fox.

Full disclosure, I never understood why NFL teams thought they had to pick Tim Tebow. Tommie Frazier, the first football hero I can remember (and one of only four or five college football players comparable to Tebow) was barely sniffed by the NFL and quickly retired. Nor did I understand why Tebow wanted so badly to play quarterback in the NFL. Sure, I understood the desire and the want-to; heck, Eric Crouch is still chasing a shot at quarterback ten years after finishing up at Nebraska. When a quarterback has been the man in high school and in the NFL, of course he automatically thinks he’ll succeed in the NFL. I just did see it. Tebow, which every analyst pointed out, didn’t have the throwing motion and ran whenever he was in trouble. I also thought that he was too big and would get sacked a lot, ALA Byron Leftwich.

As far as the intangibles that cause Josh McDaniels to pick Tebow late in the first round? I thought those would make Tebow’s fall even harder. Reading Peter King’s Sports Illustrated article on the Broncos mini-camps after Tebow was drafted, I almost started to feel sorry for him. Here he was in this football camp, with a coach teaching him how to remake his throwing motion. I felt great that he was trying, but I was afraid that Tebow would spend ten years bouncing around the NFL, the CFL, and whatever league replaced UFL, trying to play quarterback when it was painfully obvious he couldn’t, ALA Crouch. If he just switched positions, he’d probably have a really productive NFL career; but if he kept trying to play quarterback, he’d waste years of his life that he could be spending pursuing other goals.

Going into this year, I actually did think that Tebow should have played. The Broncos, with new coach Jon Fox and John Elway returning to head the personnel department, had new leadership who wanted their own quarterback. Honestly, the best thing that could have happened with the Broncos is that Tebow looked incompetent and was awful, and they got the top pick in the draft and took Andrew Luck. If Tebow played and failed, then at least Elway and Fox could go to the fans and say, “See, we gave you what you wanted. We played Tebow, and he’s terrible and can’t play quarterback. We’re moving on.” Perhaps there’s some mild dissent because of Tebow’s popularity, but if Elway finds a successful quarterback in the draft, then everyone forgets about Tebow-mania.

But Tebow is winning games! He’s turning the Broncos around! Isn’t it great!?! Actually, the worst thing that could have happened to Broncos did happen: they got a string of beatable teams around beat them all but one. Now the fans are on board, and Elway and Fox have an even bigger dilemma: Tebow setting them up for long-term failure.

Sticking with Tebow in the short-term may some good results, but it could also yield some very damaging results. Take his starts, in which Denver is 6-1 and all six wins have been close. But the one loss was a blowout loss to Detroit. One side of a fraud good team: when they do loose, it’s bad. Last year, the Falcons went 13-3 but were blown out twice on the road; the Packers went 10-6 but never lost by more than a touchdown. In the Packers shelled the Falcons in Atlanta. But the fans say, Tebow’s winning close! Yes…against bad teams.

Here’s the flip side of those close wins against 4-9 Miami: Jon Fox works all the harder. Think about it: Fox knows he has a good defense and his defense would give him a chance to win eight games a year at least the Broncos were viable at quarterback. But instead, Fox has to run a college offense suited to Tim Tebow’s strengths and hope that Tebow is consistently money in the clutch. So, Fox will have to invest more time and energy to beat the bad teams and have nothing left for when they play the good teams.

And beyond that, what happens when Denver has to play a string of good teams in a row, or happens to loose some close games?After four blowout losses, the fans will turn, likely not on Tebow, but on Fox and Elway. They’ll say that the play-calling stinks, and that Fox has to go. The player whose jersey they buy in record numbers will be the last one to go. Take it from me: with the style of football Denver is playing, it is likely to breed the same kind of angst that has been bred into Nebraska football fans. Because of Nebraska’s run-oriented offense, they often wouldn’t stand a chance if they got behind in a big game, and, after a string of large losses in the early 2000′s, Husker fans watch their team with a “nervous energy” as Steve Sipple describes it. It is as if there’s one big mistake in a game, and the whole thing falls apart because the offense is run-oriented, and can’t comeback. If Denver’s offense wins a lot of close games, but looses a lot of blowouts, the big looses could be the thing that turn the fans against Elway and Fox.

The difficulty of Elway and Fox’s decision isn’t just because of public perception: it also exists in the Broncos’ locker room. This one thing I admit I had wrong: I thought pro players wouldn’t buy into Tebow because they’d see his obvious physical limitations. But Tebow is a film room-junkie and has changed the Broncos’ attitude on the field. When I watched Denver played at Minnesota, they were third most emotional team I’d seen in football all year, after Georgia Tech and Iowa State against Oklahoma State. (By the way, I watch 10-12 college games every weekend.) It is shocking to me to see this kind of emotion from a pro team, and nothing almost ever shocks me. Clearly, Tebow’s leadership skills are overcoming his physical limitations.

But happens when Denver looses the close games or gets blown out? If they keep getting good game plans from Fox, but are limited by Tebow? Trent Dilfer talked on ESPN Radio as relates to game planning: teams who are given horrible games plans by bad coaches don’t even try, while teams that are given good game plans by smart coaches (Mike Holmgren in Dilfer’s case) always go into the game believing they have a chance. Players are not fans and are not easily fooled; if Tebow makes them work really hard to beat bad teams, which leaves them no energy for the good teams, they will know who is at fault.

As side note, Tebow’s leadership and work-ethic is clearly making a huge impact on a team that has had little success over the last five years. That in and of it itself is astounding.

So now, Elway and Fox have a dilemma: Tebow is winning, and their fans and their team is buying into him as well. After this season, if the Broncos got rid of Tebow after he turned their team completely around, it could implode their locker room, at least in the short term. And if Tebow is traded and the next quarterback who comes in doesn’t work out, the implosion will only be worse. I’m not sure what I would do in their shoes; depending on where the Broncos finish after the season, if I were Elway, I would hold a meeting with Fox and my top personnel lieutenants and say, “Listen, can we take the hit if we get rid of Tebow? And if not, what do we have to do to succeed with him?”

Really in this situation, Tim Tebow should thank Josh McDaniels and Jay Cutler for their ugly split, which is going to force the Broncos to hold onto him as long as he’s winning. But in the Broncos’ division, Tebow is winning, and now he’ll have to improve his passing in the off-season and get his teammates working alongside him if he hopes to keep his job. And really, that was what Elway and Fox intended when they started to run the Tebow-offense; but its success has become a monster they can’t control.

Tomorrow, I will share my thoughts on Denver’s offensive philosophy with Tebow, and the Broncos’ possibilities if the Broncos traded Tebow.