It's not about the Steelers. I can't think of a better comparison for what Tebow brings to the table than Kordell, that's all.
Actually, they are similar. Their skills and playing styles are very similar, but Kordell was trusted with more passing responsibilites when he was young, which led to a ton of turnovers. He turned the ball over, but in general they do things similarly. And Kordell was a superstar for a year and won plenty of games with the help of a great defense and by making enough plays to win. It just killed the Steelers when they faced a team with a far better QB in the playoffs.
I'm sorry, but the most applicable Steelers' example (and maybe the most applicable example overall) is Big Ben, not Kordell.Obviously Big Ben is (and was) a much better pure passer, but the similarities beyond that are very high. The only one to ever do the 55-minutes-of-offensive-ineptitude-followed-by-5-minutes-of-brilliance routine to anywhere
near the levels that the Broncos are doing this year are the Big Ben led Steeler teams of the last seven years (minus 2006). Heck, that's always been the knock on Big Ben prior to this year. Sure he's great in the clutch, but he only has a chance in the clutch because his defense bails the offense out for the first 55 minutes. That's pretty much the same knock that there's been on Tebow during this winning streak.
Additionally, Tebow and young Big Ben both struggled at reading the field, but make up for it with their ability to scramble. Both take drive killing sacks 3 times a game and extend drives with inexplicable scrambles 3 times a game.
Big Ben was able to extend his late game rallies into good playoff performance as a whole (for the most part, though he didn't play particularly well in any of the Super Bowls outside of the last drive of the Arizona game). That much has yet to be seen with Tebow, whether his "show up big when it counts" gene will extend from the end of games in the regular season to the playoffs like it did with Big Ben.
Personally, I don't see any reason he can't extend those end-game performances to whole game performances right now (he did it last year) if Fox would just take the reigns off (and forgets trying to fidget with the throwing motion) and let him take his lumps (like the Lions game) as he grows, like most young QBs are allowed to do.
If anything gets exposed in the playoffs I think it will be the disparity between the Denver defense and the Pittsburgh defense of the last 7 years, not the QB play. The Steelers have won quite a few playoff games (and a super bowl) during that run where they had truly awful QB play because their defense was capable of shutting down everyone, including those Brady/Peyton teams that would likely shred Denver.
And the comments still being made by people here and on channels like ESPN just prove that some people absolutely refuse to admit when they are wrong.
How many teams have the same QB for 10 years, let alone give them a 10-year contract in their second year? How many QB's (let's say with 3 years or less NFL experience) look to be their team's QB for the next 10 years? I'm too lazy to think of every team's situation, but i would be willing to say less than 25%. I would think Tebow has done enough to at least compete for the starting position next year, and i don't see any free agent QB coming in that would be that much better. What will be interesting is to see how Tebow does with a full off-season, and the kind of progress he can make for next year. Where Denver is in trouble is that they are stuck with him now, because if they were to try another QB if Tebow struggles a little the QB controversy will be a media circus.
made me smile.
