Why Tim Tebow Wins Games

Update: The Broncos just beat the New York Jets by a score of 17-13. Sanchez twice as many pass attempts (40) as Tebow. But, with the vaulted Jets defense worn out at the end of the game, Tebow waltzed into the end-zone for the game-winning touchdown.

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When he throws, his arm looks like a slow motion windmill. He's terribly inaccurate. In his last outing against Kansas City, he threw eight passes, and completed just two. 

So why are the Denver Broncos 3-1 with him at the helm, a quarterback who barely takes advantage of his arm?

American-style football can be traced back to the 19th century, at which time it was nearly identical to rugby, where the forward pass is illegal. The lack of helmets and minimal padding created a gladiatorial sport, as players ran for both touchdowns and their lives. This insanity continued through the 1905 season, when eighteen players were killed and one-hundred and fifty nine were seriously injured. There was an uproar in America to abolish the game.

Now is the one time I can "tebow" in thanks for politicians. President Roosevelt demanded changes to the rules to make the game safer, and the forward pass was born. The New York Times reported that the main reason for the new rule was to spread the game out and allow speed and skill to "supercede so far as possible mere brute strength and force of weight."

Football did not adopt the forward pass to score more points, but rather to protect the players. Now look at the average amount of passing plays to running plays up to 2009:

Passing far outweighs rushing--as also indicated by a comparison between the earliest NFL drafts and the most recent.

Drafts from 1936-1946 

9 run centered position players (Halfbacks, Fullbacks, Centers)

2 quarterbacks. 

Drafts from 2001-2011

1 run centered position player

9 quarterbacks

The league has flipped upside down from a game of bruising ground campaigns to aerial assaults, which has reduced mobile offensive lineman to static brickwalls. The first three weeks of this season produced the most points scored per game than the first three weeks of the previous ten seasons. Teams score by throwing the ball, which means the Broncos' 3-1 record under Tebow does not make sense, right? It does if you refuse to pigeonhole yourself into the NFL's assumption that you have to pass to win games. Coaches unknowingly collude to make this a reality and, by so doing, create a cult of personality around the quarterback position. Quarterback salary rises with the pressure to win games through the air. 

If every coach believes you must throw to win games, it one-dimensionalizes the game: the best thrower wins. We've seen this over the last ten years: teams use their first draft pick to acquire a franchise quarterback. They go all-in on one offensive piece; an important piece if you want to compete against the Tom Bradys and Aaron Rodgerses. 

The problem boils down to this: if you want to be a franchise quarterback, you need to take a franchise amount of snaps. So every team gives their quarterback a franchise snap count, and the team with the best quarterback wins. This was the Broncos'  problem with Kyle Orton: they played like it was a war against the Philistines, and sent their best guy against the best on the opposing side. Sure, David beat Goliath, but if you take God out of the equation, Goliath beats David 999 times out of 1000 (I'm leaving David some room here in case Goliath has a heart attack or some other internal failure of his giant heart or lungs). 

With Tebow, however, the Broncos are not allowing the opposing side, or the NFL in general, to impose its style on the game. Tebow as quarterback, eight passes in a game, is football's equivalent of a knuckleball: the hitter goes from thinking, "This looks ridiculous," to "Why can't I hit this?".

Denver's statistics say it all: the team rushes the most in the league with just above forty-one attempts per game. Because of this, the Broncos posess the ball on average thirty-two minutes per game with Tebow as quarterback, which is in the top ten for the league. Compare that to last year's average time of posession, and you see that the Broncos hold the ball four minutes more every game. That's a four minute rest-bonus for the defense this year. 

Every weekend, the Broncos tell the other team, "Okay, your Goliath is better than our David, so we're not going to play by your rules. Have fun sitting on the bench, Goliath." Their strategy is to keep the other team's quarterback off the field for as long as possible, which will increase their chances of winning against a more favored opponent. 

The cushiest job in the NFL, aside from kicker, might be Denver's defensive line. If you take Orton's games out of the statistics, Denver's defense is only on the field for 28 minutes, meaning the opposing team's defense is playing for 32 minutes. That means the Broncos' defense gets four minutes of additional rest per game while their counterparts on the other team have to spend those four minutes defending the run, an excruciating defensive postures. Four minutes means the world if you're 6'6'', 260 pounds. 

The offensive line gets more action, because rush-blocking is more fun than pass-blocking. Instead of building a cocoon around a pretty-boy quarterback, the guards get to pull around the center and knock the linebackers' teeth out. The center gets to bulldoze his way forward. The tackles get to lean forward and hit on the snap, as opposed to being on their heels searching for the blitz. They get to do what they've spent countless hours in the gym to do: hit somebody. 

Their excitement shows, because over the last three games, Denver is second in the league in rush yards per attempt, with 6. Run the ball, eat away the clock, keep the opposing quarterback making practice throws and your defense resting on the bench. Let the offensive line bulldoze forward, cause the opposing defense to suck wind, and make the franchise star impatient on the bench. Then tell Eric Decker to go long and get ahead of the run weary defense, and have Tebow toss a 56-yard touchdown pass.  

Espn anaylist Merrill Hodge says Tebow will never fit the mold of an NFL quarterback. He's right--and that's why they're winning.