Sometimes it is hard to get your hands going on the keyboard for a blog entry when you are not quite sure where and how to begin, and where and how to end.
So sometimes, the facts just have to get spit out and we all agree that the judgments will have to come later.
This is one of those times.
How many times have you said or heard someone else say, “I have never seen anything like that before?,” in reference to the Denver Broncos’ stunning and improbable 18-15 overtime win over the Miami Dolphins Sunday?
A lot, probably. The reason is, NOBODY has ever seen that before.
This game marked the first time in the post-merger era of the National Football League (1970 till now) that any team has ever been 15 points down with under three minutes to play and come back to win the game.
It has happened exactly one time, and we all saw it Sunday.
Interestingly, Tim Tebow has a 2-2 record as a starting NFL quarterback, and each win involved overcoming a large deficit, the first being a 17-0 halftime deficit at home against the Houston Texans last year, and the most recent Sunday’s 15-0 deficit with the clock showing under three minutes at Miami.
One of those things where, if you did not see it yourself, you would not buy it.
Of course, going into overtime Sunday, on a day when the Dolphins were honoring the University of Florida’s (and Tebow’s) national championship team, the score at the end of regulation was an absurdly symbolic 15-15.
And besides that……in the 23-year, 358-game pro coaching career of Broncos head coach John Fox, this was the first time he saw his team recover an onside kick.
Naturally, it happened at precisely the right moment in time.
And besides that…..kicker Matt Prater, who had missed on two field goals earlier in the contest–some critics have mentioned that Miami missed a two-point conversion which would have altered the score negatively for the Broncos, but of course Prater making either or both of the earlier field goals would have altered the score positively for the Broncos—executed not only the successful onside kick but also kicker the 52-yard game winner.
And beside that……Broncos linebacker D.J. Williams, who played his great college career at the University of Miami and who was having a reunion of his own in that the game was played in the stadium in which the Hurricanes also play their home games, not only forced but recovered the fumble which gave Denver its final possession of the game in overtime and set up the Prater heroics.
The Prater heroics followed the Williams heroics.
And it is actually OK to use the word “heroics” without “Tebow” as the adjective, because Tim would be the first to say, as he did, that it is a TEAM game.
And besides that…and speaking of team, this win was the 400th in the entire history of the Denver Broncos, with 257 having come under the magnificent ownership of the great—legitimately, great—Pat Bowlen.
Preceding his postgame speech to the team Fox gave a game ball to Mr. Bowlen, who accepted as he always does, humbly and with class.
The 400 wins by the franchise make Denver the third original American Football League team to reach the 400 mark, with Oakland and New England being the first two.
The 257 wins since Pat Bowlen has owned the team, starting in 1984, are the most in the American Football Conference and second only to the San Francisco 49ers in the entire NFL in that time frame.
So, those are the stars that all came together Sunday in Miami.
Not only has no one “ever seen anything like that before,” before, but who knows when we will again.
But that’s the beauty of football.
This week in Denver, John Fox, Tim Tebow and the Broncos all take the field again, this time against the Detroit Lions, who got off to their best start in 50 years this season.
And you never know. Maybe next week, we’ll all be saying “I have never seen anything like that before” once again.
Tags: Jim Saccomano
hey all, sorry for the repost but this one took me a while to write so i wanted to post it on the new blog since i missed everyone on the blog 2 blogs ago. lol….
well, now that the shock and awe have worn off and most of the psycho’s have signed off im going to go ahead and chime in…
First off, HELL OF A TEAM WIN!! Team, you got that right? Not a Tebow win, but a team win. My dad texted me in a frenzy, he is convinced Tebow is “IT” in D town! Me? still not sold. I absolutely LOVE what TT did in the last 5 mins of that game, but no way is that something we can depend on every week. The Dolphins are one of the worst teams in the league folks! PERIOD. Tebow MUST play better in the future and honestly I think he will. There was a lot of rust, and nerves that needed to be handled before he could start showing us what we thought/hoped we were getting with him as starter. My dad keeps telling me that we just need to design our Offense around what Tebow does well. To a degree i agree with him, however, he still needs to be able to show that he can do the things that ALL NFL qb’s are expected to do. Last week when i made my prediction i said that i thought Tebow would do OK, not great but OK! That ultimately i thought it would be up to our D to keep us in the game. Well the D held up their end luckily, because if you truly look at the game TT put together, it was REALLY bad! Exciting, but BAD! And yet, I cant stop thinking he is only going to get better. I doubt he will ever be considered elite, but with another full off season and training camp, and hopefully a new O.C., i could see him being an average QB statistically. Of course its still those intangibles that make him special. I mean WOW! Crappy all day, and then its like someone just flipped a switch on that boy! AWESOME!! Combine that with the play of our D, our improved running game, and some magic on special teams (the onside kick, not the 2 miss FG’s. LOL), and i start smelling the Kool-aid again…and in case your wondering, its very orangey!! If Tebow can just settle down a bit, i think he will do better. I earlier mentioned that i thought we needed a new O.C., its not that Im mad because they wont play to Tebow’s strengths, its more about the complete lack of surprise with the play calling. I said last week that I hoped the Broncos came out and surprised everyone by going play action on their very first offensive play of the game and let Tebow chuck it downfield. That obviously didnt happen, in fact it was just the opposite. We ran the ball, then ran the ball, then ran the ball. Its really hard for ANY QB to get into a rhythm when he is only allowed 8 throws in a half! It looked exactly like Tebows first start last season against the raiders. Of course it doesnt help Tebows case any when his first pass is almost intercepted, and then he follows that up by several bad throws that at times were 15 yards off his wide open recievers. The Decker pass down the left hash was a TD if Decker is a 10th of a sec faster, or Tebow throws it 3 yds shorter. That in my opinion is simply a timing issue that needs to be worked on in practice. If you dont get to throw many deep balls you dont really have a good idea of the speed of your WR. That as much as anything, IMO, was why that ball was over thrown. In a couple weeks they hit that pass for a TD i think. Well, i cant really think of anything else to say so i guess i will call it good for now. If i think of anything else i will of course throw it out there! Oh, and Bay, did i get any points this week? i was 9 points off on my prediction for the game.
Keep on buckin broncos!
THE BATTLE IS WON IN THE TRENCHES!
JIm, glad that you qualified the time line for the comeback. I remember Bobby Lane and the Detriot Lions scoring 3 TDs under 2 minutes to beat Unitas and the Colts in Baltimore. Can’t remember the year.
Very nice article, Jim! Eloquent and informative – I had totally missed on the 15-15 by #15 bit.
Love your aticles Jim … you stick to the facts with no bias … just telling it like it is. Football truly is a beautiful sport where anything can happen and tides can change. And even on an ugly day, a beautiful win was the outcome. There have been many comeback victories from 0 but in the last 3 minutes is truly spectacular and if u weren’t watching it LIVE u missed because it was truly something u don’t witness that often. TRB
I’m thinking that there is an still an element somewhere that results in – “Bronco choke”
While Tebow obviously choked some (what Carnage defines as a good pass is one that ‘is as’ eligible for play to the defense as it is to the offense – Tebow did throw a couple of very good passes); some of the bad passes were QB/ receiver – on completely different pages, the dropped pass chokes, the Prater ‘chokes’, maybe play-calling chokes (but I don’t think so.) What causes a team to choke badly? The skill / talent is there, the confidence is in place, the game planning and preparation is there – and yet a team still is completely inept at execution. And then, what flips that invisible switch called ‘momentum’?
While the Bronco locker room has endured a ‘tenured demon’ of doubt / – and while a ‘newby’ QB feeds that ‘doubt’, and the ‘haters’ feed that doubt, and dumb coaching that would tell a ‘newby’ QB that he is one game at a time feeds doubt (rumor?)- is that what we saw yesterday?
The bigger question is: has Tebow done enough to slay the demon? He obviously did at the end of the MIA game – but ‘doubt’ is creeping in already because laming the Lion is not nearly the same as gaffing the Dolphin.
I think the the Lions D will try to duplicate what MIA did and in doing so will cheat themselves. They will have to adjust early and will not be able to continue the blitz packages like MIA into the 4th quarter.
The Broncos greatest asset is that the Lions will underestimate the Broncos – this win will also require the defense of the Broncos to keep the Lions O below average in production.
The ‘haters’ who are already going after the Lions and undermining them in order to be able to minimize the significance of a Bronco victory – can just ’shut up’ now. Significant competitive effort and a close score against the Lions will indicate huge progress, by DEN in coaching/ QB/ defense/ and O-line, beyond the ‘dark age’ of Bronco football.
My optimistic – wishful prediction.
DEN – 24 / DET – 21 Tebow writes his check for the future-
Whats up with everybody wanting Tebow gone all of the sudden???
Hell all he done was threw 2 tds and ran in a 2 point conversion to tie the game,so D.J. could get the strip sack and Prater could nail a 52 yard FG in OT for the win!!!
I like Tebow,but no way he gets all the credit for the win,after all,the Defense dominated and held Miami to 15 points!
I am excited to see if the win gives the team confidence enough to beat Detroit next Sunday,if we beat them we will be 3-4…not too bad!!!
I know Tebow missed some throws badly,and looked out of place at times,but he is still learning,and has 10 more games to prove what he can do,Hell open up the playbook and let him do what he does best!!!
He’s in a Offens that is NOT suited for him,if we want him to succeed,we have to build an Offense around his talent,if not,he won’t be successful!
BFE
Great article Jim!
That, my friends, was a WILD ride!!! Like me, everyone was worried with the way we were playing for 50+ minutes, and like many of you pointed out, the play calling was absurdly predictable! And it doesn’t help much when every time you are trying to make a pass, you have 1 or 2 defenders right on your face!! They blitzed A TON!! I though the O-line was not helping that much with the QB protection, I mean, Tebow is no Brady, he needs a little time to make a trow, give him a chance!!! It was nice to see our improved running game, but we also need to throw the ball more, something like we did in the last 5 min of the game! Tebow is not the most accurate, but he is a goddamn QB, let him make throws!!
I think the play-calling and the execution would be better this week playing at home… we need that to happen if we are even thinking of defeating the Lions! And for the record, I do not like McCoy as our OC either… I also think that Miami’s D is good actually, their offense is inept!
And I don’t know if many of you thought the game was lost at any point, that crossed my mind but I regret to believe it! Just llike Deion Sanders was saying on NFL Network, there is something in Tebow that just gives you hope, it is not only the fans believing in him, his teammates believe in him. That is why the game was not over for me… Tebow doesn’t like losing a lot! He just makes it happen….
Repost form the last blog:
Trent Dilfer said what stops players from being the best they can be is bad fundamentals. Trent was a hard working player who was beloved by his teammates and of course won a championship with the Ravens, but he is not an HOF quarterback. If I was in his position I wouldn’t want to believe that there is someone who could come in with more mechanics problems than I did and outwork me to become far better than I ever was. Dilfer is the spokesperson for a lot of analysts in that way. Merill Hoge couldn’t overcome his issues to even become a remotely memorable running back in the league. They don’t want to believe someone can do something they couldn’t do. And that is perfectly understandable.
But watch this link about Michael Jordan playing minor league baseball. When he made the choice to play everyone treated it like a complete joke. But he changed his mechanics and accomplished things mid season that takes players who have played the game all their lives 3 or 4 years to do. When you hear everyone talk about his work ethic and how he did it tell me you haven’t heard people say the exact same things about Tebow. The unfair fact is not every pro has true greatness in them and guys like Jordan and Tebow have the desire and ability to work harder than most others could or probably even should. I BELIEVE.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CJc3aVv5hew
This is from Kiszla! I guy who has been known for bashing Tebow. Sounds like he is coming around. Who else wants to join?
http://www.denverpost.com/kiszla/ci_19179739
Ugly ‘W’ fellas, but I think we all can agree that we’ll take it, as there really aren’t any ugly wins in this league… The best thing about the NFL is that things can change so much from week to week. Let’s just hope that this win sparks something with our squad, and that Tebow can take this as a wake up call, that he needs to get better with his reads…
@Beast great post! I don’t want Tebow gone. I want him to be consistent for a full game what he did in the final 5 minutes of the 4th was magical. If he can do that for longer than 5 minutes then he will be a special player. I think what everyone is doing is peculating as to the administrations plans I heard Bay say on the other Blog about Tebow to Miami and Luck to Denver which also crossed my mind… but I don;t think its that anyone wants Tebow gone I think its more thinking that EFX wont stick with him
I think the only way to find out is to start a game in the hurry up offense. Shotgun, roll outs, screen passes. If he can get started early and get comefortable early then it will be easier to mix in the traditional plays too.
He isn’t ready to stand in the pocket and make three different reads yet and he shouldn’t be expected to. That takes time.
If there has been no improvement by week 17 then maybe we do need to look around for a QB.
All I know is ill reserve my judgement to after this season on Tebows future. People are looking to either crucify or annoint him after every game. What happened to the good ol days of learning on the job. The days when many HOF QBs in their rookie season struggled but eventually learned?
Just take this game for what it was … and ugly game with a thrilling victory. I don’t know why a verdict has to be so soon. When Orton was leading the squad there was an excuse for everything, every loss. It was either the D, the oline, the running game, the scent of hotdogs in the air. Everything but HIS play for 20+ games in denver but after a victory we are ready to crucify a guy in his second year with no offseason, a rookie covering his blindside, young receivers just stepping into the line up and playing with each other for the first time? Yup those right there are pretty good excuses to. but excuses don’t matter. Results do. So how about we all reserve our judgement of Tebow until we have seen more?
ps: out of what I just wrote watch people only key in on HOF and say I am calling Tebow a HOF QB when I did no such thing.
Later days, TRB out…
I agree… I can’t remember any other player in ANY sport getting as much attention as TT at the begining their career. I just hope that our top Brass is commited to giving him this season to develop, and then make an informed decision at the end of the season..
TRB:
I agree with you. Building a newbie into a effective QB is not only a team effort but a coaching effort as well. It takes time and dedication. He could have lost that game 15-0 and I would still say leave him in. Not cause I bleed for Tebow cause I don’t. It’s because This is the toughest position in sports and NOBODY can learn it without playing time. To me, Tebow has earned playing time an a chance to succeed by succeeding everywhere in his career to this point.
Win or lose, I have his back until it is evident over the long haul that he can’t improve. Honestly he deserves at least one whole season but with him, I know he won’t get it unless he shows signifficant improvements and fast.
I believe in you Tebow.
“Never seen anything like that before”?
That’s the heart and core of the essence of a “miracle”.
The Miracle in Miami that we all witnessed…is just the beginning, my friends.
Buckle your seatbelts. These are historic times for the Denver Broncos.
This ship has just changed directions…and the wind is at our backs.
one hot day doesn’t make a summer! that was luck. pure luck.. and I don’t mean Oliver’s son either!
Winners don’t believe in luck,they make their own!!!!!!!
Thanks for the great post Jim, made me think of the old saying, “that’s why they play the game.” After watching one of the most boring games for 57 minutes I’d seen since Dan Reeves was head coach , I was literally shaking with excitement at the end of regulation. Heck, it was almost too exciting! LOL Go Broncos!
Give the guy more than one game. He won for chris sakes. What was Elway’s first game stats again? Oh yeah absolutely horrible. I didn’t see the game just highlights and I saw poor protection for Tebow, he had a few scrambles that should have been 10 yard losses. He got sacked 7 times! You can’t keep this guy down, be it conservative play calling, poor protection or constant abuse by analysts he will not stop! Just help him out a little Foxy and Elway he wants to win..
Another gripe by me but Knowshon Moreno sucks. I mean what’s up with that guy? He can’t run anymore he always falls or stumbles, his legs kick funny when he trys to make a move. I’m done with him that was a total bust pick he needs to be sent down the road and a new back brought in this next draft. To think Mcd took him with our first pick and the jets got shonn greene with a 2nd round pick in the same draft.
Amen to that BFE!
To your 3:05 post bro! We`re on the same page.
I for one am not surprised by Tebow’s record come from behind win. It is all down to character and charisma and having that inner steel to win against all the odds. Maybe it was helped by a bit of Dolphin complacency but still Tebow lead the team to a win. How good can Tebow be? Well I was watching Cecil Martin on Sky Sports in England and he said that he thought Tebow would more likely be a Super Bowl winning QB than a bust. I tend to agree.
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