NFL Playoffs 2012: Tim Tebow Has One Last Shot at Validating Tremendous Hype

In what has been a charmed initial stint as NFL wunderkind, Tim Tebow will get yet another shot at immortality. 

Everyone loves a great success story. It's even better if the protagonist is an unlikely hero, and that is why I keep a copy of Rudy by the DVD player for an occasion when I need to be uplifted. 

So I can get with Tebow winning despite himself. I can jump on board a bandwagon of magical dreams and endless hopes, but at some point the tangible has to meet the intangibles. 

The entire Denver area chanted his name until he usurped Kyle Orton for the starting job. He then had the gall to rail off a string of wins despite a horrendous throwing motion and a team that was supposed to be dead in the water. It's enough to make you flirt with resurrection analogies. 

Yet we refrain because the reality has muddied up the fairy tale. The final three games saw the Broncos on the wrong side of a winning effort. The "winner" was playing worse and worse. 

You might even say that defenses were improving in how they drew up their strategies to stop the Broncos savior. 

Denver still managed a playoff berth and all should be right in the world, except it isn't. Tebow is playing some very suspect football nowadays and the big bad Steelers are coming to town. 

Forget that Pittsburgh has a tough defense that will be gunning for Tebow, a winner doesn't need to regard such things. Forget that his completion rate has dropped considerably in the last three games, posting a 27.3 percentage against the Chiefs. 

Tebow is above the realm of stats and figures. He is a winner. At least, that was the echo from every last Broncos fan that believed it. 

Well, a winner needs to win the most important game of his career, or we can stop with the silly name calling. A loss against the Steelers means that Tebow is no longer a "savior" or a Mile High Messiah. In fact, you can even stop calling him a winner. 

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