Tim Tebow: Broncos Must Go to Brady Quinn at First Sign of Trouble

Tim Tebow and the Denver Broncos must exit Sports Authority Field at Mile High with no regrets on Sunday, whether Tebow is on the field or not.  Against an elite Pittsburgh Steelers defense, Denver has no room for error.  If they get down early, John Fox can’t be afraid to pull the plug on the Broncos run-heavy offense.

According to NBC Sports, second-string quarterback Brady Quinn is receiving nearly half of the first-team reps in practice.  John Elway praised Tebow earlier this week giving the former Florida Gator his vote of confidence, but that won’t keep the Broncos from doing everything in their power to upset the Steelers.  If Pittsburgh jumps out to an early two-score lead and Tebow is failing to unleash, then Quinn deserves a shot.

In the past two games against the Buffalo Bills and Kansas City Chiefs, Tebow has recorded passer ratings of 37.9 and 20.6.  In that pair of debacles, he turned the football over six times while accounting for just two scorers.  Denver doesn’t have the slightest shot to knock off the Steelers on Sunday if Tebow doesn’t step his game up.

Quinn may not be the leader or the crunch time performer that Tebow is, but he brings a special advantage to the Broncos: the element of surprise.  Dick LeBeau isn’t wasting precious practice time preparing for Quinn; Pittsburgh is getting ready to suffocate the Tebow-ground attack.  With minimal effort spent preparing to stop Quinn, he may just be able to move the football though the air against the Steelers defense.

There is no risk to benching Tebow if Fox times it right.  One would imagine that after losing the player that turned their season around, Denver would suffer an emotional letdown.  That isn’t the case, though, because the Broncos’ players aren’t morons; if they see Tebow go three-and-out a couple of times while Ben Roethlisberger and company are marching up and down the field, they’ll understand that a swap has to be made.

Fox must remember that Tebow didn’t single-handedly get the Broncos to where they are.  It was a team effort and because of that, pegging Quinn as a plan B isn’t unreasonable. 

David Daniels is a Featured Columnist at Bleacher Report and a syndicated writer.

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