Broncos vs Patriots: Why Tim Tebow Won't Throw for 300 Yards

Denver Broncos quarterback Tim Tebow threw for 316 yards against the Pittsburgh Steelers in the Wild Card round of the playoffs, something no quarterback has done to their top-ranked pass defense all season long.

Though he managed to complete less than 50 percent of his passes for the ninth time this season, Tebow's ability to beat the best secondary in football is enough to give anyone pause.

Now that he's set to face the New England Patriots and their league-worst pass defense, it seems quite possible that Tebow can yet again throw for 300 or more yards, even if the Broncos don't manage to win.

However, I don't see it happening this week. The Patriots are a savvy team, able to make necessary adjustments when the Super Bowl is on the line.

They held Tebow to just 194 passing yards in the teams' first meeting in Week 15 despite fielding that very same weak secondary, and there's no way they will allow what happened to the Steelers to happen to them at home on Saturday.

The Steelers were continuously beaten by the deep ball because their defense wouldn't stop keeping their safeties close to the line of scrimmage, trying to stop the run. At that they succeeded, but at the cost of allowing Tebow to pass the ball, seemingly at will.

They believed that if Tebow was forced to throw, he wouldn't be able to complete enough passes, let alone deep passes, to be a real threat.

Tebow showed that he in fact can complete those deep throws and the Steelers' missteps should provide the Patriots with a better idea of how to keep the entire Broncos offense contained.

Surely, Tebow will have opportunities to throw the ball downfield, and he should complete a few of them. But he will likely be playing from significantly behind, as he did when he faced the Patriots in the regular season, and he's going to have trouble completing enough passes to dig himself out of the hole.

It was a combination of a fired up hometown crowd, the Steelers defense playing the wrong coverage and failing to adjust appropriately and very real moments of Tebow big-play competence that brought the Broncos a win last week.

But Tebow doesn't have back-to-back 300 yard games in him. Further, he should be more concerned with completing more than half of his passes this week, as that's what's going to help the Broncos more than 300 passing yards producing just 23 (regulation-time) points.