Broncos vs. Patriots: Why Tom Brady Will Ruin Tim Tebow's Magical 2011 Season

After the Denver Broncos beat the Pittsburgh Steelers in overtime last Sunday, Twitter almost broke. Tim Tebow threw an 80-yard touchdown pass to Demaryius Thomas, and tweets rushed into cyberspace at an amazing 9,420 per second. This is good for the second-most tweets per second ever; the first was a screening of a 1986 anime film in Japan. Odd?

With hash tags flying—#tebowtime and #allhedoesiswin being the most prevalent—TebowMania officially hit a new level. On Thursday, just when one may have thought that SportsCenter was actually going to discuss the Texans vs. Ravens game (wait, the Texans are playing the Ravens?), ESPN dedicated an entire hour of SportsCenter to Tebow. 

Whether he is popular or merely polarizing (this was the feature question during that special hour of SportsCenter), he certainly commands a lot of attention. 

This weekend, Tebow's Broncos will take on the New England Patriots, and while he has never had an hour of SportsCenter dedicated to him, Tom Brady is a pretty damn good quarterback. 

That's an understatement, obviously; Brady is one of the best quarterbacks to ever play the game. He's been to four Super Bowls and won three of those. He has 39,979 career passing yards. He's married to Gisele Bundchen. 

Yea, Brady's the real deal, and in Week 15 when the Patriots hosted the Broncos, he threw for 320 yards and two touchdowns while rushing for one more. It's apparent that this Denver defensive unit, which has completely exceeded expectations this season, doesn't phase Tom. 

The Broncos will lose on Sunday and Tebow's run will be over for a number of reasons, and all of them start with a man named Brady. Brady's confidence, which will be unswayed by the Denver defense, is the first and most important reason why he will control the game. He believes he can and should win this game, and no matter how many times Von Miller throws him to the ground, that thought will not exit his mind. 

What's so interesting about this matchup is that it really does involve quarterback vs. quarterback. Obviously, this is not meant in a literal sense, but Tebow's current presence in the media will affect the intensity at which Brady will play.

If Brady and the Patriots lose to, say, the Steelers, no one asks many questions. The Steelers are a good team, and no one is too shocked to hear that they beat the Patriots. 

Losing to the Broncos, however, would be another story. Not only the Broncos, mind you, but the Tebow-led Broncos. The world stops, drops and rolls when Tebow throws a run-of-the-mill touchdown pass. If he were to lead his underdog Broncos over the mighty Patriots, the Mayan prophecy might come early. 

Tom Brady is still the king—the best of the best. Tim Tebow is America's golden boy—the prototypical image of a respectable, young man. That's a recipe for discussion, and Brady will not let the discussion be about how the king lost to the golden boy.