Jets vs. Broncos Thursday Night Football: Is Tim Tebow Denver's Long-Term Plan?

The day was October 9th.

His team was 1-3 and on the verge of becoming 1-4. He looked up at the Mile High scoreboard, and it read 23-10 to start the third quarter. With his team floundering under a veteran quarterback, Denver Broncos head coach John Fox made the only decision he could make at that point. 

It was Tim Tebow time.

A month and a week later, Fox could have never envisioned what Tebow was about to unleash on the NFL world when he threw his young quarterback to the wolves in the second half of the Broncos' eventual loss to the San Diego Chargers.

Since that game, Tebow has led the Broncos to four wins in five tries, including a thrilling 17-13 win over the New York Jets on Thursday Night Football.

Now at 5-5, the Broncos have a legitimate shot at making the playoffs as the AFC West representative. They are tied in wins with the division-leading Oakland Raiders (5-4). 

But one of the major questions coming out of Thursday's win that everyone wants to know is this: Are the Broncos planning on having Tebow as their long-term option at quarterback?

I'd argue that Fox didn't have a clue what was going to happen when he put Tebow into the Chargers game over a month ago. He inherited a first-round pick at the quarterback position that his fanbase absolutely loved, and, at some point, Fox was going to play Tebow. But there's no way he could have saw the revival of the Broncos coming in this fashion and this quickly.

Now that the Broncos are back at .500 and in the playoff chase, the chances of drafting a top quarterback in next year's draft seems out of the question. Andrew Luck and Matt Barkley won't be options to a team that already has five wins and faces a somewhat easy schedule to end the season.

Let's say Tebow leads the Broncos to two wins in their final six games (completely in the cards considering Denver plays Minnesota, Kansas City, Buffalo and San Diego), don't the Broncos—who would finish 7-9 in that scenario—have to give Tebow the keys to the franchise to start next season?

From there, who knows what could happen. There's still plenty of obvious flaws in his game as a quarterback, but the Broncos look like they'll be under Tebow's control for the foreseeable future. Finding a franchise guy in next April's draft doesn't look like a viable option because of Tebow's heroics in recent weeks.