Why John Fox, Denver Broncos Smart To Approach Tim Tebow's Future with Caution

Denver Broncos quarterback Tim Tebow has managed six fourth quarter comebacks in his 11 career starts and has helped his team along to a 7-1 record since being named the starter earlier this season.

What started as a stop-gap effort to simply appease the fans has become a phenomenon and now the Broncos sit atop their AFC West division and will likely see the playoffs thanks to—and despite of—Tebow's quarterbacking skills.

Though Tebow has engineered a lot of late-game wins this season, it seems as though the only time he can string together two consecutive completions is in the last five minutes of the game.

Defenses, trying to maintain their team's lead, switch to a "prevent" formation, allowing Tebow to complete passes and then run in a score once the team hits the red zone.

It's simply defenses' inability to recognize this very simple strategy employed by the Broncos offense that has allowed the Broncos their many close wins.

Tebow himself hasn't done his team many favors throughout the majority of the Broncos games this season, but when it comes to the fourth quarter, he looks like a world-beater.

Yes, Tebow's completion percentage seemed to improve, but that's smoke and mirrors. He's capable of completing more than 60 percent of his passes when he throws 15 of them, but when he's asked to throw the ball as much as a typical quarterback—30 times or more—he struggles to complete just half of them.

What the Broncos are doing on offense simply is not sustainable. It might carry them into the playoffs this season, but next year it's not going to come so easy for the team.

They're relying way too much on luck for this offensive strategy to continue to be successful. And so it makes sense that head coach John Fox hasn't yet committed to Tebow as his starter for the long term.

Tebow will never play the quarterback position the way that we are all used to. This isn't a bad thing in itself, however, it could quickly start costing the Broncos wins.

Once Tebow's option-heavy pass game starts costing Denver more wins than it brings in, it will be painfully clear that Tebow just isn't a reliable enough quarterback to keep him as the starter.

It would behoove the Broncos to take a close examination of just what Tebow has and has not done this year and perhaps bring in another, more traditional quarterback to compete with Tebow for the starting job.

Luck, coincidence and a bit of Tebow magic has helped the Broncos this year, but, at some point, it's all going to run out. Tebow is the starter now, but that doesn't mean he will be or that he should be next season.

It's good for the Broncos to evaluate their quarterback situation before they commit to something in the longer term that may end up causing more harm than help.