NFL Playoff Picture: Why Tim Tebow Is Still a Year Away from Playoff Ready

Finally, the Tim Tebow hysteria has simmered down to a manageable roar as we head towards the NFL playoffs. The folklore of the Denver Broncos' polarizing quarterback needs to be revealed for what it truly is: wildly overrated.

Put aside everything. His faith, his charisma and your personal opinion of the man. Let's look at the football facts and uncover what the rest of the media neglects to share. Let's just talk football.

The Denver Broncos were red-hot at one point and time, but that has turned into a cold reality in the past two weeks. The Broncos have been blown out in succession by two AFC East teams putting Denver in a win-or-stay-home situation this Sunday.

Tebow will host his predecessor, Kyle Orton, and the Kansas City Chiefs as the intriguing story of Tim Tebow will provide yet another story headlined by an odd coincidence.

Whether the Denver Broncos and Tebow make it to the playoffs is irrelevant. Yes, the Denver Broncos have surged up the standings in the past two months, but Tebow only had a small role in that.

And yes, there's no denying "Tebowtime" provided the Broncos an opportunity to win some miraculous comebacks. However, the last two weeks and the Week 8 defeat to the Detroit Lions have shed light on particular commonalities that the Tebow faithful and the mainstream media fail to acknowledge.

For example, all three teams had their starting quarterback under center. In all three games, Denver's defense did not hold their opponents under 15 points like they did in five of their previous seven victories.

Tebow has shown signs of promise but has not shown any signs of sustainable play. Whether the Broncos make the playoffs is irrelevant because Tebow is not ready for the playoffs.

Denver could end up hosting a playoff game, but Tebow's glaring inefficiencies will shine even brighter on the bigger stage.

Backup Quarterbacks Galore

One of the biggest things being lost in translation during Tim Tebow's domination of all things NFL is who his positional counterparts were. As everyone became fixated on the last four to five minutes of each game, no one cared to observe who was throwing the ball on the other sideline.

The media, the Broncos and the Tebow faithful never mention that four of the seven victories came against quarterbacks who did not start the season as the designated starter. All of them gained their position through injury—not through their own accord—except for the Minnesota Vikings' Christian Ponder.

Ponder replaced the porous Donovan McNabb.

Matt Moore for the Miami Dolphins, Carson Palmer for the Oakland Raiders, Christian Ponder for the Minnesota Vikings and Caleb Hanie for the Chicago Bears were all replacements at the single most important position on the field. This fab four has a combined record of 13-24.

Not exactly instilling fear in defenses with those records.

Of the three regular starters, Matt Cassel of the Kansas City Chiefs was only 4-5 before being put on injured reserves.

Philip Rivers and the San Diego Chargers were 4-7 and at the tail end of a six-game losing streak. Rivers weathered one of the worst stretches of his career, throwing 10 touchdowns and 10 interceptions. During that same six-game stretch, Rivers only broke 90 points once in the quarterback rating system.

Mark Sanchez and the New York Jets were victims of a huge scheduling folly by the league. The Jets hosted the New England Patriots on the previous Sunday night for a hotly contested matchup for AFC East supremacy.

The Jets had to turn around and travel over 2,000 miles to the Rocky Mountains the following Wednesday to face the Broncos in a prime time matchup on Thursday night. A short turnaround, lack of practice preparation, cross-country travel and an emotional letdown from a prime time showdown with their division's perennial top dog.

All of the aforementioned details played a bigger role in a Jets defeat rather than a Broncos victory.

Victories Were Against Sub Par Opponents

The legend of Tim Tebow and "Tebowtime" reached a fever pitch during the Denver Broncos six-game winning streak as they won six of seven.

The commonality between all the Broncos victories that resonates the most—besides the acclaim of "Tebowtime"—is the overall records at the time of the teams that faced Denver. The Chicago Bears were the only team with a winning record out of seven teams defeated by the Broncos.

Chicago's record is also misleading. The Bears (7-6) lost quarterback Jay Cutler a couple weeks prior to playing Denver and lost two consecutive games heading into their matchup with the Broncos. Their loss to the Broncos was their third of a now five-game losing streak.

Lest we forget, the Bears could have run out the clock at the end of regulation when Marion Barber's clock awareness went awry as he ran out of bounds with less than two minutes left on the clock. They were also in prime field goal position in overtime before Barber squandered a chance at redemption, bursting through an open hole.

The Bears were the only victory Denver produced against a team with a winning record at the time. The other six opponents had a combined record of 26-43. Or if you prefer that to be presented in a different way, the winning percentage was a combined 37.68 percent, which is barely hovering above one-third.

On the other hand, their three defeats were against teams with a combined record at the time of play of 23-14, which is 62.16 percent. Of which, the Detroit Lions and the New England Patriots are the only two teams that Tebow has played that will be playing after New Year's Day in the playoffs.

The Oakland Raiders could be a third team, but Carson Palmer had only practiced for one full week with his new team prior to facing the Broncos. Denver was outclassed, outplayed and throttled during the two games against the Lions and Patriots. And both of which were played in Denver.

Must Be Able to Score

The Denver Broncos defense has been the catalyst of this team's run to the playoffs. Denver's defensive unit has played exceptionally in the last two months without proper support from their offense.

The only support Denver's offense provides is its low turnover ratio. The Denver offense's ability to hold onto the ball prevents the Broncos from bailing out opposing teams with short field position or a shot of momentum.

Denver under Tim Tebow has scored an average of 20.45 points per game, which is nothing to balk at. Spot a defense 20 points per game, and you could win a lot of games in the NFL.

However, in five of their seven victories the Broncos failed to score more than 20 points per game. This is a combination of two things.

The first thing being the two previous slides. Facing mediocre teams with second-string quarterbacks does not require that the Broncos score a ton of points. On the flip side of the coin, the defense's job becomes that much easier. Playing shutdown football against sub .500 teams should be expected, not glorified if you're a playoff-caliber team.

What Tebow nation has forgotten is that they had to pull a rabbit out of the hat numerous times during their winning streak because their offense was incapable of matching their defense's production against losing teams.

The average points per game during that same time frame for the other five teams currently in the AFC playoff standings are as follows: New England Patriots 29.91, Pittsburgh Steelers 20.18, Houston Texans 26.36, Baltimore Ravens 23.5, and Cincinnati Bengals 22.54.

Tebow's Broncos have scored the least points in the last 11 weeks since he took over in Denver of any AFC playoff team, except for the Steelers. His inability to consistently lead his team up and down the field for four quarters can squeak by sub .500 teams, but come playoff time, every opponent can score against Denver's defense and force Tebow to produce points in bunches.

Must Be Able to Produce in the Passing Game

Take a moment to think about the first three-and-a-half quarters of all the Denver Broncos games with Tim Tebow as the starting quarterback. Don't worry, I'll wait.

Okay, now what do you remember? If you remember Tebow leading his team up and down the field, you are sadly misguided and jaded.

In an NFL season that consisted of four different quarterbacks who were—up until a few weeks ago—all realistically in the hunt for Dan Marino's all-time passing yards record, we are stuck talking about a guy who has only thrown over 20 completions once.

To add to that, Tebow has thrown less than 10 completions four times now, and two of which were less than five completions.

Less than five! Twice!

Aaron Rodgers has carved more holes in a defense each week than there are in one of those comical blocks of cheese Wisconsinites choose to wear out in public. Drew Brees is a mere 305 yards away from breaking Dan Marino's record with two games still to play.

The NFL is a passing league. Plain and simple. The rules have been written to allow it. Yards per game by nearly every team in the league have been increased because of it in recent years. The list could go on and on.

More passing, more yards and more penalties means two things: softer defenses and more points. Of course, there are anomalies and outliers like the San Francisco 49ers, but the Denver Broncos do not fit into that category.

You must have a quarterback capable of taking a team up and down the field. Defenses cannot with stand the power of the new high-octane NFL offense for 16 weeks.

Tebow's greatest passing performance was against the Minnesota Vikings. He completed 10-of-15 passes for 202 yards with two touchdowns. Not exactly something to write home about.

Defense, Special Teams and Miscues Cannot Support Tebow Forever

Alright. This time I want you to recall all the circumstances that took place each game to start the "Tebowtime" clock.

Do you remember multiple onside kicks, prevent defenses under five minutes, 59-yard field goals, overtime fumbles, running backs running out of bounds with no timeouts left or careless interceptions by a rookie quarterback?

How about a defense that consistently suffocated teams for 50-55 minutes while the Denver Broncos offense remained inept?

Or a kicker that made two 50-plus yard field goals to win games in overtime?

Tim Tebow has been heralded with all the credit for all of Denver's victories, not because he has assumed all the credit but because we choose to ignore the other 52 players on the squad.

Most importantly, we have ignored 12 crucially important players. The 11 men on the defense and the kicker, Matt Prater.

Defense and special teams can win a you some games in the NFL, there's no denying that. They get paid too.

However, what you do not want to do is rely on them to win most of your games. Even more importantly, you do not want to enter a playoff run when your best scoring threat is your kicker.

Some have called it divine intervention, others have called it luck and another group has called it for what it is. Tebow has been the beneficiary of the performances from his supporting cast and the unlikely chain of events that have become as routine as his weekly comeback drives.

Sooner or later the Broncos' fortune will dissipate and Tim Tebow will have to carry his team on his back for four quarters rather than five eventful minutes.