July 1, 2020 • 48 mins
Nearly a decade after instant icon Tim Tebow’s fifteen minutes of NFL fame, we look back at the playoff victory he piloted the Broncos to in one of the most memorable NFL games of the new millennium. Winning an overtime thriller against the Steelers could’ve been the springboard to NFL super-stardom - instead it was the last big moment of his career. How did Tebow do it against a great Steelers defense? Part of it had to do with the surprising circumstances of who was on the field for Pittsburgh on the fateful game-deciding play in OT - a play that had many NFL fans unsure if the game was even over after it occurred. We delve into a young - and very different - Antonio Brown, the beginning of Demaryius Thomas’ short run as the best WR in the NFL, and the coup-de-gras of how it all went south for Tebow right after.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome to Special Teams, a production of I Heart Radio.
Greetings and welcome inside another episode of Special Teams with
(00:23):
Jason Smith and Mike Harmon, as we look back at
some special teams, specific years in the world of sports
in the middle of our run right now, as we
look back at big games in NFL history and the
special teams that played in them. It's nearly been a decade,
so it's time to look back at Tim Tebow's loan
playoff win, the shining achievement of his National Football League
(00:47):
career January eighth, two thousand and twelve, Broncos beating the
Steelers three in overtime on a very shocking play. Oh look,
last week we talked about Steve Smith in his shocking
touchdown at the end of double overtime. Well, this play
we're gonna tell you about coming up made that play
look like a one yard touchdown plunge. At the end
of Week eight, at the end of the first half
(01:08):
of the game, because it was just that surprising Steelers
and the Broncos. When Tim Tebow was on everybody's lips,
I don't know that we talked about anything else in
the entire world of sports in two thousand eleven. No,
the curiosity of Tebow coming off the highly decorated collegiate
career and into the National Football League. And you know,
(01:29):
anybody that talked to him or about him with gush right,
all the broadcasters that had met him during his time
at Florida would tell you what a great person he
was in addition to just one of our best collegiate
quarterbacks ever. And so you have this moment where everything converges,
(01:50):
and we'll talk about some of the numbers, and even
to this day just leave me astounded that this worked
in any way, shape or form to become what it did.
But just an amazing year. And what's funny is it's
just such an outlier because of where the organization went
after this season concluded, the Broncos path to this game
(02:12):
is as improbable as Tim Tebow's run. They wind up
going eight and eight and they win the a f
C West on tiebreakers with the Chargers and the Raiders.
This was Von Miller's rookie season and coming in Kyle
Lorton versus Tim Tebow, who would be the quarterback dominated
the first five weeks of the season. Kyle Lorton, Buddy
(02:32):
Kyle Orton back when he was relevant. Kyle Orton, Buddy, look,
I love the neck beard. He's been relevant uh during
the pandemic time because a lot of guys are just
doing interviews. Uh. Brian Urlacker now with hair. When asked
who his favorite quarterback was that he played with, he
mentioned the neck beard. Also just kind of funny, is
that you know Jay Cutler uh, well started his career
(02:56):
in Denver, became a bear. Uh, and then Kyle Orton
uh becomes a bear. Uh. And then you've got you know,
John Fox would eventually um become a bear. So you know,
you just got all this madness. He was a pipeline.
So John Fox, who's the head coach of the Denver Broncos,
has inherited Tim Tebow from Josh McDaniels, who drafted Tebow
(03:18):
in the first round. It was a big deal when
the Broncos traded him. Oh my goodness, look at Tebow
coming off the star uh studied college career that he
had that included Heisman trophies, National championships. What was the Broncos?
What were they going to do? Well? John Fox, who
was hired to bring stability to this team, had a
quarterback decision to make. The fans wanted to see Tim Tebow, right,
(03:40):
he looked what he did in Florida. I get that
no one thinks he can be a great quarterback and
was he overdrafted? Sure he was, but the fans wanted
to see him now. Kyle Orton wasn't awful, but Denver
started one and four, so they had to make the
change to Tebow. What hurt Kyle Orton was the first
six weeks of the season to Marius Thomas didn't play
because he had a broken finger. So if Damarius Thomas plays,
(04:03):
maybe things are a little bit different for the Broncos
because he was that good. But instead they go to Tebow. Okay,
let's see what Tim Tebow can do. So Tebow starts
first game against the Miami Dolphins down fifteen nothing in
the fourth quarter, Tebow throws for two touchdowns two point
conversion run to tie the game. They win in overtime.
(04:24):
Eighteen fifteen, The Birth of Tim Tebow. Hey, look what
he's able to do, all right? Then he throws a
fifty six yard touchdown past late in the fourth quarter
to be Kansas City seventeen ten. He has a big
fourth quarter comeback against the Jets, a game in which
the Broncos should have lost. The Jet should have won
this game ten ways except Mark Sanchez throws a pick six,
(04:46):
but the Jets still have the lead. Late Tebow takes
over at his own five yard line, but leaves the
Broncos down. The Jets can't stop him. He runs for
a twenty yard touchdown to win the game. This is
a play I still see where nobody wanted to come
out of the end zone and try to tackle Tebow.
He's getting close to the goal line because he just
had a head of team. He was a freight train.
(05:06):
So here's another big comeback. When this is on a
Thursday night, so it's on national television, and at this
point everything is Tim Tebow, Tebow, Tebow, Tebow Tebow. And
if the win against my Jets wasn't so bad, the
ten point fourth quarter comeback against your Bears is even worse.
But of course, I know you blame Marian Barber for
all of this. I blame Maryan Barber for everything, no
(05:30):
question about it. Right, yeah, yeah, they finally score, right,
Tebow's got him in the end of fine, but they've
got two minutes left. This is easy, Barber with a run,
Barber with a run, Barber with a run. They take
the pen on the delay of game. But the key
was he had a five yard run that he's getting
towards the sideline, and instead of turning it back in
(05:53):
or sliding or just engaging someone and forcing him to
tackle him in bounce, he goes out of balance of
his own volition. So you stopped the clock. You stop
the clock, and eventually you end up punting to give
the ball back to Tebow and company. Yeah, you still
gotta go make a step, but the game's over. They don't.
(06:13):
We use their third time out. That's it, it's done.
Tebow Magic is dead. Tebow Magic is dead. This would
have ended the winning streak, ended the legend of Tebow.
But Mary and the Barbarians, the guy who I watched
in the Big ten and with the Cowboys with the
Bears run through walls, decides to go out of bounds.
(06:34):
Jason Smith, I watched it in preparation. There was a
shot of Tebow praying, just give me the strength to honor.
You give me that opportunity. So Barbara doesn't run out
of bounds, and that turns into the game tying score,
they win in overtime. And at this point in the NFL,
he is the only NFL story. He's the only culture
(06:55):
is Tim Tebow driven. There are songs written about Remember
John parted, Tim Tebo was fire. I mean, it's all
you can talk about. There's no other stories in the NFL.
Tebow was on everybody's lips Saturday. This good? How is
the guy this good? Is he really this good? Many
people didn't think he was very good at all, and
just kept getting lucky every week, and certainly with teams
(07:16):
like the Jets and the Bears helping, it helped the
legend of Tim Tebow. But he was polarizing. He had
huge fans, but it didn't matter. He was the entire
news cycle of the National Football League. And here are
the Broncos at eight and five and things are looking great.
Eventually they waived Kyle Orton because they didn't need him anymore.
He was like, yeah, we don't need it, We don't
(07:37):
need this guy. Okay, he's your backup. No, no, no,
we don't need anymore. We're getting we need that's all.
He could play all different positions for us. One big
thing that that happened to the Broncos at this point
during the season, was no Sean Marino, who was going
to get the Lions share of that carries a running
back towards a c l and missed the back half
of the season. So this is a huge weapon that
(07:58):
the Broncos had to navigate the rest of the year without.
But it didn't matter. They had Tebow. Tebow. Tibow Tebow Tebow.
Broncos are right and five, everything is awesome. Well what
happens They lose three straight to close the season, including
seven three to the Chiefs in the final game of
the year. And guess it was the quarterback of the
Chiefs in that game, Kyle Orton's He was who the
(08:19):
Chiefs had picked up because they were having trouble. So
here's Kyle Orton wins the big revenge game against Tim
Tebow and at this point, going into the playoffs, it
was Tebow magic has gone. He went six in that game.
It was great for a few weeks, but now everybody's
figured him out. He's a limited quarterback anyway coming in
and that's what people forget is coming out of Florida,
(08:41):
he was a great college football quarterback. But how many
times are you gonna run the football into the middle
of the line and and gain a lot of yards
and then come out and throw the football. Tebow had
a lot of issues. He had a long wind up.
He wasn't very accurate. That's why everybody was on one
side of the fence or the other as far as
how good he could become. Now, the thing for Tebow
is that he's still young and this is his first
(09:02):
real starting experience, so maybe he can grow. But it
didn't matter because he was so polarizing. There were many
people that wanted to say, this is it on Tim Tebow.
Many NFL players didn't like him, and that was the
insane part of it is that you never heard and
you never hear NFL players bagging another quarterbacks. You never hear,
but you heard it. You heard it from other players.
(09:24):
Heard it from Joe Flacco, you heard it from Steve Smith,
you heard it from Terrell Suggs. Many played Tebow's overrated, overrated, overrated.
This is what you got because Tebow was just polarizing
that way. And now at this point it's okay, it
was great, but hey, they're gonna squeak into the playoffs
and they're gonna play one game and that's gonna be it,
and then the Broncos will be looking for a new quarterback. Yeah.
(09:44):
You just remember how inefficient it all was, Jason. I mean,
he had one game where he completed better than fifty
two and a half percent of his passes, six games
where he completed ten or fewer passes, only two games
where he threw for more than two hundred yards. He
should I keep going. I mean, it's just like all
of it just uh. They scored more than twenty points
(10:07):
three times between week seven and seventeen. But when in
the big plays, which is what he did. He made
big plays and he came through in the clutch. He
would have a crappy ass game, but then suddenly the
fourth quarter he would have fifty yards rushing in a
hundred and twenty yards passing. It was, what did he
just wear us down? And also sudden, why can he
(10:29):
throw the football? And like he couldn't do the first
three quarters of the game. But that was the magic
of Tebow. There was no reason for it. And why
is he suddenly playing well in the fourth quarter, rising
to the occasion and and being that guy when the
chips were down? That's what tim Tebow was made of
and it was stunning to watch. But in the end,
you know, look, we thought it was over. They lost
(10:49):
three in a row. Suddenly it was they couldn't put
points on the board. And here comes Pittsburgh into town.
And oh, by the way, this is a Pittsburgh Steelers
team that gets to this game with one of the
best defensive years this franchise has had. They allowed the
fewest points, fewest passing yards in total yards overall in
the NFL. Alright, typical strong defense like they've always had,
(11:11):
but this one was extremely strong. Alright, So this is
they're gonna come in and they're gonna just lay waste
to the Broncos Tebows. They're not gonna move the football
at all. Offenses where things got a little wacky. This
is back when Mike Wallace was the star wide receiver.
But you know, before he was just a deep threat.
You know, Mike Wallace was the guy and when his
genius was taking advantage of broken plays. He would only
(11:32):
catch like maybe four passes a game, but he was
still went up with a hundred yards because it was
a broken play where Roethlisberger would buy time and Mike
Wallace would cut all the way across the field and
suddenly a broken play is a forty five yard game
to Mike Wallace, I mean it was his team. Emmanuel
Sanders was up and coming, Hines Ward was near the
end of his career, but he was still contributing. And oh,
by the way, this was a second year for Antonio
(11:56):
Brown with the Pittsburgh Steelers, so their offense was in
a bit of a transition phase. But here's Antonio Brown
back when he was a guy that won the competition
to be the third wide receiver out of camp after
Antoine Randall l left the team. He was returning kicks
and punts and he did it for a long time.
Think about that, How crazy that was. Here's the best
wide receiver in the NFL. We're putting him out there
(12:17):
to get hurt returning kicks and punts. But this was
just his second year in the league where he was
the third wide receiver. Other guys were starting. It was
other players out there the Steeler trying to figure out
what their offense looked like. And he had a really
good year. He caught sixty nine passes yards, just a
couple of touchdowns. And once you see that This is
a big jumping off point for him. He wound up
(12:39):
making the Pro Bowl this year along with Wallace and Roethlisberger. Okay, hey,
Steeler's offense is now loaded up again. We're ready to go.
You know it was. It was off the Antoine Randall L.
Hines Ward situation, Super Bowl forty Jerome Bettis Now this
turned into air Pittsburgh and and for the better part
of a decade, this Dealer's team was absolutely low wide receiver.
(13:01):
And this was kind of the beginning of that time,
cycling guys in and out. I just remember going to
training camp, out a visit, a meeting up with Ton
Chilkin and and and Craig Wolfley, two guys who played
for the team broadcast for the team, and they always
had me out. We talked some football and go down
on the practice field and we're standing there watching the
wide receivers warm up. And this is would have been
(13:22):
so watching Brown as a rookie. And now like come here.
It's like I gotta talked to Wallace in a minute,
like Michael Waite for you come here, come he goes
what because watch this guy's footwork and and he was
going through some basic drills and it's Antonio Brown just
working hard like this is practice is done. Like we'd
already done all arounds and watched the fights and and
(13:44):
all of that fun stuff that you'd get in Latrobe. Uh,
and guys were getting to their individual work after the
long workout in the in the blazing sun. As like
this kid is gonna be a star. He and and
he knows it. That's like, okay, that's good. Just wait
and that's all they said about it. It's like, this
(14:04):
is the guy you want to tell people who the
breakout guy is gonna be. Mike's gonna have a big year,
but watch watch Antonio. So I go back, I interviewed
Mike Wallace and you know, say hi to Antonio and
the other guy hasn't gone. But I just remember them
just so very lately, just going he knows he's good,
but look at the work and watch the footwork out
of every break and I mean they were right. He
(14:27):
goes on to become just an absolute monster on the field.
This is the journey of both teams to this game.
Before Antonio Brown would become the best wide receiver in
the National Football League and then one of the biggest
head cases and pains in the National Football League. He
was the second year player who was rapidly ascending everything.
Even though the game was gonna be in Denver because
(14:48):
of the when you win a division, you play the
wild card team, it still looked like it was gonna
be a Pittsburgh runaway and it was anything but we'll
get into that coming up next Special Teams with Jason
Smith and Mike Carmen tim Tebow's playoff win. It is
(15:18):
that time time for the playoff game between the Pittsburgh Steelers,
who had the best defense in the National Football League
in an offense that was starting to find itself, versus
the Denver Broncos, who were just hoping to find something
after a really bad three week losing streak. Now, all
week long, the Broncos players talked about how they felt lost.
They were desperate. Tebow was still the same guy. He
(15:41):
would sprint two drills all week long. Criticism of him
was at all time high. It doesn't matter. His throwing
motion was too long, he wasn't accurate enough, criticized by
NFL players, didn't matter. Tebow led by example that week
in practice and a big conversation he had with John Elway,
who told him, listen, just pulled the trigger. Just throw,
(16:01):
all right, just you do you, but pull the trigger
and throw. Don't think too much, react and let's see
what happens. And that's clearly the attitude the Broncos went
into this game with because they had nothing to lose.
You look there, eight and eight. They had a great
roller coaster season, but no one expected them to win
this game. No, it was a season they were already
playing with house money quite a while. The fact that
(16:22):
they win the tiebreaker in a three way tie for
the a f C West to get into the playoffs.
I mean, that's another one of the divine inspiration moments, right,
A streaky team playing terribly and he was awful down
the stretch. Yet you find yourself in this moment. So
what do you you figure the Steelers, Dick le Beau.
(16:43):
They're gonna be aggressive, that's the way they operate, and
especially against the guy like tebow a don't let that
body get in motion like your Jets did, or nobody
wanted to come up and challenge him. Sorry, the Bears
did the same thing. So I can't push away from that.
But you know, so take that away. But also you know,
(17:03):
you're you're figuring your corners and and your safeties are
going to be able to work because you have that
big wind up and the ball that oftentimes just kind
of floated out there, right, he had a strong arm,
just a matter of accuracy and and putting a little
bit too much air at times and giving guys a
chance to make a break and make a play. And
(17:24):
so it seemed like the logical, logical game plans. So
you go and you you punch them in the mouth,
hoping that you're gonna hit on a couple of big ones.
And again, this is another game where the opponent of
Tim Tebow helped him to have a great day because
the Steelers loaded up on the run. They they they decided,
(17:44):
you are not going to run the football on us
and beat us. We're gonna make Tebow throw the football.
And we're still gonna run up and load up and
put eight guys in the box all day. Well, take
out mcgahey, and then also, don't let Tebow do a
bunch of you know, quarterback draws. Right, Let's let's not
let him gain momentum. Here he goes off tackle for
eight yards nine yards. Don't let him feel it. We're
(18:05):
gonna put everybody in the box, and Tebow's not accurate
enough to stop anybody. We're Willis mcgahey, who now they
were relying on to be the running back with no
Seawan Marino out. This was where the Steelers said, this
is how we're gonna win this game. Tebow completes just
ten out of one passes on the day, but he
still winds up throwing for three hundred and sixteen yards
(18:26):
and two touchdowns, averaging thirty yards per completion. Yeah, that
was the kind of day Tebow had. The big plays
he made were in the passing game, right, when when
you try to stop the run and you load up,
you just have to hit on one play and what's
the odject on one play repeatedly? Well, the odds were
in Tim Tebow's favor that day because he kept hitting
(18:47):
those big pass plays. He also ran enough, ran for
enough yards to keep Pittsburgh's defense honest. He ran for
fifty yards in the touchdown in this game. And this
is a game in which Tebow and the Broncos lost
Eric Decker early to an injury, because, hey, you know
the weapons they had in Denver at wide receiver they
were in slouchy. Decker was one of the better wide
(19:08):
receivers in the NFL. And to Marius Thomas, he's in
the middle of a run where he might be the
best wide receiver in the NFL at this point. I mean,
people forget that. You know, he had a run where
he was as good as it got for anybody in
the National Football League. And so you have Thomas and
you have Eric Decker. Hey, you should be able to
make plays in the passing game. But losing Eric Decker,
(19:28):
all right, maybe this is gonna be it for the Broncos.
How difficult is it gonna be for them to throw
the football? Will? Still they were able to throw the
football well. To Marius Thomas only caught four passes, but
the four passes he had in this game two hundred
and four yards and a touchdown four for a hundreds
of pretty good game. This is four for two hundred
for to Maririus Thomas. That's not a bad look, right,
(19:50):
I mean, you got chunked plays throughout the game. Uh.
And obviously we'll build up to the crescendo here, but
you know, Eddie Royal step it up and make it
a big playing had another guy that ended up as
a bear. Yeah, they all do. They all do that, big.
How did Tim Tebow never wear a bear? You never know,
you never know. He could still wind up, You never know,
(20:10):
you could still leave the Mets and and come back.
I mean, that is the curiosity. Though Daniel Fells also
had a forty yard catch, so that's selling out. Left
a lot of space over the middle. If Tebow had
been even that much more accurate, this might not have
been a game at all. Uh, this is how it
would go. Tebow would be bottled up and then he
(20:32):
hit for a big play. Right. He had a fifty
one and fifty eight yard completions to Marius Thomas to
set up two touchdowns in the second quarter. So that's
how it went for Tebow in the first half. Bottle up,
bottle up, bottle up, big play, bottle up, bottle up,
bottle up, big play. But then Tebow and Denver's offense
was completely shut down in the second half for the Steelers,
Isaac Redman was gashing Denver on the ground. Roethlisberger doesn't
(20:56):
have a great game, but he's good enough and he
was clutch. Pittsburgh scores ten points in the final ten
minutes to tie this game twenty three. It looks like
they could potentially win the game, but the Broncos defense
comes up big. They force overtime. On the final drive.
They sacked Roethlisberger three times, and Roethlisberger after the game
you talked about and lamented that final drive because he
(21:19):
got sacked three times, he fumbled once. He said, somebody
got a finger on the football. So this first half
goes all Denver's way. The second half goes all Pittsburgh's way.
They have a chance to win this game in the
final minutes, but Denver's defense, which this is the beginning
of their great run defensively as well. Denver's defense comes
up big and they force overtime. So Pittsburgh they own
(21:41):
the second half. And I remember watching this game going overtime,
going this is one of those games where it's just
a matter of time before Pittsburgh wins. You know what,
what are the Broncos really gonna do here? They haven't
done anything in two quarters. They haven't moved the football
at all. Everything was great in the first half and
Tebow was able to gash them, but boy, this Heelers
have really been just on top of things. And even
(22:02):
if the Broncos get the football, are they really gonna
move it? It's just gonna be inevitable that the Deelers
are gonna get a field goal, get a touchdown, and
they're gonna win this game. Well, and that was one
of the beautiful things. I mean, even though you have
this robust final scores, that you have two of the
best defenses getting after it. Uh. And they supported well
the and gave Tebow all those opportunities for to make
(22:26):
those miraculous plays. And here was another opportunity right here,
Ben Roethlisberger, who finished just shy of three hundred yards
on the day. Uh. Emmanuel Sanders leading them with eighty
one receiving yards. Heath Miller, remember how clutch he was
over the middle for them all those years. Uh. And
Isaac Redman, who's the answer to a trivia question, and
all of this, but five sacks absorbed by Roethlisberger on
(22:50):
the day at the statue s standing in the pocket
trying to get a guy loose down the sideline right
as we've watched him do how many times, you know,
you and I watching game in the studio. It's like,
just get rid of the ball. Live to see another day.
Here he's one of those guys that will try to
fight off stand with guys shaking off his legs. But eventually,
(23:11):
you know, even the biggest tree topples. So three times
in that big possession and you kick yourself wondering what
if you just get rid of the ball once and
don't give up the couple of yards off the sack.
So we go to overtime, tied twenty three, and the
Denver Broncos get the football first. This was the first
(23:31):
playoff game with the new overtime rules that were put
into effect because oh Bred Farve didn't get a chance
to get the football and overtime against the Saints, and
it was so sad. So the new overtime rule was,
if you kicked a field goal on your first possession,
the other team got the ball back and they got
a chance to drive unless someone scored a touchdown first. Right,
(23:52):
So that was the rule when it first came out,
was if you score a touch first, team to score
a touchdown wins. If you score a touchdown to you win,
But if you kick a few goal on the first drive,
the other team gets the football and a chance to
potentially tie or win the game. These were the new
rules and they were still kind of everybody was getting
used to them, because, look, they had been in place already,
but we hadn't had an overtime playoff game with the
(24:14):
new rules in it yet. So here was the first
time we saw the new game, or we saw the
new rules in this game, and we had to think
about him. On the very first play of overtime, you
can still see Tim Tebow's big wind up on the throw.
The Broncos have the football first in ten and Pittsburgh
(24:35):
again decides we are going to play the run. And
right before the snap, Pittsburgh brings their defensive backs up
and it's one on one coverage of Ike Taylor, who
was a pretty good cover cornerback onto Marrius Thomas. It's
not a running play, you know, the Steelers were expecting
a running play. But Tebow drops back in the pocket
and he delivers a laser over the middle to Demarius Thomas.
(24:59):
Now this play was a surprising play. Should have been
a twenty yard play and oh look at this, hey,
big play there up, you know, close to midfield. But
instead Demarrius Thomas gives the stiff farm of a lifetime
to Ike Taylor, who is then just I think he
gets enveloped by the ground. I think Ike Taylor actually
falls underground off of this stiff farm by de Marius Thomas.
(25:21):
He could have been stopped for twenty five yard game.
It doesn't happen, and Thomas outraces everybody to the end
zone eleven seconds, the quickest overtime in NFL history. Mile
High goes crazy and Thomas tries to come back out
of the tunnel to celebrate, but he can't because his
teammates are already running through the tunnel. Ladd him. Tebow
(25:42):
Is is praying on the field. Fans are grabbing their heads.
They can't believe what they just saw. And the Broncos
win this game, first playoff overtime. It was as shocking
as it could be. But I guarantee you this, Mike Harmen,
the average football fan is saying, the game's over right.
The game's over right because the new rules to touchdown
(26:04):
the wait, the Steelers don't get the ball back now.
So while everybody's going crazy in Denver, the people are
watching on TV and we're all going so it's over right.
I guarantee of fans and Denver. We're going we score
a touchdown. Wait, we're still playing as a game over.
The game's over. Well, it's funny, that's what it was.
They put up the big graphic right the full screen
(26:25):
with all the rules and and then different ways and
that this spiders out to get you to a conclusion
of the game. I was waiting for them to fire
that one back up, by the way, and let me
circle this on the telestrator. Games over, Games over. But
to your point, I mean, Damarius Thomas, what is he about?
Six three and a half to thirty two thirty five?
(26:45):
Man Taylor comes over, usually a pretty sure tackler. He
can't even get a hand on him. Thomas cradles the
ball in his right arm, left arm goes straight up
with a jab like he's boxing Mike Tyson. And that's it.
Gets yourself enough separation and there's no catching him. And
like I said, for da Marius Thomas, this is the
beginning of his breakout in the National Football League, because
(27:08):
the next three years, his the next four years four
hundred yards, four hundred yards, sixteen hundred yards, hundred yards.
His touchdowns are ten, fourteen, eleven. Arguably this is the
best wide receiver in the National Football League and this
was really his You thought it was Tim Tebow's coming
out part. Look at look at Tim Tebow was back
(27:28):
and he's great. No, this was Hey, wait, Amrius Thomas
is pretty damn good. No, my goodness, he might be
the best guy in the game. Yeah. I mean, you
had what five straight years with at least ninety receptions,
just crazy production, dugging all those double digit touchdown years
and just being able to dominate in one on one situations.
Even after he left Denver and we said, all right,
(27:51):
maybe he's in New England, Houston. Uh Jets, Uh you
you kept waiting, but but you kept waiting for him
to show flashes of that guy that he was prior
to say, two thousand seventeen into two thousand eighteen, where
things kind of changed up for him. I mean that
he was a guy that was just an absolute monster
(28:11):
for for five years there, and I mean that's about
as much of a run as we can expect from
most most receivers of that level of dominance. And he's
one of those guys that once he had thirty years old,
that's where the slide came, right. He was great, and
then he was thirty, and then after he was thirty,
he was on three different teams and and and that
(28:31):
was it for him. And now he's knocking around and
he he had to go to the Jets to continue
his career. I mean serious, And that's about it. Let's
just think about the just the ending of this game though,
this is the I went to make myself sandwich. I'm
listening to them. You go through the new playoff overtime rules,
and then it's done. It's done. You couldn't have warmed
(28:52):
it up. You couldn't even layered the cheese on that
you love so much. This play, this eight yard touchdown,
was so it was like a flash flood that you
didn't see it coming. And again I said, you can
see Tebow's big long wind up on the play, but
it doesn't matter because he had time and it was money.
And another part of this play that doesn't get enough
(29:15):
attention is that Thomas out races safety Ryan Mundy to
the end zone for a touchdown. All right, so to Marys,
Thomas makes to catch. He stiff arms a great stiff
farm for Ike Taylor. But this is where he should
get caught at some point because he's coming down the
sideline and Steelers players are coming over, Monday can't catch
him and he gets in the end zone for a touchdown.
(29:37):
Monday is only playing. He's the backup because Ryan Clark,
who was one of the best safeties in the NFL,
the regular starter, couldn't play in this game because remember,
Ryan Clark has that rare blood condition. Yeah, that mile
high conditions elevate, So it wasn't safe for him to
play in this game. And you've seen this now over
the course of the past years, people with that sickle cell,
and I can't play in Denver. I gotta sit this
(29:59):
game out. So Ryan Clark couldn't play in this game.
And you know, he had a great quote after saying, no,
you know, it wasn't that. You know, we we played
this game. You don't say that that we would have
won if I had played, But you don't We wonder
what that play would have looked like if Ryan Clark
was playing. You wonder what a lot of these passing
plays that Tebow was able to pull off in the
game would have looked like if Ryan Clark was playing,
(30:20):
because he was that good. And maybe he catches to
Marry as Thomas at the forty yard line and things
turn out differently, or maybe you know, he doesn't allow
a big completion, helps you know, has helped over the
top on one of the other big completions that set
up a score that they had earlier in the day.
But Ryan Clark missing this game and that was a
huge deal. And still the Steelers played that big press
(30:40):
coverage the whole game. We're putting up guys up in
the box and trying to make sure that Denver has
to try to throw the football to beat us. And
guess what, Denver through the football and they beat him
now and that and that's it. You take advantage. You know,
it's an unfortunate circumstance with Ryan Clark that he couldn't
be there. I mean, in this particular play him in
Monday takes a bad angle trying to get over Uh
(31:00):
and make up after Taylor Uh takes his swing and
missus with stiff arms. So you know, could he have
forced him out of bounds? Can gotten himself? You know,
maybe they're at field goal range and look, field goal
range was midfield uh in Denver at that time. But
the idea being that you know, you at least play
(31:22):
get another play to try to make a play. And
here you know, for the Steelers, they kept selling out
and give Tebo credit. Only completed ten basses. That's all
we needed. Fans voted at the best home field moment
in Broncos sports history. And this is a team that's
had a lot of big home field moments. Yeah, John
Elway making last minute drives now the number one moment
(31:46):
in Broncos history. Excitement of tebow Mania was at its peak.
Now suddenly Tebow was back in whoa we get to
play the Patriots? Can Bill Belichick stop Tim Tebow? Tebow
could be on the run. Know, this was the end
of Tim Tebow. It was the pinnacle of his NFL career.
We get into it, we'll tell you how things broke
down for him and the Broncos and Steelers coming up
(32:09):
next on special teams. What happened to both the Steelers
and the Broncos following Tim Tebow's playoff win? Well, because
(32:31):
we finished things up here on special teams today. Uh,
not quite the direction that you would think for either
of these teams. Pittsburgh goes home in two thousand and twelve,
they go eight and eight. Hines Ward is cut and retires.
He's maybe the most underrated wide receiver of the last
twenty years because he did it all. Yes, he was dirty,
(32:52):
but he called eight he passes a season, he blocked
down fielded all of this, despite the fact he didn't
get along well with Ben Roethlisberger. But the Dealers did
in the off season was let's improve the running game
a little bit. So they draft levy On Bell in
the first round and this is the beginning of the
triplets of Roethlisberger and Bell and Antonio Brown that brought
them the great playoff fights, though not a Super Bowl. Uh.
(33:14):
The rest of the decade. All hinens Ward did was
then go and race to the end zone in Gotham City. Uh.
I don't really think that he was fast enough for
that touchdown. It seemed kind of odd. I'd like to
check that out a little bit again. I mean, that's
the whole other thing of movie making, uh, and believability.
But you know what I worked with, and I'm still
(33:35):
trying to get one of those uniforms in many helmets.
But yeah, to your point, Hines Ward fantastic receiver, big numbers,
was always on the spot, and those running backs and
and offensive Lineman. I'm sure paid for some of his
meals because he out make those numbers look that much
better blocking down field, there's no question about it. And
(33:55):
well you all and you know all about Levyan Bellet
so good, so good with it. Um, So that was
the look it was. It was a tough loss, obviously
in the wild card game, and then the next year
was difficult as well, because the Steelers don't have five
or under seasons. I mean, look, they don't. They don't
have many. Going eight and eight is about that's as
(34:17):
bad as a guess. Alright, this is a team that
hasn't been under eight and eight in a long time. Alright.
They were six and ten and two thousand and three, okay,
and then they were six and ten in nine and
seven and nine, and then before that you're going all
the way back to this is a team that is
good every year. And here they are able to restart
(34:37):
their franchise building around Roethlisberger and Antonio Brown and Levi
on Bell Now for the Denver Broncos. The next week
they go to New England and well that was it
for them. Belichick shuts down Tebo. But more importantly, it
was the Patriots offense that blew through this terrific Broncos defense,
because it wasn't so much that Tebow was awful, it
(35:00):
was Brady and the Patriots. It was fourteen nothing before
you could blink. And I don't know there was anyway
Tim Tebow was gonna win that game because clearly the
Broncos out of formula. We gotta keep it close and
our quarterback makes clutch plays and wins the game. This
game was never close, all right, And I wonder if
this game losing to the Patriots like this, seeing the
way Brady and the Patriots offense moved through them, was
(35:23):
the decision that Elway needed to make to say, you
know what, We're only gonna be so good when we
have Tebow at quarterback, so we gotta go on and
make a different decision and get somebody else in, which
is crazy considering the season you just came off of.
The guy's a cult hero, and John Elway decides, let's
move on at quarterback because we need to be more dynamic,
and that's what they did by going out and getting
(35:44):
Peyton Manning, who was coming off an injury. The Colts
moved on because they had Andrew Luck Peyton Manning chose
the Denver Broncos. Hey, he knew I was gonna get
more life on my fastball throwing the football in the
mile high air, and the Broncos, after one great year
of Tim tebo Oh, signed Peyton Manning, future Hall of Famer.
You can't say they did it wrong because they went
to two Super Bowls and they won one. But it
(36:06):
was still shocking to see we're gonna turn the page
on Tebow after the year. Yet really we're just gonna
let him go there And there was part of always
crazy but while we're bringing in Peyton Manning, So okay,
clearly he knew what he was doing there for a quarterback,
but it didn't matter. It was wait a minute, did
this guy just had an all time season as a
quarterback and now he's gonna be looking for a new team.
(36:28):
Fourteen games, eleven starts, seven and four record, uh and bounced.
He completed six of his passes that year. So when
you're talking about everything going in your favor, and you
and I have talked about this on our show on
Fox Sports Radio for years, where you have a season,
(36:49):
you don't have any injuries, everybody's healthy. I may go
back to the year Derek Carr was an m VP candidate.
Everything was right until he was until he got hurt,
right until But I mean like they didn't lose any
time on either side of the ball. Everything worked likewise,
this Denverse squad, and you mentioned Noshean Marina going down
a big loss, but mcgahey was still a twelve yard
(37:12):
rusher they still had and Tebow was averaging what forty
nine yards or a game or thereabouts for for part
of that streak that you're you're getting enough out of
your running game to give you some balance, but you're
you're really forcing the defense to give up nothing to
give you a chance to win because you couldn't guarantee
(37:34):
that that next eight yard pass was coming, that the
skies would open or you know, there there'd be a
hole on the field. So you going back to Hines
Warden Baine, uh there. But the idea that you have
that you needed more consistency and continuity, And as luck
would have it, you've got Peyton Manning coming and making
his tours and deciding where he wants to play football.
(37:56):
So if you were going to move on from an
icon or budding icon on in Tebow. There was only
one way you were gonna be able to do that
and not have blowback. You know. The thing that I
don't get is that this is you know, take out
for a second the fact that it's Tim Tebow. Here
is a starting quarterback in the NFL, his first year
to start, after getting drafted and getting groomed, and he
(38:18):
plays really well at times, and he played fantastic at times. Yeah,
sometimes he played poorly. Yeah, but this is a guy
in his first year as a starter that made big
plays that one games that won a big home playoff
game which he threw for three yards and ran for
fifty more and ran for a touchdown. Why didn't anybody think, well,
a whole off season as the starter, all the reps,
(38:42):
why can't he improve because we would say that for
any other quarterback. Well, look at what he did his
first Boy, I can't wait and when he's installed as
a starter and having the whole off season, they can
work with him now more. And he's the guy. I
don't understand why nobody thought he could get better now
it turned out this is this was his peak. But
I don't get why there was no thought, well, hey,
Tebow's really something. Now we can work him and really
(39:03):
turn him into something. There was just no what's done,
and we're moving on. And I was I was remember,
I remember going, yeah, but any other guy, we would say, well,
now let's let's build off of this and let's find
a way to do it. But nobody wanted to do it. Yeah,
and look you and it makes sense for what Denver did, Right,
You've got the opportunity to bring in Peyton Manning assuming
everything with the neck checked out. You know what he's
(39:27):
bringing to the table, and you certainly had wide receiver
weapons and abudding defense that was gonna make it work.
So yeah, you kick him to the curve. But so
many other teams. I mean every year we've got nine
to ten teams playing quarterback roulette, either through some journey
men as a placeholder and hoping it works or a failure.
(39:48):
For a comparison, I guess you have the longer view
and that it's he's had years in the system, but
you had Jamis Winston that you could have retained in
Tampa five thousand. You are it's thirty thirty guy. I
know when you say thirty thirty it kind of kills
your own argument. But the idea that you had a
lot of big moments with him and it would have
(40:09):
been a second year with Bruce arians and instead Tom
Brady is available, so hey see you, uh again it
makes sense. But another guy that had to wait his
time before you ever even found another opportunity. And maybe
you know, we'll have a great resurrection and a part
two and you and I'll sit into a special teams
on the brilliance of Jameis Winston's second act. But Tim
(40:33):
Tebow it just didn't come. And and there's I guess
a lot of reasons that it goes to. And we
talk a lot about going into a camp and competing
for a job and when you're likely going to spend
some of your season, if not all of it, on
the bench, how many teams are built with the stability
and continuity that you want to bring that in for
(40:55):
a guy who's going to be a backup. That we
became one of the biggest talking points I think we
have had in the decade. So the Broncos signed Peyton
Manning and now they have something to do with Tim Tebow.
They wind up training him to the New York Jets
for a couple of draft picks. And this tells you
about Tebow and a little bit about Rex Ryan too
is here's the Jets have the playoff icon and hero
(41:16):
of the past year, and he can't get on the field.
He couldn't beat out Mark Sanchez. Okay, he was the
personal punt protector. They rarely ran place for him because
the Jets still believed that Mark Sanchez was gonna be really,
really good and he wasn't. And he winds up leaving
New York. He wasn't happy with the year he had
with the Jets there, and he's been out of the
(41:36):
NFL for a long time. And who knew that that
game was going to be the pinnacle that he hit
in his National Football League career. That touchdown passed to
Marius Thomas was the last great moment he was going
to have. It's almost as if he came around too early,
because if he came out of the NFL now, there
would be some NFL offensive grew that would say, give
(42:00):
me Tebow. I'm going to build an offense around him.
And you watch just like the Panthers did with Cam Newton,
all right, because it was the same deal. Cam Newton
was a rookie, Hey everything is great and Cam Newton,
but Cam Newton could throw the football a little bit better,
with a little bit more accuracy. He would have three
three fifty games regularly. So, okay, we can build our
offense around Cam Newton because still running the football, he
(42:22):
was the same kind of guy running as Tim Tebow was,
but he was a little bit more accurate throwing the ball.
Carolina Panthers built their offense around him, and and for
nearly a decade. Look how great it was. They got
to the Super Bowl a year with Cam Newton. If
Tebow came around now, it would be the same thing.
A team would try to build around him, would try
to build him throwing the football a little bit better.
But it was just a little bit too early for him.
(42:44):
And so this is why he winds up being out
of the league not too long after he throws that
big touchdown pass into Marius Thomas. I do dig that
you got his former teammate at Florida, Cam Newton into discussion.
You know, a guy who's accuracy wasn't much better than
Ebos on the grand scale, right, but he had a
stronger arm could throw it further down the reel. I
(43:05):
mean that that's what he did. Really didn't have the
as being a wind up and throw off that back
foot like crazy. I'm not stepping into a throw and
getting hit. I'm gonna throw out that back foot. Yeah,
threw it more on a rope than the big arching
lollipop that we'd get sometimes from Tebow as you go through.
I remember going to training camp and watching that Jets
competition and they'd have the cones out of all right,
(43:27):
stay within the tackles basically, and he was terrible. It was,
it was just awesome. And then they'd say, all right,
take the cones out, we're gonna run full elevens and
he would scramble enough to where he'd be break contain
mitt and to be able to make a play and
find a guy down field or you know, run for
(43:48):
a bunch of yards, you know what, whatever drills they
were doing. But it was frustrating, you know, and you
could see it on his face. It's just not it's
not clicking right because it's like, all right, want you know,
but it might as well out of the twelve in
Mississippi and he still wasn't getting rid of the football. So,
you know, difficulty in reading those situations. So eventually, you know,
(44:09):
he did show up as a member of the Patriots
for a minute, so got that. Yeah it was it
was a minute. It was long enough to get a
trading card produced, so you got that. But yeah, it's
one of those fascinating things we talked about players being
a little bit of ahead of their time or wondering
if they've gotten a second chance. Uh, you know the
(44:30):
old sliding doors thing, you know, taking up the old
Gwyneth Paltrow movie. There you go, there's my nerd moment
of pop culture. But you know it, had he been
able to get with a coordinator that wanted to work,
even if he never became a sixty five percent completion
guy on quick hitch and and quick outs, I mean,
couldn't have worked for a few years while he was
(44:51):
still such a bulldozer and the run game. All right,
I'm a little aware, are they now from this game
nearly a decade later? Let's get it on. Yeah, you've
got Daniel Fells. He went through the entrepreneurship program at
Stanford and works for Applied Silver. So they're researching how
to treat and cure infectious diseases. Well, that's very important
(45:17):
how about that. And most of time he also spends
a lot of time helping raises two kids. So that's good.
You've got Dante Rosario. He's a recruiter at Amazon time.
Pretty good time for him right now. Might have to
look him up. You know, he wants He once scored
a touchdown. I think it was for the Chargers that
(45:37):
won a game, and I think it was on CBS,
and you know, he scores a touchdown and they like
they go to break and come back and they have
like the the recap of the game on you know
what happened here, you know, and and Dante Rosario, you know,
touchdown win the game, except that you know was blah
blah blah. Here's the status. There was Rosario Dawson, you know,
(45:58):
todown reception that in I'm like, Rosario Dawson. Yeah, but
it got you to think about Rosario Dawson, and you
know that that's not bad. All right. We got Andre
Goodman does some real estate work, but he's the director
of Player Personnel uh in the for the University of
South Carolina, So we got him. We got Mario Hagen
(46:20):
uh he works for athletic and he does Yeah, and
then Kwan Cosby. He does risk management just like George
Costanza from Marshan mclenn Marshan McLennan Company. Uh So, there
you go. He was a kick returner for the squad.
And of course I mentioned all those guys that would
graduate to go become Chicago Bears estently and everybody else
(46:44):
round up with a Bear. So that's where everybody and
that's where they all went. So there's our look back
at Tim Tebow's playoff win, that passing through to Damarius Thomas,
the last great moment he had in the National Football League.
Our show has heard Monday through Friday on Fox Sports Radio,
The Jason Smith Show with Mike Harmon, tended two am
(47:04):
on the East Coast, seven to eleven pm on the
West Coast. You have an idea for a future episode
of Special Teams, hit us up on Twitter at how
about a Fresca Mike at Swollen Dome. We'll talk to
you next week with a brand new episode of Special Teams.
(47:26):
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Ever Special Teams is a production of I heart Radio.
(47:53):
For more podcasts from my heart Radio, visit the i
heart Radio app, Apple podcast, or wherever you listen to
your favorite shows.
Welcome to Special Teams, a production of I Heart Radio.
Greetings and welcome inside another episode of Special Teams with
(00:23):
Jason Smith and Mike Harmon, as we look back at
some special teams, specific years in the world of sports
in the middle of our run right now, as we
look back at big games in NFL history and the
special teams that played in them. It's nearly been a decade,
so it's time to look back at Tim Tebow's loan
playoff win, the shining achievement of his National Football League
(00:47):
career January eighth, two thousand and twelve, Broncos beating the
Steelers three in overtime on a very shocking play. Oh look,
last week we talked about Steve Smith in his shocking
touchdown at the end of double overtime. Well, this play
we're gonna tell you about coming up made that play
look like a one yard touchdown plunge. At the end
of Week eight, at the end of the first half
(01:08):
of the game, because it was just that surprising Steelers
and the Broncos. When Tim Tebow was on everybody's lips,
I don't know that we talked about anything else in
the entire world of sports in two thousand eleven. No,
the curiosity of Tebow coming off the highly decorated collegiate
career and into the National Football League. And you know,
(01:29):
anybody that talked to him or about him with gush right,
all the broadcasters that had met him during his time
at Florida would tell you what a great person he
was in addition to just one of our best collegiate
quarterbacks ever. And so you have this moment where everything converges,
(01:50):
and we'll talk about some of the numbers, and even
to this day just leave me astounded that this worked
in any way, shape or form to become what it did.
But just an amazing year. And what's funny is it's
just such an outlier because of where the organization went
after this season concluded, the Broncos path to this game
(02:12):
is as improbable as Tim Tebow's run. They wind up
going eight and eight and they win the a f
C West on tiebreakers with the Chargers and the Raiders.
This was Von Miller's rookie season and coming in Kyle
Lorton versus Tim Tebow, who would be the quarterback dominated
the first five weeks of the season. Kyle Lorton, Buddy
(02:32):
Kyle Orton back when he was relevant. Kyle Orton, Buddy, look,
I love the neck beard. He's been relevant uh during
the pandemic time because a lot of guys are just
doing interviews. Uh. Brian Urlacker now with hair. When asked
who his favorite quarterback was that he played with, he
mentioned the neck beard. Also just kind of funny, is
that you know Jay Cutler uh, well started his career
(02:56):
in Denver, became a bear. Uh, and then Kyle Orton
uh becomes a bear. Uh. And then you've got you know,
John Fox would eventually um become a bear. So you know,
you just got all this madness. He was a pipeline.
So John Fox, who's the head coach of the Denver Broncos,
has inherited Tim Tebow from Josh McDaniels, who drafted Tebow
(03:18):
in the first round. It was a big deal when
the Broncos traded him. Oh my goodness, look at Tebow
coming off the star uh studied college career that he
had that included Heisman trophies, National championships. What was the Broncos?
What were they going to do? Well? John Fox, who
was hired to bring stability to this team, had a
quarterback decision to make. The fans wanted to see Tim Tebow, right,
(03:40):
he looked what he did in Florida. I get that
no one thinks he can be a great quarterback and
was he overdrafted? Sure he was, but the fans wanted
to see him now. Kyle Orton wasn't awful, but Denver
started one and four, so they had to make the
change to Tebow. What hurt Kyle Orton was the first
six weeks of the season to Marius Thomas didn't play
because he had a broken finger. So if Damarius Thomas plays,
(04:03):
maybe things are a little bit different for the Broncos
because he was that good. But instead they go to Tebow. Okay,
let's see what Tim Tebow can do. So Tebow starts
first game against the Miami Dolphins down fifteen nothing in
the fourth quarter, Tebow throws for two touchdowns two point
conversion run to tie the game. They win in overtime.
(04:24):
Eighteen fifteen, The Birth of Tim Tebow. Hey, look what
he's able to do, all right? Then he throws a
fifty six yard touchdown past late in the fourth quarter
to be Kansas City seventeen ten. He has a big
fourth quarter comeback against the Jets, a game in which
the Broncos should have lost. The Jet should have won
this game ten ways except Mark Sanchez throws a pick six,
(04:46):
but the Jets still have the lead. Late Tebow takes
over at his own five yard line, but leaves the
Broncos down. The Jets can't stop him. He runs for
a twenty yard touchdown to win the game. This is
a play I still see where nobody wanted to come
out of the end zone and try to tackle Tebow.
He's getting close to the goal line because he just
had a head of team. He was a freight train.
(05:06):
So here's another big comeback. When this is on a
Thursday night, so it's on national television, and at this
point everything is Tim Tebow, Tebow, Tebow, Tebow Tebow. And
if the win against my Jets wasn't so bad, the
ten point fourth quarter comeback against your Bears is even worse.
But of course, I know you blame Marian Barber for
all of this. I blame Maryan Barber for everything, no
(05:30):
question about it. Right, yeah, yeah, they finally score, right,
Tebow's got him in the end of fine, but they've
got two minutes left. This is easy, Barber with a run,
Barber with a run, Barber with a run. They take
the pen on the delay of game. But the key
was he had a five yard run that he's getting
towards the sideline, and instead of turning it back in
(05:53):
or sliding or just engaging someone and forcing him to
tackle him in bounce, he goes out of balance of
his own volition. So you stopped the clock. You stop
the clock, and eventually you end up punting to give
the ball back to Tebow and company. Yeah, you still
gotta go make a step, but the game's over. They don't.
(06:13):
We use their third time out. That's it, it's done.
Tebow Magic is dead. Tebow Magic is dead. This would
have ended the winning streak, ended the legend of Tebow.
But Mary and the Barbarians, the guy who I watched
in the Big ten and with the Cowboys with the
Bears run through walls, decides to go out of bounds.
(06:34):
Jason Smith, I watched it in preparation. There was a
shot of Tebow praying, just give me the strength to honor.
You give me that opportunity. So Barbara doesn't run out
of bounds, and that turns into the game tying score,
they win in overtime. And at this point in the NFL,
he is the only NFL story. He's the only culture
(06:55):
is Tim Tebow driven. There are songs written about Remember
John parted, Tim Tebo was fire. I mean, it's all
you can talk about. There's no other stories in the NFL.
Tebow was on everybody's lips Saturday. This good? How is
the guy this good? Is he really this good? Many
people didn't think he was very good at all, and
just kept getting lucky every week, and certainly with teams
(07:16):
like the Jets and the Bears helping, it helped the
legend of Tim Tebow. But he was polarizing. He had
huge fans, but it didn't matter. He was the entire
news cycle of the National Football League. And here are
the Broncos at eight and five and things are looking great.
Eventually they waived Kyle Orton because they didn't need him anymore.
He was like, yeah, we don't need it, We don't
(07:37):
need this guy. Okay, he's your backup. No, no, no,
we don't need anymore. We're getting we need that's all.
He could play all different positions for us. One big
thing that that happened to the Broncos at this point
during the season, was no Sean Marino, who was going
to get the Lions share of that carries a running
back towards a c l and missed the back half
of the season. So this is a huge weapon that
(07:58):
the Broncos had to navigate the rest of the year without.
But it didn't matter. They had Tebow. Tebow. Tibow Tebow Tebow.
Broncos are right and five, everything is awesome. Well what
happens They lose three straight to close the season, including
seven three to the Chiefs in the final game of
the year. And guess it was the quarterback of the
Chiefs in that game, Kyle Orton's He was who the
(08:19):
Chiefs had picked up because they were having trouble. So
here's Kyle Orton wins the big revenge game against Tim
Tebow and at this point, going into the playoffs, it
was Tebow magic has gone. He went six in that game.
It was great for a few weeks, but now everybody's
figured him out. He's a limited quarterback anyway coming in
and that's what people forget is coming out of Florida,
(08:41):
he was a great college football quarterback. But how many
times are you gonna run the football into the middle
of the line and and gain a lot of yards
and then come out and throw the football. Tebow had
a lot of issues. He had a long wind up.
He wasn't very accurate. That's why everybody was on one
side of the fence or the other as far as
how good he could become. Now, the thing for Tebow
is that he's still young and this is his first
(09:02):
real starting experience, so maybe he can grow. But it
didn't matter because he was so polarizing. There were many
people that wanted to say, this is it on Tim Tebow.
Many NFL players didn't like him, and that was the
insane part of it is that you never heard and
you never hear NFL players bagging another quarterbacks. You never hear,
but you heard it. You heard it from other players.
(09:24):
Heard it from Joe Flacco, you heard it from Steve Smith,
you heard it from Terrell Suggs. Many played Tebow's overrated, overrated, overrated.
This is what you got because Tebow was just polarizing
that way. And now at this point it's okay, it
was great, but hey, they're gonna squeak into the playoffs
and they're gonna play one game and that's gonna be it,
and then the Broncos will be looking for a new quarterback. Yeah.
(09:44):
You just remember how inefficient it all was, Jason. I mean,
he had one game where he completed better than fifty
two and a half percent of his passes, six games
where he completed ten or fewer passes, only two games
where he threw for more than two hundred yards. He
should I keep going. I mean, it's just like all
of it just uh. They scored more than twenty points
(10:07):
three times between week seven and seventeen. But when in
the big plays, which is what he did. He made
big plays and he came through in the clutch. He
would have a crappy ass game, but then suddenly the
fourth quarter he would have fifty yards rushing in a
hundred and twenty yards passing. It was, what did he
just wear us down? And also sudden, why can he
(10:29):
throw the football? And like he couldn't do the first
three quarters of the game. But that was the magic
of Tebow. There was no reason for it. And why
is he suddenly playing well in the fourth quarter, rising
to the occasion and and being that guy when the
chips were down? That's what tim Tebow was made of
and it was stunning to watch. But in the end,
you know, look, we thought it was over. They lost
(10:49):
three in a row. Suddenly it was they couldn't put
points on the board. And here comes Pittsburgh into town.
And oh, by the way, this is a Pittsburgh Steelers
team that gets to this game with one of the
best defensive years this franchise has had. They allowed the
fewest points, fewest passing yards in total yards overall in
the NFL. Alright, typical strong defense like they've always had,
(11:11):
but this one was extremely strong. Alright, So this is
they're gonna come in and they're gonna just lay waste
to the Broncos Tebows. They're not gonna move the football
at all. Offenses where things got a little wacky. This
is back when Mike Wallace was the star wide receiver.
But you know, before he was just a deep threat.
You know, Mike Wallace was the guy and when his
genius was taking advantage of broken plays. He would only
(11:32):
catch like maybe four passes a game, but he was
still went up with a hundred yards because it was
a broken play where Roethlisberger would buy time and Mike
Wallace would cut all the way across the field and
suddenly a broken play is a forty five yard game
to Mike Wallace, I mean it was his team. Emmanuel
Sanders was up and coming, Hines Ward was near the
end of his career, but he was still contributing. And oh,
by the way, this was a second year for Antonio
(11:56):
Brown with the Pittsburgh Steelers, so their offense was in
a bit of a transition phase. But here's Antonio Brown
back when he was a guy that won the competition
to be the third wide receiver out of camp after
Antoine Randall l left the team. He was returning kicks
and punts and he did it for a long time.
Think about that, How crazy that was. Here's the best
wide receiver in the NFL. We're putting him out there
(12:17):
to get hurt returning kicks and punts. But this was
just his second year in the league where he was
the third wide receiver. Other guys were starting. It was
other players out there the Steeler trying to figure out
what their offense looked like. And he had a really
good year. He caught sixty nine passes yards, just a
couple of touchdowns. And once you see that This is
a big jumping off point for him. He wound up
(12:39):
making the Pro Bowl this year along with Wallace and Roethlisberger. Okay, hey,
Steeler's offense is now loaded up again. We're ready to go.
You know it was. It was off the Antoine Randall L.
Hines Ward situation, Super Bowl forty Jerome Bettis Now this
turned into air Pittsburgh and and for the better part
of a decade, this Dealer's team was absolutely low wide receiver.
(13:01):
And this was kind of the beginning of that time,
cycling guys in and out. I just remember going to
training camp, out a visit, a meeting up with Ton
Chilkin and and and Craig Wolfley, two guys who played
for the team broadcast for the team, and they always
had me out. We talked some football and go down
on the practice field and we're standing there watching the
wide receivers warm up. And this is would have been
(13:22):
so watching Brown as a rookie. And now like come here.
It's like I gotta talked to Wallace in a minute,
like Michael Waite for you come here, come he goes
what because watch this guy's footwork and and he was
going through some basic drills and it's Antonio Brown just
working hard like this is practice is done. Like we'd
already done all arounds and watched the fights and and
(13:44):
all of that fun stuff that you'd get in Latrobe. Uh,
and guys were getting to their individual work after the
long workout in the in the blazing sun. As like
this kid is gonna be a star. He and and
he knows it. That's like, okay, that's good. Just wait
and that's all they said about it. It's like, this
(14:04):
is the guy you want to tell people who the
breakout guy is gonna be. Mike's gonna have a big year,
but watch watch Antonio. So I go back, I interviewed
Mike Wallace and you know, say hi to Antonio and
the other guy hasn't gone. But I just remember them
just so very lately, just going he knows he's good,
but look at the work and watch the footwork out
of every break and I mean they were right. He
(14:27):
goes on to become just an absolute monster on the field.
This is the journey of both teams to this game.
Before Antonio Brown would become the best wide receiver in
the National Football League and then one of the biggest
head cases and pains in the National Football League. He
was the second year player who was rapidly ascending everything.
Even though the game was gonna be in Denver because
(14:48):
of the when you win a division, you play the
wild card team, it still looked like it was gonna
be a Pittsburgh runaway and it was anything but we'll
get into that coming up next Special Teams with Jason
Smith and Mike Carmen tim Tebow's playoff win. It is
(15:18):
that time time for the playoff game between the Pittsburgh Steelers,
who had the best defense in the National Football League
in an offense that was starting to find itself, versus
the Denver Broncos, who were just hoping to find something
after a really bad three week losing streak. Now, all
week long, the Broncos players talked about how they felt lost.
They were desperate. Tebow was still the same guy. He
(15:41):
would sprint two drills all week long. Criticism of him
was at all time high. It doesn't matter. His throwing
motion was too long, he wasn't accurate enough, criticized by
NFL players, didn't matter. Tebow led by example that week
in practice and a big conversation he had with John Elway,
who told him, listen, just pulled the trigger. Just throw,
(16:01):
all right, just you do you, but pull the trigger
and throw. Don't think too much, react and let's see
what happens. And that's clearly the attitude the Broncos went
into this game with because they had nothing to lose.
You look there, eight and eight. They had a great
roller coaster season, but no one expected them to win
this game. No, it was a season they were already
playing with house money quite a while. The fact that
(16:22):
they win the tiebreaker in a three way tie for
the a f C West to get into the playoffs.
I mean, that's another one of the divine inspiration moments, right,
A streaky team playing terribly and he was awful down
the stretch. Yet you find yourself in this moment. So
what do you you figure the Steelers, Dick le Beau.
(16:43):
They're gonna be aggressive, that's the way they operate, and
especially against the guy like tebow a don't let that
body get in motion like your Jets did, or nobody
wanted to come up and challenge him. Sorry, the Bears
did the same thing. So I can't push away from that.
But you know, so take that away. But also you know,
(17:03):
you're you're figuring your corners and and your safeties are
going to be able to work because you have that
big wind up and the ball that oftentimes just kind
of floated out there, right, he had a strong arm,
just a matter of accuracy and and putting a little
bit too much air at times and giving guys a
chance to make a break and make a play. And
(17:24):
so it seemed like the logical, logical game plans. So
you go and you you punch them in the mouth,
hoping that you're gonna hit on a couple of big ones.
And again, this is another game where the opponent of
Tim Tebow helped him to have a great day because
the Steelers loaded up on the run. They they they decided,
(17:44):
you are not going to run the football on us
and beat us. We're gonna make Tebow throw the football.
And we're still gonna run up and load up and
put eight guys in the box all day. Well, take
out mcgahey, and then also, don't let Tebow do a
bunch of you know, quarterback draws. Right, Let's let's not
let him gain momentum. Here he goes off tackle for
eight yards nine yards. Don't let him feel it. We're
(18:05):
gonna put everybody in the box, and Tebow's not accurate
enough to stop anybody. We're Willis mcgahey, who now they
were relying on to be the running back with no
Seawan Marino out. This was where the Steelers said, this
is how we're gonna win this game. Tebow completes just
ten out of one passes on the day, but he
still winds up throwing for three hundred and sixteen yards
(18:26):
and two touchdowns, averaging thirty yards per completion. Yeah, that
was the kind of day Tebow had. The big plays
he made were in the passing game, right, when when
you try to stop the run and you load up,
you just have to hit on one play and what's
the odject on one play repeatedly? Well, the odds were
in Tim Tebow's favor that day because he kept hitting
(18:47):
those big pass plays. He also ran enough, ran for
enough yards to keep Pittsburgh's defense honest. He ran for
fifty yards in the touchdown in this game. And this
is a game in which Tebow and the Broncos lost
Eric Decker early to an injury, because, hey, you know
the weapons they had in Denver at wide receiver they
were in slouchy. Decker was one of the better wide
(19:08):
receivers in the NFL. And to Marius Thomas, he's in
the middle of a run where he might be the
best wide receiver in the NFL at this point. I mean,
people forget that. You know, he had a run where
he was as good as it got for anybody in
the National Football League. And so you have Thomas and
you have Eric Decker. Hey, you should be able to
make plays in the passing game. But losing Eric Decker,
(19:28):
all right, maybe this is gonna be it for the Broncos.
How difficult is it gonna be for them to throw
the football? Will? Still they were able to throw the
football well. To Marius Thomas only caught four passes, but
the four passes he had in this game two hundred
and four yards and a touchdown four for a hundreds
of pretty good game. This is four for two hundred
for to Maririus Thomas. That's not a bad look, right,
(19:50):
I mean, you got chunked plays throughout the game. Uh.
And obviously we'll build up to the crescendo here, but
you know, Eddie Royal step it up and make it
a big playing had another guy that ended up as
a bear. Yeah, they all do. They all do that, big.
How did Tim Tebow never wear a bear? You never know,
you never know. He could still wind up, You never know,
(20:10):
you could still leave the Mets and and come back.
I mean, that is the curiosity. Though Daniel Fells also
had a forty yard catch, so that's selling out. Left
a lot of space over the middle. If Tebow had
been even that much more accurate, this might not have
been a game at all. Uh, this is how it
would go. Tebow would be bottled up and then he
(20:32):
hit for a big play. Right. He had a fifty
one and fifty eight yard completions to Marius Thomas to
set up two touchdowns in the second quarter. So that's
how it went for Tebow in the first half. Bottle up,
bottle up, bottle up, big play, bottle up, bottle up,
bottle up, big play. But then Tebow and Denver's offense
was completely shut down in the second half for the Steelers,
Isaac Redman was gashing Denver on the ground. Roethlisberger doesn't
(20:56):
have a great game, but he's good enough and he
was clutch. Pittsburgh scores ten points in the final ten
minutes to tie this game twenty three. It looks like
they could potentially win the game, but the Broncos defense
comes up big. They force overtime. On the final drive.
They sacked Roethlisberger three times, and Roethlisberger after the game
you talked about and lamented that final drive because he
(21:19):
got sacked three times, he fumbled once. He said, somebody
got a finger on the football. So this first half
goes all Denver's way. The second half goes all Pittsburgh's way.
They have a chance to win this game in the
final minutes, but Denver's defense, which this is the beginning
of their great run defensively as well. Denver's defense comes
up big and they force overtime. So Pittsburgh they own
(21:41):
the second half. And I remember watching this game going overtime,
going this is one of those games where it's just
a matter of time before Pittsburgh wins. You know what,
what are the Broncos really gonna do here? They haven't
done anything in two quarters. They haven't moved the football
at all. Everything was great in the first half and
Tebow was able to gash them, but boy, this Heelers
have really been just on top of things. And even
(22:02):
if the Broncos get the football, are they really gonna
move it? It's just gonna be inevitable that the Deelers
are gonna get a field goal, get a touchdown, and
they're gonna win this game. Well, and that was one
of the beautiful things. I mean, even though you have
this robust final scores, that you have two of the
best defenses getting after it. Uh. And they supported well
the and gave Tebow all those opportunities for to make
(22:26):
those miraculous plays. And here was another opportunity right here,
Ben Roethlisberger, who finished just shy of three hundred yards
on the day. Uh. Emmanuel Sanders leading them with eighty
one receiving yards. Heath Miller, remember how clutch he was
over the middle for them all those years. Uh. And
Isaac Redman, who's the answer to a trivia question, and
all of this, but five sacks absorbed by Roethlisberger on
(22:50):
the day at the statue s standing in the pocket
trying to get a guy loose down the sideline right
as we've watched him do how many times, you know,
you and I watching game in the studio. It's like,
just get rid of the ball. Live to see another day.
Here he's one of those guys that will try to
fight off stand with guys shaking off his legs. But eventually,
(23:11):
you know, even the biggest tree topples. So three times
in that big possession and you kick yourself wondering what
if you just get rid of the ball once and
don't give up the couple of yards off the sack.
So we go to overtime, tied twenty three, and the
Denver Broncos get the football first. This was the first
(23:31):
playoff game with the new overtime rules that were put
into effect because oh Bred Farve didn't get a chance
to get the football and overtime against the Saints, and
it was so sad. So the new overtime rule was,
if you kicked a field goal on your first possession,
the other team got the ball back and they got
a chance to drive unless someone scored a touchdown first. Right,
(23:52):
So that was the rule when it first came out,
was if you score a touch first, team to score
a touchdown wins. If you score a touchdown to you win,
But if you kick a few goal on the first drive,
the other team gets the football and a chance to
potentially tie or win the game. These were the new
rules and they were still kind of everybody was getting
used to them, because, look, they had been in place already,
but we hadn't had an overtime playoff game with the
(24:14):
new rules in it yet. So here was the first
time we saw the new game, or we saw the
new rules in this game, and we had to think
about him. On the very first play of overtime, you
can still see Tim Tebow's big wind up on the throw.
The Broncos have the football first in ten and Pittsburgh
(24:35):
again decides we are going to play the run. And
right before the snap, Pittsburgh brings their defensive backs up
and it's one on one coverage of Ike Taylor, who
was a pretty good cover cornerback onto Marrius Thomas. It's
not a running play, you know, the Steelers were expecting
a running play. But Tebow drops back in the pocket
and he delivers a laser over the middle to Demarius Thomas.
(24:59):
Now this play was a surprising play. Should have been
a twenty yard play and oh look at this, hey,
big play there up, you know, close to midfield. But
instead Demarrius Thomas gives the stiff farm of a lifetime
to Ike Taylor, who is then just I think he
gets enveloped by the ground. I think Ike Taylor actually
falls underground off of this stiff farm by de Marius Thomas.
(25:21):
He could have been stopped for twenty five yard game.
It doesn't happen, and Thomas outraces everybody to the end
zone eleven seconds, the quickest overtime in NFL history. Mile
High goes crazy and Thomas tries to come back out
of the tunnel to celebrate, but he can't because his
teammates are already running through the tunnel. Ladd him. Tebow
(25:42):
Is is praying on the field. Fans are grabbing their heads.
They can't believe what they just saw. And the Broncos
win this game, first playoff overtime. It was as shocking
as it could be. But I guarantee you this, Mike Harmen,
the average football fan is saying, the game's over right.
The game's over right because the new rules to touchdown
(26:04):
the wait, the Steelers don't get the ball back now.
So while everybody's going crazy in Denver, the people are
watching on TV and we're all going so it's over right.
I guarantee of fans and Denver. We're going we score
a touchdown. Wait, we're still playing as a game over.
The game's over. Well, it's funny, that's what it was.
They put up the big graphic right the full screen
(26:25):
with all the rules and and then different ways and
that this spiders out to get you to a conclusion
of the game. I was waiting for them to fire
that one back up, by the way, and let me
circle this on the telestrator. Games over, Games over. But
to your point, I mean, Damarius Thomas, what is he about?
Six three and a half to thirty two thirty five?
(26:45):
Man Taylor comes over, usually a pretty sure tackler. He
can't even get a hand on him. Thomas cradles the
ball in his right arm, left arm goes straight up
with a jab like he's boxing Mike Tyson. And that's it.
Gets yourself enough separation and there's no catching him. And
like I said, for da Marius Thomas, this is the
beginning of his breakout in the National Football League, because
(27:08):
the next three years, his the next four years four
hundred yards, four hundred yards, sixteen hundred yards, hundred yards.
His touchdowns are ten, fourteen, eleven. Arguably this is the
best wide receiver in the National Football League and this
was really his You thought it was Tim Tebow's coming
out part. Look at look at Tim Tebow was back
(27:28):
and he's great. No, this was Hey, wait, Amrius Thomas
is pretty damn good. No, my goodness, he might be
the best guy in the game. Yeah. I mean, you
had what five straight years with at least ninety receptions,
just crazy production, dugging all those double digit touchdown years
and just being able to dominate in one on one situations.
Even after he left Denver and we said, all right,
(27:51):
maybe he's in New England, Houston. Uh Jets, Uh you
you kept waiting, but but you kept waiting for him
to show flashes of that guy that he was prior
to say, two thousand seventeen into two thousand eighteen, where
things kind of changed up for him. I mean that
he was a guy that was just an absolute monster
(28:11):
for for five years there, and I mean that's about
as much of a run as we can expect from
most most receivers of that level of dominance. And he's
one of those guys that once he had thirty years old,
that's where the slide came, right. He was great, and
then he was thirty, and then after he was thirty,
he was on three different teams and and and that
(28:31):
was it for him. And now he's knocking around and
he he had to go to the Jets to continue
his career. I mean serious, And that's about it. Let's
just think about the just the ending of this game though,
this is the I went to make myself sandwich. I'm
listening to them. You go through the new playoff overtime rules,
and then it's done. It's done. You couldn't have warmed
(28:52):
it up. You couldn't even layered the cheese on that
you love so much. This play, this eight yard touchdown,
was so it was like a flash flood that you
didn't see it coming. And again I said, you can
see Tebow's big long wind up on the play, but
it doesn't matter because he had time and it was money.
And another part of this play that doesn't get enough
(29:15):
attention is that Thomas out races safety Ryan Mundy to
the end zone for a touchdown. All right, so to Marys,
Thomas makes to catch. He stiff arms a great stiff
farm for Ike Taylor. But this is where he should
get caught at some point because he's coming down the
sideline and Steelers players are coming over, Monday can't catch
him and he gets in the end zone for a touchdown.
(29:37):
Monday is only playing. He's the backup because Ryan Clark,
who was one of the best safeties in the NFL,
the regular starter, couldn't play in this game because remember,
Ryan Clark has that rare blood condition. Yeah, that mile
high conditions elevate, So it wasn't safe for him to
play in this game. And you've seen this now over
the course of the past years, people with that sickle cell,
and I can't play in Denver. I gotta sit this
(29:59):
game out. So Ryan Clark couldn't play in this game.
And you know, he had a great quote after saying, no,
you know, it wasn't that. You know, we we played
this game. You don't say that that we would have
won if I had played, But you don't We wonder
what that play would have looked like if Ryan Clark
was playing. You wonder what a lot of these passing
plays that Tebow was able to pull off in the
game would have looked like if Ryan Clark was playing,
(30:20):
because he was that good. And maybe he catches to
Marry as Thomas at the forty yard line and things
turn out differently, or maybe you know, he doesn't allow
a big completion, helps you know, has helped over the
top on one of the other big completions that set
up a score that they had earlier in the day.
But Ryan Clark missing this game and that was a
huge deal. And still the Steelers played that big press
(30:40):
coverage the whole game. We're putting up guys up in
the box and trying to make sure that Denver has
to try to throw the football to beat us. And
guess what, Denver through the football and they beat him
now and that and that's it. You take advantage. You know,
it's an unfortunate circumstance with Ryan Clark that he couldn't
be there. I mean, in this particular play him in
Monday takes a bad angle trying to get over Uh
(31:00):
and make up after Taylor Uh takes his swing and
missus with stiff arms. So you know, could he have
forced him out of bounds? Can gotten himself? You know,
maybe they're at field goal range and look, field goal
range was midfield uh in Denver at that time. But
the idea being that you know, you at least play
(31:22):
get another play to try to make a play. And
here you know, for the Steelers, they kept selling out
and give Tebo credit. Only completed ten basses. That's all
we needed. Fans voted at the best home field moment
in Broncos sports history. And this is a team that's
had a lot of big home field moments. Yeah, John
Elway making last minute drives now the number one moment
(31:46):
in Broncos history. Excitement of tebow Mania was at its peak.
Now suddenly Tebow was back in whoa we get to
play the Patriots? Can Bill Belichick stop Tim Tebow? Tebow
could be on the run. Know, this was the end
of Tim Tebow. It was the pinnacle of his NFL career.
We get into it, we'll tell you how things broke
down for him and the Broncos and Steelers coming up
(32:09):
next on special teams. What happened to both the Steelers
and the Broncos following Tim Tebow's playoff win? Well, because
(32:31):
we finished things up here on special teams today. Uh,
not quite the direction that you would think for either
of these teams. Pittsburgh goes home in two thousand and twelve,
they go eight and eight. Hines Ward is cut and retires.
He's maybe the most underrated wide receiver of the last
twenty years because he did it all. Yes, he was dirty,
(32:52):
but he called eight he passes a season, he blocked
down fielded all of this, despite the fact he didn't
get along well with Ben Roethlisberger. But the Dealers did
in the off season was let's improve the running game
a little bit. So they draft levy On Bell in
the first round and this is the beginning of the
triplets of Roethlisberger and Bell and Antonio Brown that brought
them the great playoff fights, though not a Super Bowl. Uh.
(33:14):
The rest of the decade. All hinens Ward did was
then go and race to the end zone in Gotham City. Uh.
I don't really think that he was fast enough for
that touchdown. It seemed kind of odd. I'd like to
check that out a little bit again. I mean, that's
the whole other thing of movie making, uh, and believability.
But you know what I worked with, and I'm still
(33:35):
trying to get one of those uniforms in many helmets.
But yeah, to your point, Hines Ward fantastic receiver, big numbers,
was always on the spot, and those running backs and
and offensive Lineman. I'm sure paid for some of his
meals because he out make those numbers look that much
better blocking down field, there's no question about it. And
(33:55):
well you all and you know all about Levyan Bellet
so good, so good with it. Um, So that was
the look it was. It was a tough loss, obviously
in the wild card game, and then the next year
was difficult as well, because the Steelers don't have five
or under seasons. I mean, look, they don't. They don't
have many. Going eight and eight is about that's as
(34:17):
bad as a guess. Alright, this is a team that
hasn't been under eight and eight in a long time. Alright.
They were six and ten and two thousand and three, okay,
and then they were six and ten in nine and
seven and nine, and then before that you're going all
the way back to this is a team that is
good every year. And here they are able to restart
(34:37):
their franchise building around Roethlisberger and Antonio Brown and Levi
on Bell Now for the Denver Broncos. The next week
they go to New England and well that was it
for them. Belichick shuts down Tebo. But more importantly, it
was the Patriots offense that blew through this terrific Broncos defense,
because it wasn't so much that Tebow was awful, it
(35:00):
was Brady and the Patriots. It was fourteen nothing before
you could blink. And I don't know there was anyway
Tim Tebow was gonna win that game because clearly the
Broncos out of formula. We gotta keep it close and
our quarterback makes clutch plays and wins the game. This
game was never close, all right, And I wonder if
this game losing to the Patriots like this, seeing the
way Brady and the Patriots offense moved through them, was
(35:23):
the decision that Elway needed to make to say, you
know what, We're only gonna be so good when we
have Tebow at quarterback, so we gotta go on and
make a different decision and get somebody else in, which
is crazy considering the season you just came off of.
The guy's a cult hero, and John Elway decides, let's
move on at quarterback because we need to be more dynamic,
and that's what they did by going out and getting
(35:44):
Peyton Manning, who was coming off an injury. The Colts
moved on because they had Andrew Luck Peyton Manning chose
the Denver Broncos. Hey, he knew I was gonna get
more life on my fastball throwing the football in the
mile high air, and the Broncos, after one great year
of Tim tebo Oh, signed Peyton Manning, future Hall of Famer.
You can't say they did it wrong because they went
to two Super Bowls and they won one. But it
(36:06):
was still shocking to see we're gonna turn the page
on Tebow after the year. Yet really we're just gonna
let him go there And there was part of always
crazy but while we're bringing in Peyton Manning, So okay,
clearly he knew what he was doing there for a quarterback,
but it didn't matter. It was wait a minute, did
this guy just had an all time season as a
quarterback and now he's gonna be looking for a new team.
(36:28):
Fourteen games, eleven starts, seven and four record, uh and bounced.
He completed six of his passes that year. So when
you're talking about everything going in your favor, and you
and I have talked about this on our show on
Fox Sports Radio for years, where you have a season,
(36:49):
you don't have any injuries, everybody's healthy. I may go
back to the year Derek Carr was an m VP candidate.
Everything was right until he was until he got hurt,
right until But I mean like they didn't lose any
time on either side of the ball. Everything worked likewise,
this Denverse squad, and you mentioned Noshean Marina going down
a big loss, but mcgahey was still a twelve yard
(37:12):
rusher they still had and Tebow was averaging what forty
nine yards or a game or thereabouts for for part
of that streak that you're you're getting enough out of
your running game to give you some balance, but you're
you're really forcing the defense to give up nothing to
give you a chance to win because you couldn't guarantee
(37:34):
that that next eight yard pass was coming, that the
skies would open or you know, there there'd be a
hole on the field. So you going back to Hines
Warden Baine, uh there. But the idea that you have
that you needed more consistency and continuity, And as luck
would have it, you've got Peyton Manning coming and making
his tours and deciding where he wants to play football.
(37:56):
So if you were going to move on from an
icon or budding icon on in Tebow. There was only
one way you were gonna be able to do that
and not have blowback. You know. The thing that I
don't get is that this is you know, take out
for a second the fact that it's Tim Tebow. Here
is a starting quarterback in the NFL, his first year
to start, after getting drafted and getting groomed, and he
(38:18):
plays really well at times, and he played fantastic at times. Yeah,
sometimes he played poorly. Yeah, but this is a guy
in his first year as a starter that made big
plays that one games that won a big home playoff
game which he threw for three yards and ran for
fifty more and ran for a touchdown. Why didn't anybody think, well,
a whole off season as the starter, all the reps,
(38:42):
why can't he improve because we would say that for
any other quarterback. Well, look at what he did his
first Boy, I can't wait and when he's installed as
a starter and having the whole off season, they can
work with him now more. And he's the guy. I
don't understand why nobody thought he could get better now
it turned out this is this was his peak. But
I don't get why there was no thought, well, hey,
Tebow's really something. Now we can work him and really
(39:03):
turn him into something. There was just no what's done,
and we're moving on. And I was I was remember,
I remember going, yeah, but any other guy, we would say, well,
now let's let's build off of this and let's find
a way to do it. But nobody wanted to do it. Yeah,
and look you and it makes sense for what Denver did, Right,
You've got the opportunity to bring in Peyton Manning assuming
everything with the neck checked out. You know what he's
(39:27):
bringing to the table, and you certainly had wide receiver
weapons and abudding defense that was gonna make it work.
So yeah, you kick him to the curve. But so
many other teams. I mean every year we've got nine
to ten teams playing quarterback roulette, either through some journey
men as a placeholder and hoping it works or a failure.
(39:48):
For a comparison, I guess you have the longer view
and that it's he's had years in the system, but
you had Jamis Winston that you could have retained in
Tampa five thousand. You are it's thirty thirty guy. I
know when you say thirty thirty it kind of kills
your own argument. But the idea that you had a
lot of big moments with him and it would have
(40:09):
been a second year with Bruce arians and instead Tom
Brady is available, so hey see you, uh again it
makes sense. But another guy that had to wait his
time before you ever even found another opportunity. And maybe
you know, we'll have a great resurrection and a part
two and you and I'll sit into a special teams
on the brilliance of Jameis Winston's second act. But Tim
(40:33):
Tebow it just didn't come. And and there's I guess
a lot of reasons that it goes to. And we
talk a lot about going into a camp and competing
for a job and when you're likely going to spend
some of your season, if not all of it, on
the bench, how many teams are built with the stability
and continuity that you want to bring that in for
(40:55):
a guy who's going to be a backup. That we
became one of the biggest talking points I think we
have had in the decade. So the Broncos signed Peyton
Manning and now they have something to do with Tim Tebow.
They wind up training him to the New York Jets
for a couple of draft picks. And this tells you
about Tebow and a little bit about Rex Ryan too
is here's the Jets have the playoff icon and hero
(41:16):
of the past year, and he can't get on the field.
He couldn't beat out Mark Sanchez. Okay, he was the
personal punt protector. They rarely ran place for him because
the Jets still believed that Mark Sanchez was gonna be really,
really good and he wasn't. And he winds up leaving
New York. He wasn't happy with the year he had
with the Jets there, and he's been out of the
(41:36):
NFL for a long time. And who knew that that
game was going to be the pinnacle that he hit
in his National Football League career. That touchdown passed to
Marius Thomas was the last great moment he was going
to have. It's almost as if he came around too early,
because if he came out of the NFL now, there
would be some NFL offensive grew that would say, give
(42:00):
me Tebow. I'm going to build an offense around him.
And you watch just like the Panthers did with Cam Newton,
all right, because it was the same deal. Cam Newton
was a rookie, Hey everything is great and Cam Newton,
but Cam Newton could throw the football a little bit better,
with a little bit more accuracy. He would have three
three fifty games regularly. So, okay, we can build our
offense around Cam Newton because still running the football, he
(42:22):
was the same kind of guy running as Tim Tebow was,
but he was a little bit more accurate throwing the ball.
Carolina Panthers built their offense around him, and and for
nearly a decade. Look how great it was. They got
to the Super Bowl a year with Cam Newton. If
Tebow came around now, it would be the same thing.
A team would try to build around him, would try
to build him throwing the football a little bit better.
But it was just a little bit too early for him.
(42:44):
And so this is why he winds up being out
of the league not too long after he throws that
big touchdown pass into Marius Thomas. I do dig that
you got his former teammate at Florida, Cam Newton into discussion.
You know, a guy who's accuracy wasn't much better than
Ebos on the grand scale, right, but he had a
stronger arm could throw it further down the reel. I
(43:05):
mean that that's what he did. Really didn't have the
as being a wind up and throw off that back
foot like crazy. I'm not stepping into a throw and
getting hit. I'm gonna throw out that back foot. Yeah,
threw it more on a rope than the big arching
lollipop that we'd get sometimes from Tebow as you go through.
I remember going to training camp and watching that Jets
competition and they'd have the cones out of all right,
(43:27):
stay within the tackles basically, and he was terrible. It was,
it was just awesome. And then they'd say, all right,
take the cones out, we're gonna run full elevens and
he would scramble enough to where he'd be break contain
mitt and to be able to make a play and
find a guy down field or you know, run for
(43:48):
a bunch of yards, you know what, whatever drills they
were doing. But it was frustrating, you know, and you
could see it on his face. It's just not it's
not clicking right because it's like, all right, want you know,
but it might as well out of the twelve in
Mississippi and he still wasn't getting rid of the football. So,
you know, difficulty in reading those situations. So eventually, you know,
(44:09):
he did show up as a member of the Patriots
for a minute, so got that. Yeah it was it
was a minute. It was long enough to get a
trading card produced, so you got that. But yeah, it's
one of those fascinating things we talked about players being
a little bit of ahead of their time or wondering
if they've gotten a second chance. Uh, you know the
(44:30):
old sliding doors thing, you know, taking up the old
Gwyneth Paltrow movie. There you go, there's my nerd moment
of pop culture. But you know it, had he been
able to get with a coordinator that wanted to work,
even if he never became a sixty five percent completion
guy on quick hitch and and quick outs, I mean,
couldn't have worked for a few years while he was
(44:51):
still such a bulldozer and the run game. All right,
I'm a little aware, are they now from this game
nearly a decade later? Let's get it on. Yeah, you've
got Daniel Fells. He went through the entrepreneurship program at
Stanford and works for Applied Silver. So they're researching how
to treat and cure infectious diseases. Well, that's very important
(45:17):
how about that. And most of time he also spends
a lot of time helping raises two kids. So that's good.
You've got Dante Rosario. He's a recruiter at Amazon time.
Pretty good time for him right now. Might have to
look him up. You know, he wants He once scored
a touchdown. I think it was for the Chargers that
(45:37):
won a game, and I think it was on CBS,
and you know, he scores a touchdown and they like
they go to break and come back and they have
like the the recap of the game on you know
what happened here, you know, and and Dante Rosario, you know,
touchdown win the game, except that you know was blah
blah blah. Here's the status. There was Rosario Dawson, you know,
(45:58):
todown reception that in I'm like, Rosario Dawson. Yeah, but
it got you to think about Rosario Dawson, and you
know that that's not bad. All right. We got Andre
Goodman does some real estate work, but he's the director
of Player Personnel uh in the for the University of
South Carolina, So we got him. We got Mario Hagen
(46:20):
uh he works for athletic and he does Yeah, and
then Kwan Cosby. He does risk management just like George
Costanza from Marshan mclenn Marshan McLennan Company. Uh So, there
you go. He was a kick returner for the squad.
And of course I mentioned all those guys that would
graduate to go become Chicago Bears estently and everybody else
(46:44):
round up with a Bear. So that's where everybody and
that's where they all went. So there's our look back
at Tim Tebow's playoff win, that passing through to Damarius Thomas,
the last great moment he had in the National Football League.
Our show has heard Monday through Friday on Fox Sports Radio,
The Jason Smith Show with Mike Harmon, tended two am
(47:04):
on the East Coast, seven to eleven pm on the
West Coast. You have an idea for a future episode
of Special Teams, hit us up on Twitter at how
about a Fresca Mike at Swollen Dome. We'll talk to
you next week with a brand new episode of Special Teams.
(47:26):
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