Originally posted by Tom Kessenich:
How does he make things happen positively when his weaknesses are so obvious and apparent? The Miami game only provided more fuel for that debate. Maybe all the teams he's faced so far weren't very strong on defense?
2010
@ oak: 8-16-138 1 td pass.....8-78-1 td rushing(loss)
* OAK was a 7-7 team, 29th in run D, but 3rd in pass D. Go figure, he ran well, but passed like crap.
vs hou: 16-29-308 1 td 1 int pass....10-27-1 td rushing (won)
* HOU was a 5-10 team, 13th in run D, 32nd in pass D. Go figure, he passed well (loose use of the word "well", as 16-29 is only 55% and 1 passing TD is nothing special; but 308 yds was nice), but didn't run very well (2.7 YPC stinks!).
vs sd: 16-36-205 2 td 2 int pass....13-97-1 td rushing (loss)
* SD was 9-7, 4th in run D and 1st in pass D. He was understandably not very good passing, just 16-36 = 44%; obviously, barely breaking 200 yds is nothing special either.
However, SD's star LB, Stephen Cooper (team-leading 297 tackles from 2007-10), was placed on I/R after 14 games last year. And in addition to Tebow running well vs. the Chargers in week 17, in week 16 (also without Cooper), SD allowed the Bengals duo RBs of Benson/Scott to run for 102 yds and 1 TD. But in the prior two games to that, SF and KC were shut down running, for just 55 and 49 yards, respectively. (I don't have time to go back through more of SD's run D games prior to that, but one can assume they were pretty good if they were 4th overall at the end of the year - which included the last 2 above-average games.) IOW, maybe Tebow got to take advantage of a very good run D that was without their biggest playmaker that day?
2011
@ mia: 13-27-161 2 tds pass....8-65 rushing (won)
* MIA is currently 20th in run D, 20th in pass D, playing with a terrible backup QB and obviously more interested in obtaining Andrew Luck next year than winning games this year.
As nice a guy and as great a role model as he may be, perhaps we should wait til he's faced a few GOOD teams before annointing him the next Michael Vick? :rolleyes:
That said, with how bad DEN was last year, their schedule doesn't really present very many tough defenses the rest of the way. With 9 games left, he'll only face 2 top-10 pass defenses (using fantasy points against): NYJ and SD, though DET is also 11th; but he also will get 5 bottom-10 pass defenses: OAK, MIN, CHI, NE and BUF!

. But easy pass defenses don't necessarily play into Tebow's strength, do they? [He's a much better runner than passer.]
Against the run, he'll again only see 2 top-10 defenses, but also 3 bottom-10s, and 4 mid-range. So he doesn't really have it as easy running, which is where he makes his mark.
I'm not a Tebow hater by any means. But I sure do think that 4 games spread out over 2 years vs. mostly bad defenses is too small a sampling size to conclude how great Tebow will be. Let's check back in a month or two.
[ October 26, 2011, 02:06 PM: Message edited by: Sandman62 ]