National Football League

Broncos finally meet Tebow halfway

Published Nov. 6, 2011 1:00 a.m. ET

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With a stadium emptied out and his teammates huddled around him, Tim Tebow took the snap and replicated what until Sunday might have been his most noteworthy moment as an NFL quarterback. He took a knee.

This time, though, there was no religious connotation to his act. In fact, it might have punctuated something more profound — the first sign that this grand quarterbacking experiment might possibly work.

Tebow baffled the Raiders with his legs, surprised them with his arm and helped rally the Broncos to a 38-24 victory that leaves them, quite stunningly, one game out of first place in the AFC West.

“It worked out today, didn’t it?” said Broncos cornerback Champ Bailey. “I’m a believer. Until we get on a crazy losing streak, I’m a believer.”

There were, no doubt, a few more under the tent on Sunday.

If Tebow was not quite the second coming of Tom Brady, he did manage a higher quarterback rating. Tebow threw a pair of touchdown passes, rushed for 117 yards, and limited to a precious few the instances where he looked out of his depth.

The Broncos leaned heavily on the running of Willis McGahee, a defense that throttled the Raiders in the second half, and Eddie Royal’s 85-yard punt return for a touchdown.

But after Denver had scored more points than it had since last Nov. 14, Broncos coach John Fox did not need to mull over who his quarterback would be next week.

“Yes, I can,” he said when asked if he could say Tebow would start next week.

Not lost on Fox is that his quarterback’s improvement has been accompanied by an offense that is being increasingly tailored to Tebow’s unconventional talents, with more elements of plays he ran at Florida.

The Broncos flummoxed the Raiders with heavy doses of read option, where Tebow reads the defensive end or outside linebacker and decides whether to hand the ball to the running back or keep it himself.

Tebow had two long runs — of 32 and 28 yards, each setting up a touchdown — on read options in which the 11 Raiders on the field were seemingly the last ones in the stadium to realize the quarterback kept the ball.

“When we start the week, we talk about potentially what can happen, what type of play it is, and that was the No. 1 football play for them,” Raiders coach Hue Jackson said. “Trust me: We had somebody for the quarterback, somebody for the back. It didn’t happen right.”

It was not the only thing that did not happen right for the Raiders. They committed 15 penalties for 130 yards and while Carson Palmer made a spectacular throw to fullback Marcel Reese for a 40-yard touchdown, he also looked like a quarterback who has had less than three weeks of practice, throwing three interceptions and struggling to make proper reads.

“It’s kind of a crash course,” Palmer said. “It feels like cramming for a test.”

One sequence early on typified the Raiders bumbling. After a run by Taiwan Jones lost a yard, Palmer took a knee, thinking the Broncos were offside. They weren’t. Then they were called for delay of game. Then they were whistled for 12 men in the huddle. Palmer’s third-down pass was dropped by Denver linebacker D.J. Williams.

Palmer was not so fortunate late in the third quarter when his pass over the middle sailed high to Denarius Moore, who tipped the ball to Denver cornerback Chris Harris. McGahee got the ball on the next play and burst 60 yards to tie the score, 24-24.

The Broncos took the lead on Royal’s punt return with 5:53 to play, then sealed the win on McGahee’s 24-yard scoring run, the last of his 20 carries and 163 yards.

At that point, Tebow was slapping hands and hugging coaches on the sideline, his bloodied lip not dampening his enthusiasm at all.

“That’s huge to get that momentum going,” Tebow said. “I talk about it, but I really believe it and it’s huge — once you get the momentum on your side, I think it’s a huge advantage. No matter who you are, I think it’s much tougher to be stopped when you’ve got that mo going for you.”

The improvement Tebow made would qualify as baby steps to be sure. But after some shaky play early — missing three wide-open receivers and going 2 for 11 in one stretch — Tebow settled down.

He was more patient with his passing reads, meaning he actually made them. His 27-yard scoring pass to Eric Decker hit the receiver in stride on a post, which looked to be his most comfortable throw. And he found Royal for a 26-yard score after the receiver broke off his route and doubled back to a hole in the defense.

“It wasn’t drawn up that way,” Royal said with a smile.

It’s quite the change from the not-so-long-ago days, which Royal and other Broncos still recall, of Jay Cutler winging it all over the field.

But Cutler was not the answer, and neither was Kyle Orton or Brady Quinn. And so they will search, with a player and a playbook outside the norm.

“It’s another dimension,” Fox said of his new option-heavy offense. “It’s utilized much more in college than it is in the National Football League. We’re working on it. I think the whole team is [adjusting], coaching staff and players. It’s a different style, but it can be effective.”

For how long is uncertain. But for the first time Sunday, the possibilities were apparent. And they were based on something more than faith.

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