Tebow Time: Playoff Edition

Welcome to a very special edition of Tebow Time. We are going to take a look AFC West and the division’s playoff off picture.
Division snapshot: The Charger’s have set sail with head coach Norv Turner as the captain of the USS Failboat, and after 12 weeks find themselves shipwrecked at the bottom of the division. Joining them is the Kansas City Chiefs, who suffered injuries to top skill players and were forced to rely on head coach Todd Haley to manufacture wins. Predictably, he hasn’t. The Oakland Raiders also have been bitten by the injury bug, but still manage to lead their division by forgoing future success and trading for Carson Palmer. The only team that has seen things go as scripted is the Denver Broncos, who have gone from the division’s worst team to playoff contenders since installing first round pick Tim Tebow.

Kansas City (4-7): With Haley firmly in control of the team’s offense, the Chiefs had zero chance for a playoff spot from the start. Any head coach willing to play their starting tight end late into the fourth preseason game and risk injury, keep a first rounder behind the likes of Keary Colbert on the depth chart and split carries between Thomas Jones (3.2 average) and Dexter McCluster (4.5 average) will never be able to run a successful team properly. As long as the head case gets to make the decisions, the Chiefs are going nowhere fast.

San Diego (4-7): The Chargers continue to fail to meet to expectations and finally the root of the problem has become obvious: head coach Norv Turner. Certain people have been criticizing Turner for years, but because he always made the playoffs his short comings had been overlooked. However, instead of the Charger’s making the playoffs because of Turner, it turns out that they were making the playoffs despite Turner. Charger’s fans realize that their window to win with Philip River’s is rapidly closing and that Turner has done little to add talent through the draft and free agency. Norv Turner will get his walking papers, but it may be too late to turn things around now.



Oakland (7-4): With Carson Palmer in the fold, the Raiders have their first legitimate quarterback since Rich Gannon. The first round picks they have paid for him are ridiculous, but potentially justifiable when you consider their defensive woes. They have struggled to stop the run all year long and have seen injuries to top players on both sides of the ball. They needed a (potentially?) top flight quarterback to keep the team in contention and so far Palmer has done just that. The big question now is whether or not he can continue to win without the team’s top playmakers? The Raider’s aren’t leading their division on pure luck; they are the most talented team in the division when healthy, with a big emphasis put on the word “when”.



Denver (6-5): The option scheme continues to work. It can be slowed down with good gap control and playing man on man coverage, but apparently stopping it is quite hard. Defenses have tried, and since Tebow does actually possess the ability to throw the ball, their scheme is far more complex than something like the wildcat. The more peripheral effects their ground and pound scheme include requiring opposing defense to playing a physically exhausting and highly unorthodox game, while providing their own defense extra time on the sideline to make adjustments to their own strategy.

The Playoff Picture:

Oakland faces Miami, Green Bay, Detroit, Kansas City and San Diego.

Denver faces Minnesota, Chicago, New England, Buffalo and Kansas City.

Oakland’s matchups with Miami and Kansas City should be favorable, so mark those down as wins. Greenbay and Detroit look like losses, so 7-4 becomes 9-6. The only real wildcard game is San Diego in week 17.

The Broncos face Minnesota, and then Chicago and New England. A win and two losses brings them to 7-7. The final matchups with Buffalo and Kansas City are a toss up, and Kansas City should be an easy win if not for a motivated Kyle Orton likely to be under center.

However, 9-7 is unlikely to be enough for the Broncos. They need to run the tables to make the playoffs. So either some help from Oakland or from San Diego is going to be required if the Broncos want to sneak into the playoffs. The good news is that…it’s the AFC West! If you are looking for inconsistency, baby, they got it!