Better to win ugly than lose pretty. That is why I think Manning is a moron. The Broncos have a mediocre defense (how many times did they get raped last year?), they have a mediocre line, their running game consisted of a fluke season from a guy who there is literally no chance will repeat his success from last year, and their receiving core was nothing special (Eric Decker, Thomas, etc..) There is literally nothing special about that team, and Tebow won 8 games with them, including a playoff game. And he improved from his first game to his last (excluding the NE game when from all accounts he was too injured to be effective). With a great defense, a solid offensive line, Tone, and a decent running game, what are the chances he would not improve in NY and win 10 games, if he had to?
I think it is widely understood that Tebow has never had an offseason to work on his game. Not only that, he was pushed to the side and forgotten while McDaniels was there as he was fighting to save his job. Tebow only started 3 games after basically being ignored that first season. He had no offseason due to the lockout, was again ignored by the staff under Fox until Orton was demoted. He basically has 1 year of playing time under his belt with no development.
cam newton didn't have a offseason.tebow was so ignored that elway put orton on the trading block trying to trade orton to miami. if it wasn't for contract issues orton would've been a dolphin & tebow would've been the starter then.
Here's the rationale... O-Line is young, but played almost every game together and should show significant improvement next year. Thomas is looking more and more like a potentially stud receiver. Manning will make the receiver's better, and they may upgrade. The Defense is the big question mark. They have some serious work to do on the middle of the D, from the line on back. Manning himself should be worth at least 8-9 wins on that team. We'll see if they get the personnel in to bump that up.
But Newton did have a front office and coaching staff committed to him from day one, as well as the luxury of taking first team snaps for the entire preseason. Don't get me wrong, I think Cam is better than Tebow, but clearly Tebow was operating at a disadvantage compared to Cam when it came to getting what he needed to be successful from the beginning of training camp.
If you think 1st year QBs having the success Cam did is the norm then Ive got some beach front property to sell you in Tennessee.
It's still a coaching change from a somewhat pass happy coach under McDaniels (who ran the offense and called the plays) to Fox, who is a run, run, then run again coach and McCoy calling plays and actually running the offense for pretty much the first time in his life. Also, Denver rarely, if ever, ran the Spread Option. They used the Read/Option during the first three quarters, then, when behind, went to the Spread (not Spread Option) with a smattering of Read/Option, I formation and multiple back sets thrown in.
And THAT attitude is what will allow Jets fans to survive this season. Let the season play out as the depth chart is currently written and make adjustments as injuries/transactions/crappiness happen.
Ahhhh, thanks. So why do I have 500 and others have 350 or even 25? How do you get, give, or take away this inter web street cred?