So what did Tim Tebow do differently that allowed him to have his best passing game yet when it mattered most against the Steelers?
According to Broncos coach John Fox, the Denver offense didn’t do anything differently except make the throws they needed to make.
“There wasn’t really much different other than we executed better,” Fox said at his press conference today. “There wasn’t any new, state-of-the-art plays. This thing’s about players making plays when you have success, and we did it better yesterday than we did it the week before.”
Fox’s comments may seem to contradict what the Steelers said after the game about Tebow doing things that the Steelers hadn’t seen on tape. But what really happened in Denver on Sunday wasn’t that the Steelers left the deep throws open because the Broncos called plays the Steelers didn’t see coming. It was that the Steelers left the deep throws open because the Steelers didn’t think Tebow could make those throws.
And it’s easy to see why the Steelers didn’t think Tebow could make those throws. After all, the Steelers had just spent a week studying tape of Tebow’s terrible game in Week 17, when he went 6-of-22 for 60 yards, with an interception and no touchdowns. No one could have expected Tebow to execute so much better a week later that he would go 10-of-21 for 316 yards with two touchdowns and no interceptions. The Steelers certainly didn’t expect it.