According to MaxDenver.com, Broncos head coach John Fox said that running back Willis McGahee broke his hand in the third quarter of Sunday’s 18-15 overtime triumph over the Dolphins.
The Miami product had 18 rushes for 76 yards on the ground and a lost fumble.
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(Reuters) - Tim Tebow had a triumphant homecoming by rallying the Denver Broncos to an 18-15 overtime win against the Miami Dolphins on Sunday as the National Football League's (NFL) quarterback carousel continued to spin.
Making his first start of the season, the former Heisman Trophy winner who led the University of Florida to a national title in 2009 produced the magic that many football fans have come to expect with an unlikely comeback that set up a 52-yard overtime field goal and left Miami winless.
As the NFL season approaches the midway point, teams opted to reshuffle the quarterback deck with mixed success.
John Beck, making his first NFL start in four years for the Washington Redskins, had little to celebrate as the Carolina Panthers romped to a 33-20 win.
Later on Sunday, Minnesota Vikings quarterback Christian Ponder makes his first career start in place of Donovan McNabb against the Super Bowl champion Green Bay Packers while former Pro Bowl quarterback Carson Palmer is expected to make his debut in a Raiders uniform against the Kansas City Chiefs after being traded earlier in the week.
The Detroit Lions could also be looking at bringing in a backup next week after Matthew Stafford limped off the field with an apparent ankle injury in a 23-16 loss to the Atlanta Falcons.
The loss of Stafford would be a massive blow to the Lions, who have lost two straight after opening the season with five consecutive wins.
In London, the focus was on elusive running back Matt Forte who scampered for 145 yards and a touchdown as the Chicago Bears stopped the Tampa Bay Buccaneers 24-18 in front of an enthusiastic packed house a Wembley Stadium.
On the other side of the Atlantic, however, the football spotlight was firmly focused on Miami and Tebow's much hyped return to Florida and the stadium where he helped win a BCS national championship.
Tebow's homecoming looked to be an unmitigated disaster as Miami built a 15-0 lead and the Denver quarterback struggled, completing just three of eight pass attempts for 24 yards through three quarters.
A fan favorite in Denver and Florida, coaches have been less enamored with Tebow, whose passing ability has not often matched his enthusiasm and athleticism.
But Tebow proved his doubters wrong by firing two touchdown passes in the final three minutes of the fourth quarter then charging across for a two-point convert to force overtime.
Mark Sanchez, another quarterback under attack by the media, silenced his critics by tossing three touchdown passes to wide receiver Plaxico Burress as the New York Jets rallied for a 27-21 win over the San Diego Chargers.
Burress, back in the NFL after serving a 20-month prison sentence on gun charges, was Sanchez's go-to man as the Jets struck for 17 unanswered second half points to improve to 4-3 and get back in the fight for top spot in the AFC East.
(Writing by Steve Keating in Toronto; Editing by Frank Pingue)
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The Broncos’ coaching staff, which had made him the starter just two weeks ago, had so little confidence in him that through three quarters, he attempted just eight passes.
But with five minutes left and the Miami Dolphins playing prevent defense, Tebow turned into the player who inspires fans to erect billboards and opposing teams to honor him when he visits, rallying the Broncos to two touchdowns.
And when Denver lined up for the 2-point attempt that would send the game to overtime, it seemed that only the Dolphins had never seen highlights from Tebow’s Heisman Trophy-winning career. They had their defense spread across the field, leaving gaping holes between each player. Tebow took the snap and ran off right tackle, untouched, for the conversion.
From there, the result seemed a fait accompli. The Broncos won, 18-15, on Matt Prater’s 52-yard field goal, giving them their second victory of the season and sinking the Dolphins to 0-6.
After the game, to the delight of a few hundred University of Florida fans left on the field, Tebow came out of the locker room to greet some of his former college teammates. He had led them to a national championship on the same field, when his legend took flight. The Broncos got no greater clarity Sunday about who their quarterback of the future is.
But they do understand now the ineffable quality Tebow seems to summon when things appear bleakest, and why so many people clamor for Tebow to have a chance.
“There’s competitive greatness,” Denver Coach John Fox said. “Not everybody that plays in this league has it. It’s a great quality to have. We have a guy — No. 7 that I work with every day — he had it. He definitely had it.”
Comparing Tebow to the former Broncos great John Elway, who is Denver’s executive vice president for football operations, should delight the Broncos fans who had implored Fox to start Tebow after Kyle Orton faltered in the first month of the season.
But even the way the Broncos played in overtime summed up the difficult and delicate decision that Fox and the Broncos face with Tebow. They have made him the starter now because they must find out if he can be their quarterback of the future.
The concerns that led them to make Orton the starter for opening day, however, seem to be lingering. In overtime, Tebow did not throw a pass, as the Broncos essentially reapplied the training wheels they had left on him for most of the game.
After the game, Fox said bluntly that if Tebow had completed more than three of his first eight passes, maybe Denver would have had him throw more, because the situation became dire.
On the game’s final drive, which started at the Dolphins’ 36 after Denver recovered a fumble, the Broncos had Tebow hand off three times, signaling that they would rather take their chances with a long field-goal attempt from a kicker who had missed two shorter tries earlier in the game.
Other than the victory, the game might have been the worst-case situation for the Broncos. They fear that the Tebow on display for most of the game is the real one, a better runner than passer, and that he may never be the accurate pocket passer they crave. Broncos coaches were clearly spooked when, on the Broncos’ first drive of the game, they used something resembling the spread option that Tebow ran to such great success in college.
But on his first pass, under pressure, he was nearly intercepted. After that, the Broncos (2-4) seemed to travel back to the 1970s, calling for handoff after handoff.
In the first three quarters, Tebow completed 3 of 8 passes for 24 yards and was sacked four times. He looked so bad that it was reasonable to wonder if the Broncos would give him another start.
“As a football player, as an athlete, you can’t lose confidence in yourself — or you’ve lost already,” Tebow said.
In the fourth quarter, he was 10 of 19 for 137 yards and 2 touchdowns, and there is no way coaches can ignore his ability to steer a team to victory even if the road there is sometimes ugly. So the Tebow experiment will live on, charming fans, confusing coaches and making everyone else wonder if there might be a place for a very different kind of N.F.L. quarterback.
“I’ve just got to play better in the first three quarters,” Tebow said, “so we don’t have to make that comeback.”
The Broncos would love for it to be that easy.
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Published: October 20th, 2011 | Tags: Champ Bailey, Denver Broncos, Kyle Orton, NFL Total Access, Open Locker Room, Tim TebowWe’ll presume that Champ Bailey has seen almost everything there is to see in the NFL over 13-plus seasons. What he hasn’t seen is anything, or rather anyone, quite like Tim Tebow.
Even as Bailey claimed his seat on the Tebow bandwagon, the words of the six-time All-Pro and 10-time Pro Bowl cornerback carry some significant weight.
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Bailey, to his credit, doesn’t view the mid-season quarterback change through rose-colored glasses. He keeps it pretty real.
“It’s never a good thing to have to switch quarterbacks; it must mean that there is some inconsistency at the position, so it’s never a good thing,” Bailey said. “Nobody is going to like it, but if you feel like it’s going to give us a little something that we need at the moment, yeah, I think players are all for it.”
The saying is that you can’t fool the players. They see Tebow in practice daily, and if he gives the Broncos the best chance to win, the players are the first to know. We’ll see how that all works out starting Sunday in Miami.
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The Denver Broncos traded Pro Bowl receiver Brandon Lloyd, the league's leading receiver last year, to the St. Louis Rams on Monday for a conditional 2012 draft pick.
The move comes a week after Tebow supplanted Kyle Orton at quarterback and six days before Tebow's first start at Miami.
While the trade provides opportunities for young receivers Demaryius Thomas, Eric Decker and Matt Willis, it also opens the organization to increased scrutiny in the midst of its 1-4 start.
"We think it's a position of strength," Broncos coach John Fox said of his receiving corps. "We've got some guys coming back — Demaryius Thomas, Eddie Royal — and (we like) the emergence of Eric Decker."
Lloyd said the trade was a mutual effort. He said he wanted to be a featured receiver in a more pass-oriented offense and thought his departure was best not just for his own career but for those of the receivers he left behind.
And Lloyd stressed his desire to leave Denver was unrelated to the Broncos' quarterback switch last week.
"This had nothing to do with Tim," Lloyd told 104.3 The Fan radio station in Denver. "I'm like everybody else, I find it hard not to like the kid and I have a lot of respect for him and a lot of respect for what he wants to accomplish in his career.
"I think this move creates the space for Denver to really find out what they want to do with the organization and the same thing for me. It puts me in a situation where maybe a team will want to look at me long-term or maybe I can fill a void for a season for St. Louis and get those guys back on track."
Now that Orton's no longer calling the plays, the Broncos are expected to go to even more of a ball-control offense under Tebow, a scrambler and a 49 percent career passer.
In St. Louis, Lloyd will be reunited with former Broncos coach Josh McDaniels, now the coordinator of a Rams offense that has stumbled with so many of Sam Bradford's receivers banged up.
"That helps tremendously. There shouldn't be any kind of learning curve," Rams general manager Billy Devaney said.
The Rams said they sent a sixth-rounder to Denver that could turn into a fifth-rounder if Lloyd catches 30 passes for St. Louis, something all parties certainly expect to happen.
"He's made a lot of big plays in the NFL," Devaney said. "He's got size, good hands, (is) a polished route runner. He's got a knack for making a big play. We're going to put him in the mix."
Lloyd said he would play Sunday against Dallas and was excited for his reunion with McDaniels and eager to work with Bradford and Rams coach Steve Spagnuolo.
Lloyd is in the final year of a deal that pays him about $1.4 million, a bargain for a player who led the league with 1,448 yards receiving last year, when he caught 77 passes, 11 of them for touchdowns.
His numbers are down this year, with 19 catches for 283 yards and no touchdowns.
Broncos football chief John Elway said he appreciated Lloyd's hard work and wished him well, adding via Twitter: "I'm excited about our wide receiver group - This is as healthy as we've been at that position since the start of the year. Our young WRs have really emerged and made some plays, and this is a great opportunity for them to continue to step up."
The remaining receivers learned of Lloyd's departure when he was absent from their morning meeting Monday.
"It's, 'The decision has been made, it's you guys left in the room, let's make the most of it, go out there and play hard,'" Decker said of management's message. "Nothing's changed. Guys aren't scared. They just know that more opportunities are here now and we've got to make the most of them."
Lloyd had a breakout season in 2010, his eighth in the NFL. He had 18 catches of 25 yards or more and posted the third-highest receiving average (18.8 yards) since the AFL-NFL merger in 1970 after a mostly nondescript career in San Francisco, Washington, Chicago and Denver, where he played in two games in 2009.
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Friday, October 14 2011 BLOGS /NewsOfficial Blog of the National Football League Home Home « Colts’ Addai to likely sit out, Painter earns more startsFor Packers, it’s all about a comfy pair of pants »NewsDDFP: SI writer Jeff Pearlman and Broncos WR Eric Decker get with the program
By davedameshek | Shek & Rank welcome Jeff Pearlman, author of “Sweetness: The Enigmatic Life of Walter Payton,” to discuss the feedback he has received for telling the sometimes-dark story of an American legend, plus kibitz about the USFL and condiments. The fellas next yap with one of Tim Tebow‘s primary targets, Eric Decker. And finally, the DeLorean gets to 88 mph to see who wins in this weekend’s biggest games.
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