Denver Broncos 2011 regular season Review: It's Tebow! time - NFL Special Part II
Continued from Part I
At Tennessee
With a win last week over the Bengals, Denver Broncos travelled to Tennessee to face the Titans at the LP Field.
However, the Broncos offence failed to get into its stride as quarterback Kyle Orton was intercepted twice during the game fizzling out Denver’s progress up the field.
Orton passed for a gain of 173-yards and two touchdown passes as he created the Broncos only scoring plays.
He was outshone by Titans quarterback Matt Hasselbeck who passed for 311-yards and two touchdowns to lead Tennessee to a 17-14 victory.
At Green Bay
The Broncos next call on the road was a trip to Green Bay, Wisconsin to face an undefeated Packers side led by last-year’s Super Bowl Most Valuable Player (MVP) Aaron Rodgers.
Denver was pummelled completely as the Packers egged on by a boisterous crowd in the famous Lambeau Field completely overran a shell-shocked Broncos defence.
Rodgers passed for a total of 408-yards and four touchdowns while also rushing for two-touchdowns to defeat the Broncos by a huge 49-23 margin.
Orton meanwhile was limited to 273-yards and three touchdown passes while also being intercepted thrice of which one was returned in the first quarter by Charles Woodson for a 30-yard interception return.
Broncos coach John Fox tried to keep pressure off Orton after the game saying.
"I thought our offense was very impressive, other than the turnovers. It wasn't all the quarterback (Orton). It was all of us."
Against San Diego
Kyle Orton once again failed to sparkle as the Broncos faced San Diego Chargers at home and his only contribution during the first two periods was an interception.
The Chargers took full advantage and quarterback Philip Rivers led the visitors to a 23-10 lead at the end of the first half of the game.
Denver were looking at defeat once again, and the home crowd started their now regular chants calling for quarterback Tim Tebow to take over duties from Orton.
For the first time coach John Fox gave in to the crowd’s demands and sent on Tebow to start the second half.
The replacement quarterback had a quiet third quarter but as he would show throughout the rest of the season his fourth quarter performance was entirely different.
Tebow rallied the Broncos rushing for 12-yards with the Broncos gaining extra two-points as Willis McGahee succeeded with a two-point conversion.
The quarterback next setup a 28-yard touchdown pass to Knowshon Moreno to cut the Chargers lead to just two-points.
However, San Diego kicker Nick Novak scored a 35-yard field goal in the final 24-seconds to put the game to bed.
At Miami
Seeing Tebow’s brilliant performance against the Chargers coach John Fox decided to start the rookie quarterback against Miami Dolphins.
For most of the game though it seemed that decision was not such a good one after all as Tebow continuously threw incomplete passes with the home crowd revelling in his misery.
The Dolphins built up a 15-0 lead with seven minutes left in the final quarter and it looked as if the Broncos will be shutout.
However, Tebow started an epic comeback that no one saw coming.
The quarterback passed for a five-yard touchdown to Demaryius Thomas at 2:44 to make it 15-7 and then with just 17-seconds left to play connected with three-yard pass to Daniel Fells to make 15-15.
Tebow then rushed to the end-zone for a two-point conversion and against all odds sent the game to overtime.
In overtime Tebow once again led the Broncos forward and a 52-yard kick from Matt Prater sealed Denver’s second win of the season and the term Tebow time was coined for the first time.
To be continued
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