Breaking Down Tim Tebow's First Start
Like everyone else, I have been caught up in Tebow Time. Like so many other football fans, I was excited about his first start of the year. I wanted to see what this second year quarterback could do with my own eyes. So I recorded the game and watched every offensive snap.
Early in the game John Fox dialed up one running play after another, limiting the passing game to occasional shots. When Fox did dial up passing plays, the pass protection often broke down and forced Tebow take off. Take off he did as he was able to rack up 65 yards on 8 carries, but no one cared about that. We already knew what he could do with his feet. Good thing that he can run though, because the protection was awful as he was sacked 7 times. While he did scramble well, he showed signs of maturity as he is keeping his eyes downfield. How was his passing though?
It took a while to get a decent sized sample to form an opinion of during the game, but eventually we did get to see good and bad from the young gun. The first thing I wanted to look at was his footwork but he was not getting many opportunities to plant and throw with timing. I can count on one hand how many times he was able to actually throw a timing route. Most of the plays in the passing game, good or bad, were where he scrambled to extend plays. This leads us to the next part of Tim’s game, his throwing motion.
Tim will probably always have that Rocky Balboa south paw wind up, but can he make it work in the NFL? That wind up leaves a few concerns at the NFL level. The first is does it make his delivery too slow? In the NFL 3 tenths of a second can be the difference between a touchdown and an interception, but despite his slow wind up he puts excellent velocity behind most of his throws. There was one three step drop where he planted and fired a rocket from the left hash to the far right sideline. It was a perfect strike to the slot receiver, and it was an excellent display of his ability to drop back and throw a dart with precise timing. If his wind up was a fatal flaw, that would have been the time for it to rear it’s ugly head.
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