At first I wanted to do a post about Tebowmania, but that's been done to death this week. Instead, I decided to take a look at arguably the least important part of his mystique: his statistical output. Much to my surprise, he's really not as bad a passer as I thought, at least under certain circumstances. As most people know, he's won (that's code for Broncos have won, but we all know better) five straight games. This dates back to Halloween weekend, which is of course the devil's holiday. It's also the only game Tebow has lost this season in which he has started. At this point, I'm not totally convinced that it's a mere coincidence.
As I'm wont to do, I started digging through the wall of statistics that's available for quarterbacks. Two things immediately jumped out at me: his atrocious completion percentage (47.5%!) and his 4th quarter comebacks (4, the most of any QB in the league this season). But these things are well known. What else do his numbers reveal?
For his career, he is either average or above average in 6 of the 9 major advanced passing metrics. His predecessor, Kyle Orton, reaches that mark in only 2 (INT%+ and Sack%+). Tebow is also well below average in Sack%+, but unlike Orton, Tebow's predilection for getting sacked is more than offset by his ability to produce yards with his legs. Combining rushing yards gained and sack yards lost, Tebow is at +555 , while Orton is at a whopping -535, almost an 1100 yard differential. Yes, Orton's played much longer, but it still yields an average of +277.5/season for Tebow and -89.2/season for Orton.
Of course, being compared favorably to Kyle Orton isn't exactly the highest praise that can be heaped upon someone. Try this one on for size. Tebow compares favorably to Trent Dilfer in almost every category! That guy won a Super Bowl and looks extra dapper nowadays when he's talking to Chris Berman. I bet Tebow's a better talker than Trent Dilfer, too.
Tebow is obviously not solely responsible for the Broncos' success. They have been playing great defense, and he's being well supported by a resurgent Willis McGahee. But it's also unfair to take too much credit away from him. He's been extremely solid in Broncos' wins this season (QBR of 97.8) and very, very bad in losses (QBR of 65.9). Perhaps the strangest stat of them all is his home/road QB rating, which is exactly the opposite of what you'd expect. He's posting a 64.6 rating at home and an extremely impressive 106.0 on the road this season. For the sake of comparison, that's over 14 points higher than Drew Brees's road QB rating. Tebow is also 5-1 on the road, compared to Brees's 3-3. Is Tim Tebow a better quarterback than Drew Brees? I'll let the reader decide.
It's obviously easy to get hyperbolic when discussing Tebow. He's such a polarizing figure, for reasons that only partially have anything to do with him. But with an admittedly small sample size, he's doing the only thing that it really matters for him to do: win games. The comparative strength of his advanced metrics will do little to sway public opinion if that stops, but it really is worth considering. I doubt Tebow will ever be the sort of guy who regularly throws for 300+ yards. Nevertheless, he'll be fine if he keeps following the dictum of that longtime Broncos nemesis: Just win, baby.
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