Tim Tebow’s 2011 NFL Playoff Appearance Symbolizes a Chaotic Season

When historians look back at the 2011 NFL season, there will be little attention given to the fact it was one of the sloppiest seasons ever played in the league’s history. Perhaps a slight nod of acknowledgement to the players lockout that pretty much wiped out training camp and retarded the development of the game.

Another footnote was how the game got softer, thanks to another laundry list of rules that effeminate football to the point it now practically resembles basketball with pads on. This mission, led by commissioner Roger Goodell, contradicts a history the league uses in its advertisements with pride. Commercials that celebrate gridiron warriors bloodied in a battle among the trenches that haven’t been seen throughout the NFL in decades.

No team may better personify the league right now than the Denver Broncos. After beginning the season 1-4, Denver rattled off seven victories in eight weeks before finishing the year with three straight losses.

Tim Tebow got a lion’s share of the credit for the Broncos victories, which included three in overtime. The defense gave up 17 or fewer points seven times this year, but the quarterback dominated the headlines. His image of being a wholesome religious boy captured so much attention that it drowned out critics who pointed to Tebow’s miniscule 46.5 completion percentage this season.

Some considered him no more than a glorified fullback when he entered the 2011 season, while others of a modern day version of Bobby Douglass. A second round draft pick by the Chicago Bears in 1969, the fellow lefty quarterback ended his 11 NFL seasons with a 43 percent completion percentage.

Douglass could run better than Tebow, once holding the record for most rushing yards gained by a quarterback when he churned out 968 yards in 14 games during the 1972 season. He averaged 69.1 yards rushing per game, which is better than the 64.9 yards Michael Vick had in 2006 when he surpassed Douglass’ record in a 16-game season.

Tebow piled up 660 yards and six touchdowns on the ground this year. He played mistake-free football much of the year until the last two games of the year, when he tossed four of his six total interceptions. Tebow completed just 19 of 51 attempts for 245 yards over that time.

Denver still reached the playoffs despite an abysmal ending to a forgettable NFL season, thanks to playing in a division where three teams finished 8-8 and the fourth team went 7-9. The AFC West was perhaps the most mediocre in the NFL in 2011, which is a statement in itself because the NFC West, NFC East and AFC East were far from impressive as well.

Coaches and general managers on many inept teams suffered from the shortened season to the extent that they lost their jobs. Yet the NFL, as it has for the past 40 years, continued to rake in piles of cash even though the product they present today recedes and mollifies each snap of the ball under the Goodell regime.

Image over substance is now in play as receivers and quarterbacks prance around untouched. College football shows the future is bleaker with recent bowl games, with teams frequently combining to put up 80 or more points.

Defense is now as extinct as the commercialized images the NFL sells of warriors battling because now accolades are attained minus a struggle. Where honing skills through practice has now joined the defense as a spectator.


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