There are two underlying reasons why Tebow is so effective, two reasons that explain his impressive Real Quarterback Rating week after week.
1. He gets the ball in the end zone more often than any QB in football today
2. He protects the football better than any QB in football today
The Broncos clearly have not scored a lot of points with Tebow at quarterback. In fact, Denver has averaged just 19.3 points per game in Tebow’s six starts and has scored 18 points or fewer in five of those games. And clearly, the defense has improved dramatically in recent weeks, either purely as coincidence or as a by-product of the fact that Tebow has helped the team improve in all areas by protecting the football.
But Tebow himself has been deadly with the ball in his hands. He produces touchdowns at an amazing clip, better than any quarterback in football in his brief career. Here’s a comparison of Tebow vs. some of the more prolific quarterbacks in recent history.
Career percentage of touches that result in a TD:
Tim Tebow — 6.0 percent
Aaron Rodgers — 5.7 percent
Peyton Manning — 5.5 percent
Tom Brady — 5.1 percent
Drew Brees — 4.7 percent
John Elway — 3.9 percent
Wow. Tebow may not pass the ball effectively. But he’s produced an incredible 22 touchdowns (13 passing, nine rushing) in just 368 touches (225 pass attempts, 121 rush attempts, 22 sacks). Nobody in football gets the ball in the end zone more often.
More importantly, Tebow takes incredibly good care of the football. We track something at Cold, Hard Football Facts called the “interception ladder.” It shows us that every interception decreases your chances of winning by about 20 percentage points. In other words, interceptions are destructive plays that severely limit a team’s ability to win games.
But the Broncos are winning not just because Tebow protects the football, but because he protects it better than any QB in the game today. Here’s how he stacks up against some of the more prolific QBs in the game today.
Career interception percentage:
Tim Tebow — 1.78 percent
Aaron Rodgers — 1.83 percent
Tom Brady — 2.2 percent
Drew Brees — 2.71 percent
Peyton Manning — 2.75 percent
John Elway — 3.1 percent
Add in that Tebow has lost just one fumble in his career (with four INT) and his turnover rate is an incredibly miniscule 1.4 percent.
Read More: http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2011/writers/kerry_byrne/11/29/tim.tebow/index.html#ixzz2eWT49ijz
Tebow had 6 interceptions in 2011 alone. He also had 13 fumbles that year, losing more than half of them. His fumbles and interceptions increased as 2011 went on - he had 3 interceptions in the Buffalo game.
Very clever of you to use an article from right before the wheels came off the Tebow situation. In just a few weeks after that the situation got a lot uglier.
Here’s the real career stats:
http://espn.go.com/nfl/player/stats/_/id/13200/tim-tebow
His combined stats is 29 TDs on 558 touches with 9 INTs and 14 fumbles.
And you really need to look at the end of that regular season, what happens when the league figured out a player that has no consistency:
NE L 11 comp from 22 attempts no TDs
Buf L 13 comp from 29 attempts 1 TD 3 INTs
KC L 6 comp from 22 attempts no TDs 1 INT
He simply is not a good QB. For a while there it was an entertaining circus to watch a guy win games 10 or fewer completions, but we knew it couldn’t last, it was a gadget style of offense and eventually defenses always catch up to the gadget, in the end your gadget needs to supplement a QB that consistently throws completions. Tebow isn’t that QB, he’s just gadget. Which is why he’s always been 3rd on the depth chart, and why he’s now out of the league.