Newsflash, the Denver defense during the 2011-2012 season was by no stretch of the imagination “good.” This is the same defense that was torched the first four games of the season with Kyle Orton at the helm on offense.
The radical improvement in the defense happened AFTER Tebow took over because THE DEFENSE WAS RARELY ON THE FIELD. During Tebow’s time behind center the Broncos overwhelming led the NFL in time of possession which kept the defense OFF the field. The problems emerged when the Broncos would be forced into short 4 and outs by teams like the Patriots. When that occurred you got the same crappy results from the D.
Elway STILL has not upgraded the D. He spent all that money on luring Manning.
Here is a pretty good and IMO a fair analysis of Tebow, his strengths and his weaknesses as a player.
The bottom line is that although he is a very nice guy and a team “leader” and has certainly has some talent, he just wasn’t all that good where and when it mattered, in his passing game. Pretty much everyone agreed that he needed time to develop his accuracy, timing and footwork which were below par for an NFL QB and which BTW he was given numerous times, but didn’t. But most of all a player who performs as poorly as Tebow did in practice scrimmages isn’t going to get a QB or even a back up QB spot.