Not necessarily. Tebow may get on a roll like he did mid-season when the Broncs went on a long winning streak.
Tim Tebow is a MUCH better distance thrower than Brady was at the same age. Tom Brady was not a gunslinger. Tom Brady was Mr. Dink and Dunk who averaged 5 yds a pass for the first 2 or 3 years of his career as a starter.
In fact the knock on Brady was that he had poor arm strength.
The ONLY reason I bring up Brady is because so many people knock Tebow and his abilities even though he's a young player with limited NFL experience. Just like to remind folks just how average TB was in his early years.
How much of the completion % or yards avg stat is a quarterback really responsible for? 25%?
That's making a really general comparison between the two. Where these quarterbacks land, offensive style, surrounding cast, and coaching has way more to do with "what type of passers" they are coming into this league. Tebow is in a very efficient, low production, run-oriented style offense. Look back at 2003, see the Carolina Panthers, see their 4 OT victories on the road and what you will come out with is John Fox and a very similar style to the Denver Broncos(except they used a running back and a wider receiver to do what Tebow does with his legs. Steve Smith was used sparringly out of the back field as a running back and on direct snaps). It makes guys like Tebow look worse than they really are as passers and all of a sudden make them appear like some kind of masters of the deep ball when they catch you off guard. Tebow is very accurate, despite what completion says who just chooses to play conservatively, and puts the ball only where his man can get it. It results in more incompletions but very few picks, but that doesn't mean he's more accurate than Brady. Brady could play the same way if asked to. But why would you when Brady can also complete difficult short passes and has so many other weapons?
You'll also see an eerily similar play in double OT against the Rams from Jake Delhomme to Steve Smith who took it down for 65 yards for the winning TD. Jake Delhomme was another similar quarterback that "couldn't accurately throw short but had a very accurate deep ball". It's illusions. Quarterbacks ARE in fact more accurate short than long. That's just physics and common sense. What you are seeing is a coach who is a master of setting up the deep ball who is short on short passing threats and doesn't have a capable tight-end so he plays to his players strengths and masks his teams' weakness.
John Fox has taught all of his quarterbacks that could listen how to do this. Most just choke because the pressure is too high and haven't passed a ball for 20 minutes. Brady simply ended up in a different style offense. There's no telling what Brady could have ended up if he played under that style offense, although my money is, not nearly as famous or as skilled because he would be limited to very few passes during a football game. But he would probably also be seen as having a "better deep ball than short ball". It just wasn't his job to do that and play in that style.
John Fox's offense is incredibly deceptive. Most people and opponents focus so much on the run game, and bite so hard on it and their "inability to pass", that it gives Fox and his staff the type of confidence to bring out a pass play like what you saw last night, no matter the situation. You THINK they can't pass, they KNOW they can, and they KNOW you don't believe it. He builds his teams around high-pressure situations all season long. In 2003 passes like the one Tebow just threw throughout the game and in OT were quite common.
Delhomme's TD pass to Steve Smith was in double OT, backed up in his own territory on 3rd and long.
In the Super Bowl, Delhomme hit Muhammad for 85 yards on 3rd and long backed up in his own territory.
Against Pittsburg, Tebow hit Thomas on first down backed up in their own territory.
This is mainly Fox, not Tebow. It's just a coach who is very, very good at setting you up for the deep ball and the kill when you least expected. It should be noted the pass to Muhammad was after everyone in the league completely forgot he was actually still Carolina's leading receiver after Steve Smith became the hero of the season and everyone concentrated solely on Smith. Muhammad escaped and got through untouched. The only issue with a team like Denver and John Fox's style is they are efficient as long as play calling remains low numbered and games stay short. If they have to go for 10-15 possessions and go the distance, that's where a team like the Patriots have the advantage. You can be very efficient as an offense and win a game if all it requires is 3-4 critical bombs that end up in scoring drives to end up with the winning points. The problem arises when you need 5-6 scores(30+ points) to win a game.
Simply put:
John Fox = small, highly efficient, well executed playbook.
BB= deep, complex, highly efficient, well executed playbook.
John likes to go for the throat on one or two deep passes while the Pats will get there in 8-9 very efficiently executed plays but have another 45-50 plays that they can run just as efficiently. While John's style of play can easily beat anybody in the league on any given Sunday, and it does matches up very well for 2 quarters against teams like the Patriots it can't keep up with machines like the Patriots or Green Bay and the marathons those teams like to run. It only works if they can throw you off your game and play into their hand and Pittsburg did that in the first half. If they have the lead or the game is close or they can force a turnover. But they can't overcome a high scoring offensive team who pulls ahead, doesn't turn over the ball because they don't have the type of playbook that can repeatedly put up enough unique, favorable match-up oriented plays to end up with touchdowns 5 times a game without takeaways. In a turnover-free game, their offense will stumble and have more FG's than the Patriots. In a long game, you'll see them beginning to re-use the same plays. You were seeing that in the second half against the Steelers. They were running out of ways to beat them late in the game. But what they can do is dictate a completely different rhythm that can throw teams like the Pats off of theirs and keep them cold for 30 minutes watching in frustration then burn you in a close game for the kill.
Fox is a very intelligent coach and much like Tebow is quite happy having people place labels on his philosophy like they actually know what they are talking about when in fact it couldn't be further from the truth. It falls into his deception and misdirection he likes to create. Bill, however, is too smart a coach to think like everyone else. He KNOWS John Fox, he understands his play style, doesn't underestimate his teams' ability to burn you and Bill's defenses don't fall for it. I mean he did get a taste of it first hand in the Super Bowl. He knows Fox now after all these years. And Bill's D got to Tebow the same way they got to Delhomme: not by picking him off but freezing him in the pocket and forcing a fumble in their own territory. That's usually all the Pats need to run away with it.
He'll make sure to tell his defense to anticipate pass even if Fox runs it 25 times straight in the first half. And if needed he'll have Brady drop a bomb behind Denver's defense when they least expected too just like Tebow does. The Pats and Brady are very much capable of the same thing. But I'd be worried if they start playing like that in the second quarter. It would mean they are playing Denver's game. Luckily for the Patriots, Denver's defense won't be facing a hobbled interception-prone quarterback and the 27th most inefficient offense in the league. Pats will burn that D. Brady won't be waiting around in the pocket all frozen for those guys to get to him like Ben did.
