Why You Can’t Blame Denver

As you probably know by now it’s “semi-official” that Tim Tebow will be a New York Jet. Before Tebow can join Linsanity in the Big Apple he must rewrite his contract with the Denver Broncos. This week has been a stressfull one for Tim Tebow with all of the trade rumors after Peyton Manning was signed to a long term deal close to an estimated $96 million dollars with the Denver Broncos. The hiccup with Tebow’s contract has delayed the trade until Tebow restructures his contract so Denver will be able to trade him to New York without penalty. ESPN has cited that this trade should be official as soon as 4 p.m. ET Saturday. New York will prepare to have a “dynamic” offense that will be able to co-exist two sub par starting quarterbacks in Mark Sanchez (NY Starting QB), and Tim Tebow(DEN QB). This should be interesting at best with two quarterbacks in the NFL that have trouble with the forward pass, but that’s another story.

According to Adam Schefter of ESPN the Denver Broncos dealt Tim Tebow and a 2012 seventh round draft pick in exchange for the New York Jets fourth and sixth round selections in 2012. This was the structured deal before the “hiccup” in Tim Tebow’s contract.

The hiccup in his contract was that Denver paid Tebow 1.6 million dollars in salary advances with 5 million dollars still left unpaid. New York believes that’s Denver’s liability to pay him while Denver states that the 5 million dollar burden is now on New York’s budget.

With all of this being said for a foundation of the situation Denver has dodged a bullet with how they will operate their franchise over the next couple of years. Peyton Manning is one of the best quarterbacks to ever play the game, and this contract signings will be remembered forever based on the future of Manning’s health and performance.

I believe that Denver could have received more for Tebow, but their primary interest was just to ship him out of Denver. This was a must if they want Peyton Manning to succeed, because he needs to be the only starting quarterback in Denver who they will be able to build around. The AFC West is a conference that Peyton Manning will be able to perform extremely well with horrible secondaries in the Oakland Raiders (my favorite team), Kansas City Chiefs, and the San Diego Chargers.

With Manning as your quarterback the Denver Broncos will be able to aggresively search for talent in recievers which will then help build a quality cast for Manning worthy of a Super Bowl caliber of team. You can’t blame Denver for seeking a talent such as Manning because he is easily one of the top 4 quarterbacks in the league coming into this season without playing a single snap last year. Manning makes since for Denver because he will be able to set the tone for a team that will be able to have an opportunity playing deep into the playoffs if he’s able to stay healthy.

The only downside to this trade is that Denver must now find a suitable back up for Manning just in case he has continuing troubles with his neck. Denver must find a quarterback that will be able to learn from Manning without taking away his snaps. Manning is known to be a perfectionist, and also not sharing practice time with backups very well. He needs to prove that he’s in football condition and that he’s one hundred percent to play. Denver believes this is possible, but if everyone thought he was one hundred percent he would still be in Indy.