No team in football has undergone as wild a transition this month as the Denver Broncos, who woke up one morning with Peyton Manning -- and not Tim Tebow -- at quarterback.
Last season, questions of how to best use Tebow on offense pestered coach John Fox, a challenge the Broncos adapted to. When asked how he'll proceed with star quarterback Peyton Manning, Fox did not lack clarity.
"Play him," Fox deadpanned to the team's official website, content to offer nothing more. After all, this is Peyton Manning -- what more needs to be said?
Fox said he was "forever grateful" to Tebow, who led the team to an AFC West title and an electric win over the Steelers in the playoffs.
That victory, however -- in which Tebow exhibited prowess with the deep ball -- masked mind-boggling issues on offense down the stretch.
Fox and offensive coordinator Mike McCoy have shown a flair for adaptability, and the patched-together Florida offense will be ripped from the playbook to give Manning something familiar to work with. That change, of course, is made less painful when the new face in the locker room is a four-time MVP who's never thrown for less than 26 touchdowns in a season.
In an unusual twist, it might be Tebow's unusual skill-set, and how Denver adapted to it in 2011, that served as a selling point for Manning -- and Timmy's ticket out of town.
"I think (Manning) was aware of that, and, you'd have to ask him, but that could have been a factor," Fox said. "... He's done a certain way for 14 years, and obviously had great success, so we'd kind of be silly if we wouldn't take some of what he's done in the past and utilize his strengths ... and of course that came up."
