Hearing the talking heads and you'd assume that no quarterback in the history of the National Football League bastardized the school of NFL quarterbacks more than Broncos quarterback Tim Tebow. Terrible thrower, modeled from a college system that theoretically doesn't transfer to the professional game. Yet those that support Tebow quickly point out that while he might not be the model NFL quarterback, he's 4-1 as a starting quarterback, having re-energized a 1-4 Broncos team that could claim first place in the AFC West at weekend's end.
As Bengals fans, Tebow and the Broncos helped out the Bengals immensely following Denver's 17-13 win over the New York Jets on NFL Network's Thursday night football.
Heading into Week 11 of the 2011 NFL regular season, the Cincinnati Bengals are currently projected as the sixth seed in the 2011 playoff picture at this point. We know it's early on the schedule to be talking about such things, but it is a storyline we're monitoring at this point because, holy crap it's the playoffs.
At this point in the season, without blind prognostication for the next two months, the New York Jets figured as Cincinnati's biggest roadblock for the second wild card spot and the sixth seed. Tennessee and Buffalo are also in the mix, but Cincinnati holds those tie-breakers (head-to-head) if the Bengals were to finish with the same record as either team. Not only does New York's loss drop the Jets to 5-5, it eliminates one game that could be used for the common games tie-breaker. The Jets and Bengals don't play each other this year (thus not applicable) and after the record within the conference (second tie-breaker) is both teams against common opponents (teams that the Jets and Bengals both played).
As for the Broncos causing the Bengals problems, it's extremely possible if Denver can't secure the AFC West and a team like, say, the Oakland Raiders fails to pick-six themselves out of the playoffs. Otherwise if the Broncos and Bengals finish the season with a similar record, Denver's 24-22 win in week two will loom large.
