Tim Tebow: Flavor of the month, or long-term staple in Denver?

Reporting From Englewood, Colo. -- This was supposed to be a rebuilding year for the Denver Broncos.

Instead, it’s a redefining year.

As the weeks go by and the victories stockpile, the Broncos are reshaping what they and others expect from a quarterback.

Tim Tebow’s against-the-grain style of running so much and throwing so little — all while pushing defenses to their breaking point — is changing how people think about a league dominated by William Tell wingers like Aaron Rodgers, Tom Brady and Drew Brees. The Broncos, who started 1-4, have won six of seven since switching to Tebow in mid-October and are now tied with Oakland atop the AFC West.

So while would-be tacklers are trying to wrap their arms around Tebow, some of the league’s most respected observers are simply trying to wrap their heads around him.

“If you say, ‘Have you seen this before?’ I don’t know that I have,” said John Madden, the Hall of Fame coach and retired broadcaster.

According to oddsmaker R.J. Bell, Denver is only the third team in 20 years to win five consecutive games as an underdog. The Broncos are three-point favorites at home Sunday against Chicago, the first time they have been favored with Tebow.

The numbers reflect how conservative the Broncos have been with Tebow. Over the last five games, he has averaged barely 12 passes a game. The league minimum to be ranked among starting quarterbacks is 14. The Denver Post reported that in his 71/2 games this season, Tebow has attempted only 10 passes — 10! — when the team has been ahead, completing three.

Conversely, Tebow runs all the time. His 22 carries against San Diego two weeks ago were the most by a quarterback in the Super Bowl era. He is averaging 5.7 yards a carry and has run for three touchdowns, in addition to his 10 passing touchdowns.

Adding to the strangeness of all this is that the Broncos are run by one of the greatest passers in NFL history, John Elway, who eventually has to decide whether to treat this like a temporary fix or a long-term solution.

The Denver decision will define the franchise — and it’s not being made in a vacuum. The interest in Tebow is so high, and his legions of backers around the country are so vocal, that he’s unlike any other player in the league. ESPN devoted an hour of “SportsCenter” solely to Tebow this week, complete with a correspondent providing live updates from outside team headquarters.

Of his teammates and their reaction to the surrounding circus, Tebow said: “I just hope and believe that they know my heart, and that you can’t control any of this. But what I can control is my relationship with them and who I am as a person.”

No one quibbles with that, least of all Elway.

“I don’t think we’ll ever see another situation like this again,” the Hall of Fame quarterback said in his office at Broncos headquarters. “It’s a phenomenon. The reason why it’s a phenomenon is because he’s a great kid. If there was a kid I’d want to marry my daughter, it would be Tim Tebow.”

Again, though, the quandary Elway faces is, is this merely a fling, or is the franchise prepared to walk down the aisle with Tebow as its franchise quarterback?

“Everybody wants to know the future, but we’re really focused on what it is right now,” Elway said. “Do I see improvement in Tim Tebow week in and week out? Yeah, I do. That’s our goal, to continue. I think Tim Tebow is a great football player. Our goal is to make him a great quarterback.

“Can I sit here and say that’s absolutely going to happen? No. But I sure hope it happens, because that solves a lot of other problems.”

Elway has been under fire from Tebow fans who say the Broncos can call off their quarterback search, their argument underscored by each dramatic victory. Five of Tebow’s seven wins have come in the fourth quarter or in overtime. Madden, for one, thinks there’s room on the team — and on the field — for both Tebow and a more prototypical quarterback.

“I can see Elway’s point that you have him, and this is getting you through a period here, but you keep looking for a quarterback, which I would do too,” Madden said. “But then, one, you have to get one; two, he has to come in and adjust and adapt; and three, he has to be better than Tebow.

“But I would take it one step further. There’s no way that I would not find a place for [Tebow] on my team. If I had Tim Tebow, I would never get rid of him. I may not play him at quarterback, but with all this hybrid football now where you have multiple receivers, multiple tight ends, you don’t know the difference between a tight end, wide receiver and fullback — they’re all the same guy — he could be that guy.

“You could have another quarterback and I’d still want to play Tebow. Sometimes people jump to either/or. There may be another guy eventually. But to me, that wouldn’t be the end of Tim Tebow.”

Seattle Coach Pete Carroll, who tried to recruit Tebow to play at USC, wasn’t surprised when the previous Broncos regime traded back into the first round of the 2010 draft to select Tebow, far earlier than many people believed the University of Florida star would be taken.

Carroll said the Seahawks were strongly considering taking Tebow early in the draft too.

“When we got close to draft time, I had an awakening,” the coach said in a phone interview this week. “All these shows where they were talking about how he’s not throwing the ball right. He’s got all these guys drilling him, trying to figure it out, get his motion to where everybody would find him acceptable. It hit me, like, ‘What are we thinking? This guy’s like the greatest winner and champion of all time, and he’s going to figure it out somehow. Whatever he needs to do to figure it out, he’ll figure it out.’

“It really changed my outlook on his value going into the draft. I wasn’t surprised to see somebody else take him, that somebody else would realize the same thing. He’s going to find a way to be successful, more so than maybe anybody else we’ve ever watched come through the college ranks.

“Now that he’s jumped in there and he’s doing it and kicking butt, it’s like, who cares how you do it? What difference does it make? This guy is contributing to a great win streak, they’re in first place, and everybody is scared to death to play them because they can’t figure out how to beat them.”

The catchphrase around the Broncos, one echoed by Elway and Coach John Fox, is “the future is now.” That’s partly a reflection of the win-now mentality of the NFL, but it’s also an attempt to bleed off some of the pressure to make a long-term decision on Tebow. In other words, if the future is now, he is the “quarterback of the future” by definition, even though it’s no guarantee he will have the starting job a year from now.

“Right now, he’s our quarterback,” Fox said. “He’s doing a great job. Right now, he’s got the support of the whole building, including his teammates.”

Those teammates might be his most adamant supporters, with even some of the most hardened and skeptical of veterans becoming Tebow believers as the wins have stacked up. Fox said he’s noticed Denver defensive players are now standing on the sideline watching the Broncos offense, instead of relaxing on the benches the way they normally might.

“After the [winning] touchdown against the Jets, the first guy I hugged was [cornerback] Champ Bailey,” Tebow said. “After the game against the Dolphins, the first guy that hugged me was [safety] Brian Dawkins. It was exciting to have those guys, the leaders, their support.”

Ron Kirsch, a leadership expert at Florida, followed Tebow closely throughout his college career and said the quarterback has a characteristic that’s common among the top Fortune 500 chief executives.

“He knows how to get people together, working toward a common goal,” said Kirsch, executive director and a co-founder of the school’s Leadership Development Institute. “He manages to keep the bigger overall goal in mind and is able to subjugate his own personal interests and accomplishments.

“The best leaders do that. Can they get beyond self-interest? Tim Tebow is capable of that. People pick that up and want to be associated with him.”

One of the reasons defensive players can relate to Tebow is, at 6 feet 3 and 236 pounds, he’s built like a slightly undersized linebacker. He has that same aggressive approach to running too, and he’s supremely conditioned, allowing him to keep playing hard while others around him are fading.

“Tim Tebow is as strong in the fourth quarter — and I’m talking about speed and endurance and quickness and emotion — he has as much or more in the fourth quarter as he has in the first quarter,” Madden said. “And your defense doesn’t.”

With four games to go, the fourth quarter of the regular season begins Sunday. This stretch run could be the deciding factor that determines whether the team is going to build its future around Tebow or continue to look for another solution.

Elway knows that he too is under scrutiny. He’s aware the TV cameras are trained on him during games, and that people are judging whether he’s being enthusiastic enough when Tebow makes a big play.

“I try to hide,” Elway said. “My facial expressions get analyzed. I keep thinking, ‘Where am I going to go and watch the game?’ I was never a rah-rah guy when I played either. That wasn’t my personality. The last thing I want to do is have it portrayed that I’m not a Tim Tebow fan. I’m his biggest fan.

“I want him to be the guy. Tim’s still a young guy that’s getting better. Where his ceiling is, I don’t know. That’s going to be up to him. But my job, and our job as a coaching staff, is to make that ceiling as high as possible. Because we know that on the intangible side, he’s through the roof.”

But can you be through the roof while staying on the ground? The Broncos are determined to find out.

sam.farmer@latimes.com

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