Thursday Night Preview: Tebow vs. Sanchez

So... a lot of the discussion boards are lit up with discussions about Tebow vs. Sanchez. Many of the folks posting are saying things like "Sanchez is much better, he made it to the AFC championship game in his first year, Tebow wont be able to do that". Here at Fact-Based Football, I decided to take a look at this comparision.

Ironically, even though Sanchez made it to the AFC Championship Game he didn't start out with a boom. His record for his first 7 games as a starter is merely 4-3, which by the way is the same record as Tebow's over his first 7 starts (which covers 3 from last year). Even though Tebow's critics have talked about how lousy his throwing is, you can see from the table below that after 7 starts, he has thrown for almost exactly the same number of times for almost exactly the same amount of yardage as Sanchez did in his first 7 starts.

Name	Rec	Comp	Att	Yds	TD	Int	QB Rate	Cmp%	Yds/Att	TD%	Int%
Tebow	4-3	83	176	1177	10	4	78.7	47.2	6.7	5.7	2.3
Sanchez	4-3	94	179	1178	6	10	61.2	52.5	6.6	3.4	5.6

Yet, all we hear about is how bad Tebow is at the throwing part of the game.

In Sanchez's first year as a starter, the facts show that the Jets played great defense and ran the ball very well, helping to carry their young QB to the AFC Championship Game.

So What is My Point??

Now it might be unlikely that the Broncos will get to the AFC Championship Game as the Jets did Sanchez's first year, however, the Broncos defense and running game might be good enough to get the Broncos and their young QB in the playoffs in a similar way.