Tim Tebow’s fans want to know what else the man has to do to win over the Broncos’ brain trust. He’s won seven of eight games since taking over as their starting quarterback, turning a team that was foundering at 1-4 under Kyle Orton into an improbable playoff contender at 8-5, atop the AFC West. Still, coach John Fox is reticent about committing to Tebow for the long term, saying he’d rather focus on the task at hand, which is ending Denver’s five-year playoff drought. Football chief John Elway created an Internet firestorm last month when he said that he didn’t know if his QB of the future was on the roster. He’s since smoothed things over with Tebow and pledged to work with the unconventional quarterback in the offseason.

With each win it seems less and less likely the Broncos will go for a quarterback in the first round of the draft next April, but it could still happen. While no longer characterizing Tim Tebow’s job status as a week-to-week proposition, Fox isn’t publicly going all in, either. When a reporter jokingly retorted with a question about whether star rookie Von Miller had done enough to be the strongside linebacker in 2012, Fox cracked: “Exactly. He’s the strongside linebacker now. We’re in the now.” So is Tebow, who continues to say he’s only concerned about beating the next team on the schedule and will do whatever the team asks him to. Ever humble, Tebow won’t stump for the job in 2012, except through his play. Some of his teammates, however, say it’s time to declare Tebow the man.

Despite Tim Tebow’s mechanical and footwork flaws, Tebow is money in crunch time. He’s the first quarterback in NFL history to engineer half dozen fourth-quarter comebacks in his first 11 starts, something it even took Elway about four times as long to accomplish. Results, not style points, are what matter the most, said linebacker Wesley Woodyard.

http://www.gazette.com/sports/broncos-130137-englewood-focus.html

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The hunt for Chris Paul, also known as the journey to nowhere, was back where it started on Monday, when the Los Angeles Clippers broke off talks about acquiring him. In the four days since Commissioner David Stern vetoed a three-way deal that would have sent Paul to the Los Angeles Lakers from the New Orleans Hornets, there have been two sets of talks. They have involved 4 teams, at least 11 players, and the N.B.A. vice presidents Stu Jackson and Joel Litvin, who are essentially acting as general managers for the Hornets, a team owned by the league. The outcome: No deals yet. Paul remains in the Hornets’ training camp.

That leaves Stern, in a dual role as commissioner and de facto New Orleans owner, obliged to keep his staff looking for a deal as Paul’s free-agent clock ticks. The unusual situation started when the league took over the Hornets last December, buying out the distressed owner George Shinn. At the time, Phil Jackson, then the coach of the Lakers, and a longtime critic of the league office, raised the issue, noting Paul’s impending free agency. The league took over effective control in these new talks, and Hornets General Manager Dell Demps, who made the doomed deal with the Lakers, has been reduced to passing proposals back and forth between the Los Angeles Clippers and N.B.A. officials.

The Los Angeles Clippers were ready to give up their star guard Eric Gordon, center Chris Kaman and Minnesota’s unprotected No. 1 pick in the June draft. But at the end of negotiations between the Clippers and the N.B.A. officials, it seemed the Clippers would also have to give up two more young players, Eric Bledsoe and Al-Farouq Aminu. To the league’s surprise, Los Angeles would not part with Bledsoe. Instead, the Clippers claimed the former Knick Chauncey Billups off waivers, perhaps in anticipation of ultimately trading a point guard or two. Adding to the whirlwind of nonactivity, the Orlando Magic, who have said they would take offers accommodating Dwight Howard’s demand to be traded, went back to saying they will do all they can to keep him.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/13/sports/basketball/proposals-are-traded-but-paul-remains-with-hornets.html?_r=1&ref=sports

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Just wait, the Jets kept saying, telling anyone who would listen to beware. Wait until their offense purred. Wait until their defense smothered. Wait until both happened on the same day, miracle of miracles. For three months, the Jets remained defiant. They waited. And they were right. On Sunday, they did not defeat the Kansas City Chiefs so much as embarrass them. By the start of the fourth quarter, many fans had departed MetLife Stadium, presumably bored from watching the Jets score again and again in a 37-10 victory that drastically improved their playoff positioning.

Against a reeling Kansas City team masquerading as an A.F.C. West contender, the Jets imposed their will, accepting Coach Rex Ryan’s challenge from the night before. So this time they did not. They scored on their opening drive. They scored three touchdowns in the second quarter. They led at halftime, 28-3, having held the Chiefs to a no-this-is-not-a-misprint 4 yards of offense, including minus 19 in the second quarter. The lone disconcerting development occurred on, of all things, an interception by Jim Leonhard. A do-everything safety and defensive signal caller, Leonhard sustained a right knee injury that will probably sideline him for the remainder of the season.

The playoff push that Moore mentioned has gathered force, and on Sunday, it evolved into a full-on shove. Of the four teams that began the day in a virtual tie for the A.F.C.’s final wild-card berth, the Jets (8-5) were the only one to win. In Green Bay, the Packers routed the Raiders (7-6). In Cincinnati, Houston shocked the Bengals (7-6) with a last-second touchdown. In Nashville, a potential game-winning drive by the Titans (7-6) stalled at the New Orleans 5. A man with great comic timing, Slauson did not say those words deadpan. He was beaming. It was Slauson who said recently that the Jets had pushed “the panic button” after bottoming out in a loss to Denver on Nov. 17. Since then, the offensive line has allowed but three sacks — all on Sunday. Since then, the Jets have won three straight games heading into next Sunday’s game against Philadelphia.

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