{"id":665764,"date":"2026-01-09T06:40:16","date_gmt":"2026-01-09T06:40:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/665764\/"},"modified":"2026-01-09T06:40:16","modified_gmt":"2026-01-09T06:40:16","slug":"14-years-ago-today-tebowmania-hit-its-peak","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/665764\/","title":{"rendered":"14 years ago today, Tebowmania hit its peak"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Jan. 8, 2026, 6:09 p.m. MT<\/p>\n<p class=\"gnt_ar_b_p\">On this day in 2012, the <a href=\"\/\" data-t-l=\":b|e|k|\u2691u\" class=\"gnt_ar_b_a\">Denver Broncos<\/a> officially hit the peak of Tebowmania, with their wild overtime win against the Pittsburgh Steelers in the 2011 wild card playoffs.<\/p>\n<p class=\"gnt_ar_b_p\">It had been a back-and-forth game in the fourth quarter, before the Steelers tied the <a href=\"\/\" data-t-l=\":b|e|k|\u2691u\" class=\"gnt_ar_b_a\">Broncos<\/a> at 23 heading into the extra period. At that time, the overtime rules had just changed; instead of sudden death, if the first team to possess the ball scored a touchdown, they would win. This playoff game was the first one to be played under such circumstances.<\/p>\n<p class=\"gnt_ar_b_p\"><a href=\"\/\" data-t-l=\":b|e|k|\u2691u\" class=\"gnt_ar_b_a\">Broncos<\/a> quarterback Tim Tebow and the offense began with the ball on their own 20-yard line. Tebow took the snap in the shotgun, faked a handoff and threw a perfect dart to a streaking Demaryius Thomas in the middle of the field.<\/p>\n<p class=\"gnt_ar_b_p\">Thomas caught the ball in stride, stiff-armed two Steelers, and ran into football immortality. Sports Authority Field at Mile High lost their minds; fans at home jumped up and down, and the <a href=\"\/\" data-t-l=\":b|e|k|\u2691u\" class=\"gnt_ar_b_a\">Broncos<\/a> won one for the ages.<\/p>\n<p class=\"gnt_ar_b_p\">Where were you when Tebow threw that fateful pass? Let us know!<\/p>\n<p>Need a news break? <a target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\" data-t-l=\":body nav (play)|e|auto spike click:5|\u2691u\" class=\"gnt_ar_b_sp_a\" href=\"https:\/\/play.usatoday.com\/?itm_source=SPIKE&amp;itm_campaign=PLAYSPIKE&amp;itm_medium=ONSITE\">Check out the all new PLAY hub with puzzles, games and more!<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Jan. 8, 2026, 6:09 p.m. MT On this day in 2012, the Denver Broncos officially hit the peak&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":665765,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[2062],"tags":[95878,232,231,258,2426,7,6,95879,95880,95882,95886,95895,95899,96071,95883,95881],"class_list":{"0":"post-665764","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-denver-broncos","8":"tag-accessfree","9":"tag-broncos","10":"tag-denver","11":"tag-denver-broncos","12":"tag-denverbroncos","13":"tag-football","14":"tag-nfl","15":"tag-sstssportsnflbroncos","16":"tag-sstsnbroncos","17":"tag-tagamerican-football","18":"tag-tagdenver-broncos","19":"tag-tagnfl-hub","20":"tag-tagoverall-neutral","21":"tag-tagsmg-timely","22":"tag-tagsports-news","23":"tag-typestory"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/115863776518973025","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/665764","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=665764"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/665764\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/665765"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=665764"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=665764"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=665764"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}