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"  FOXBORO, Mass. \u2014 John Elway stood in the middle of the visiting locker room late Saturday night, gritting. It was too quiet, even for the end, for a Denver team that has been as inspired as it was inspiring. For a couple weeks, anyway. And besides, Elway did not want to talk. &amp;quot;It&amp;#039;s about the players,&amp;quot; he allowed, then swatted me away, and then conceded: &amp;quot;When a quarterback like that gets hot, watch out.&amp;quot; He was not talking \u2014 nor has he ever like that \u2014 about Tim Tebow, the only man in here who did, in fact, want to talk.  Willis McGahee, the Broncos running back, was changing nearby. And he didn&amp;#039;t want to talk, either. His team had lost by 35 points, in the worst game of the best weekend of football in a long time, and he knew it. &amp;quot;I can&amp;#039;t even really tell you,&amp;quot; McGahee told me. &amp;quot;Stunts, blitzes, mixing up coverages. Everything worked...for them. I don&amp;#039;t know, Tim played a&amp;#039;right.&amp;quot;  At the podium, Tebow talked about how Denver could not &amp;quot;quite get it clicking tonight.&amp;quot; Elway watched, those big teeth of his really chafing, as his quarterback told the assemblage that it remained &amp;quot;a great day&amp;quot; because he was able to &amp;quot;make Zack McLeod smile.&amp;quot; Zack McLeod is a good, Christian 20-year-old from Cambridge, and a brain injury makes it so he also can hardly speak or do much else besides root for the Denver Broncos. But Tim Tebow met him before the game, and for Tim Tebow that meant it was &amp;quot;still a good day. I choose to look through those lenses. Whenever you can make a kid&amp;#039;s day, that&amp;#039;s more important than a football game.&amp;quot;  It must be said: God bless Zack McLeod, but the Denver Broncos were two wins away from the Super Bowl.  The Denver Broncos, of course, can&amp;#039;t just get rid of Tim Tebow, much as John Elway might like to. He has made the team everything Elway could not. Which is to say, they also probably can&amp;#039;t win a Super Bowl with Tebow under center, or running around over there, or whatever he does as the most unorthodox of football centerpieces. Now that he has proven everything and nothing, Tebow will probably go build a hospital in the Philippines, or go talk some more at mega-churches and prisons, and then he will come back home so Elway can teach him how to throw a spiral. That much Elway has promised. And so Tim Tebow will spend his next days learning to undo that which he has trained all his life to do on Sundays: Now the Messiah becomes the quarterback. Because when a quarterback like that gets hot, watch out. By midnight, it was cold. Thirteen degrees, but probably not even. The Patriots faithful celebrated with rum and Cokes, and down toward the exit of Gillette Stadium, Gisele Bundchen got that much closer to Tom Brady.  As employees congratulated her quarterback husband, as he pushed them through the crowd and out toward their car, the supermodel looked over across the scrum.  &amp;quot;Who was that? Who was that?&amp;quot;  Everyone else knew the man in the lavender shirt and the darker lavender tie. Everyone that didn&amp;#039;t matter.  &amp;quot;Good luck,&amp;quot; Tebow said to Brady.  The winner said nothing, or at least nothing that audible, and they went their separate ways.  &amp;quot;Who was that?&amp;quot; she asked again. --Gary Andrew Poole is the author of PacMan: Behind the Scenes with Manny Pacquiao and The Galloping Ghost: Red Grange, an American Football Legend. MORE TEBOW ON ESQUIRE.COM: \u2022 GARY ANDREW POOLE: How Can You Hate Tim Tebow? \u2022 TOM CHIARELLA: Tim Tebow, Mannequin \u2022 CHRIS JONES: Tim Tebow, Overdog \u2022 TOM JUNOD: Tim Tebow, Man of Millions \u2022 SCOTT RAAB: Tim Tebow, Uncool \u2022 JEFF PEARLMAN: Why Alex Smith Is the Real Tim Tebow \u2022 CHARLES P. PIERCE: The Worst Tim Tebow Story Yet \u2022 THE STYLE BLOG: A Word on Tim Tebow&amp;#039;s Post-Game Style Choices \u2022 THE EAT LIKE A MAN BLOG: Of Course There&amp;#039;s Tim Tebow Beer Now... "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.esquire.com/sports/a12387/tim-tebow-offseason-2012-6639395/>