Elway Hopes Tebow Is Their Guy For ‘Long, Long Time’

The media contingency surrounding John Elway Friday morning in Indianapolis swelled as the former Broncos quarterback talked about the team’s current quarterback.

If there’s any doubt that surrounds Elway’s support of Tim Tebow, that can be put to rest.

“For him to come in at 1-4, he added a great spark for us,” Elway said. “I was really happy with his progress. I know Tim’s going to work hard this off season. We’re hoping that he’s going to be the guy for a long, long time.”

Tebow has been working with quarterback guru Noel Mazzonen at UCLA since he’s prohibited by league rules from working out with Broncos coaches until later this spring. Elway has not been communicating with Mazzone about Tebow’s progress as he trusts that Tebow is making all of the right off season moves.

“The one thing I don’t have a concern with is the fact that Tim Tebow is not going to do everything he can this off season to get better and if that’s out working with Mazzone or whatever he’s doing, I know that he’s going to do everything he can to get better,” Elway said.

No matter how hard Tebow works, the Broncos need to find a couple of quarterbacks to compete with Tebow in training camp. As for what the team is looking for in these quarterbacks, well, they are working through that.

“We’re going through that process now,” Elway said. “We have to kind of let it happen. I don’t know if we’re looking for one like Tim or your ordinary drop back or somewhere in between. Until we find out the interest out there, it’s going to be hard to fill those spots. When I look at Tim and when I look at our offense, we can build with either one.”

The combine press conference with Elway wasn’t all about Tebow, however.

Of course the former Stanford QB was asked about the projected No. 1 overall pick and Sanford’s most recent QB Andrew Luck. In typical fashion, Elway said that he would let the media take care of comparing Luck to him.

Another big topic was the culture change in Denver. Fans haven’t been this excited about the Broncos since the late 90s.

“The key was getting John Fox hired,” Elway said. “That was a tremendous help for us to change the culture in the building.”

The Broncos had not been to the playoffs since 2005 and they lost 16 of their last 20 prior to the 2011 season.

“Anytime you go through a streak that we went through, the hardest thing to change is the culture, and trying to get the winning mentality back in the players’ minds. I think that’s what John (Fox) did a tremendous job with last year. We won a lot of close football games and a lot of times when you go through a losing streak, that’s the hardest thing to do.”

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