"He added a great spark for us, and we really had some good things happen to us," Elway said Friday at the NFL scouting combine. "I was really happy with his progress. I know Tim's going to work hard this offseason. We're hoping that he's going to be the guy for a long, long time."
The comments attributed to me in a recent magazine article are in NO WAY reflective of my opinion of Tim and the Broncos. Tim deserves a lot of credit for our success and I'm happy for him and what he accomplished. Most importantly, he is a great teammate. That interview was conducted three months ago, and the resulting story was a completely inaccurate portrayal of my comments. I have addressed my disappointment with the writer and have reached out to Tim to clear this up. I apologize to anyone who feels I was trying to take anything away from our Team's or Tim's success this season.
"He just came out here to throw and work on a few things and see if we can just become a little more efficient in what he's doing," Noel Mazzone said, noting that the sessions will last through the weekend and maybe longer. "Throwing motion, footwork, everything I work on with all my quarterbacks."
"It's kind of like a golfer who hit that bad drive," Mazzone said of working on Tebow's unorthodox throwing motion. "Every other guy in the foursome can tell you what you did wrong and all three opinions are different. We're just going out and kind of going back to the basics and working on some fundamentals to try and become a little more efficient."
NFL teams are limited in the amount of practice time they are allowed with players during the offseason, but there is nothing preventing players from working with non-affiliated coaches. Mazzone said the Broncos are aware that he is working with Tebow and that he regularly communicates with Broncos quarterbacks coach Adam Gase.
"Obviously I wouldn't do anything that would go against what their beliefs are," Mazzone said. "I know after coaching quarterbacks for a long time, they're like girlfriends. You don't like other guys messing with them."
His devout Christianity, bred at the Chinese Church in Christ in Mountain View, has been his guide since he was young. But Lin admits these last few months were a test unlike any before.
Sucker punched by the cold business of the NBA -- playing for his third team in a year -- Lin suffered in silence. Before he was the talk of the sports world, before he was crowned star of the Knicks, Lin was ridden with doubt and anxiety. So he doubled down on his commitment to God.
And without that, he believes, there would be no Lin-sanity.
What the country sees is a Cinderella story, Lin's meteoric rise from the NBA Development League to unstoppable star. But for Lin, it's a story of faith, the beautiful struggle he's now convinced he can win. Most importantly, it's a story of how he'll be completely fine if he doesn't.
"I'm not playing to prove anything to anybody," Lin said. "That affected my game last year and my joy last year. With all the media attention, all the love from the fans (in the Bay Area), I felt I needed to prove myself. Prove that I'm not a marketing tool, I'm not a ploy to improve attendance. Prove I can play in this league. But I've surrendered that to God. I'm not in a battle with what everybody else thinks anymore." [...]
Now, the Knicks are 5-0 with Lin running the show. He's gone from having a non-guaranteed minimum contract and sleeping on his brother's couch to having America's biggest market now concerned the Knicks can't pay him enough to keep him.
But even Lin admits the constant struggle he faces. Deep inside he knows it is bigger than him.
"There is so much temptation to hold on to my career even more now," Lin said. "To try to micromanage and dictate every little aspect. But that's not how I want to do things anymore. I'm thinking about how can I trust God more. How can I surrender more? How can I bring him more glory?
"It's a fight. But it's one I'm going to keep fighting."
