ENGLEWOOD, Colo. — Tim Tebow has tried everything else. Now, he’s going to set his alarm for the crack of dawn.

Maybe the early bird will get the offense rolling.

With the Denver Broncos relying on his last-minute magic to pull off six comebacks in the eight games he’s started, Tebow joked that maybe he should arrive at the stadium even earlier than he already does on game days, perhaps toss a few more pregame passes than usual.

He’s open to anything to try to find his rhythm sometime before halftime instead of well after.

A faster start may definitely be needed with Tom Brady leading the high-scoring New England Patriots (10-3) into Denver for a showdown with the resurgent Broncos (8-5) on Sunday.

The Broncos’ coaches are also busy trying to decipher why the offense has been such a slow starter.

Since Tebow began running the show, the Broncos have managed just six scoring drives in 49 first-half possessions. They have only a dozen scores in 76 drives through the first three quarters.

But that all changes in the fourth quarter, when Tebow roars to life.

Take away the first drive of the final quarter — when it’s not yet Tebow Time — and the Broncos have scored on 16 of their 28 possessions, including overtime.

That wait-until-late-in-the-game-to-rally formula probably won’t cut it against the Patriots, who are averaging 30.5 points.

The Broncos have won games with Tebow despite scoring 18, 17, 17, 16 and 13 points.

“I’ve just got to go back to the drawing board and find a way to get a little bit better in practice,” Tebow said. “Try to improve and just try to get better as a quarterback and as a player and find a way to get this offense in the end zone early.”

Should that happen, it would take the pressure off a defense that has been keeping the Broncos close until Tebow finds his traction. He’s appreciative of the defense’s effort and realizes that side can’t be expected to hold New England out of the end zone all game. The Patriots have only been held under 20 points once this season.

“It does get frustrating when we do see the defense on the field a lot,” receiver Eric Decker said. “We want to take pressure off them. We know we have to do a better job of scoring points and executing out there.”

The sluggish start is baffling to the Broncos. They make it a top priority to begin each game with a sense of urgency, but it’s not translating on the field.

“I’d love to get out early on a team and rest, let some other guys play,” said Willis McGahee, the team’s leading rusher with 920 yards. “But it doesn’t work like that.”

Coach John Fox has a theory on why the offense sputters early in games. He believes it takes a few series to figure out what a defense is doing to counteract the Broncos’ rather unorthodox offense.

It’s a notion that McGahee supports.

“There’s certain times when we’re starting out that you can’t really get a finger on how they’re handling us until the second half,” McGahee said. “I tell my coach, `OK, I figured out what I need to do.’ Then he says, `OK, let’s do it’ and we get the train moving.”

“I like winning,” Tebow said after his third comeback in a month, “but I wish it wasn’t this stressful.”

The Broncos had punted on their eight previous possessions when they got the ball with less than 6 minutes and 95 yards to go. Tebow calmly drove Denver down the field, thwarting a Jets defense that had throttled him all night.

“We played them well, through the whole game, until that last play,” Jets star cornerback Darrelle Revis said. “We played them well. Tim Tebow’s legs took them to victory, ran them to victory.”

On third-and-4 from the Jets 20 and under a minute left, the Broncos got an extra minute to think about things when a fan ran onto the field and was corralled by security.

During the break, the Jets dialed up their first all-out blitz of the night.

Tebow took the snap from the shotgun with 1:06 left, read the blitz and outflanked safety Eric Smith around the left edge, then cut back and bulled his way past other Jets into the end zone.

“He shocked me,” Revis said, “probably shocked a lot of people.”

Not Jets coach Rex Ryan.

“You know he’s going to keep it in that situation. That’s what he does. You keep the ball in your playmaker’s hand,” Ryan said. “We thought he was going to carry the ball and he didn’t disappoint us. But he ran for a touchdown. The kid’s a competitor and makes big plays with the game on the line.”

The Jets (5-5) lost for the second time in four nights.

The Broncos (5-5) are 4-1 since Tebow replaced Kyle Orton, and at .500, they’re a-half game behind Oakland in the AFC West race.

“He’s a competitive dude,” Broncos coach John Fox said. “He’s super competitive. He never lays his sword down. He’ll fight you to the death. That’s just his nature. He’s a great young man.”

Mark Sanchez’s desperation pass toward the end zone was batted down as time expired and the Jets trudged off the field with their playoff hopes dimmed just a week after they were brimming with optimism.

Nick Folk’s 45-yard field goal had broken a 10-10 tie with 9:14 remaining, and the Broncos found themselves facing a daunting task when they got the ball back with 5:54 left at their own 5.

New York safety Jim Leonhard could have quashed Denver’s winning drive on the first play when he wrapped up Eddie Royal in the end zone on a throw to the right flat, but Royal wiggled free for 8 yards.

Tebow ran just twice for 11 yards until the final drive, when he carried seven times for 58 yards in a performance reminiscent of his miracle in Miami, when he was ineffective for 55 minutes, then led the Broncos to two TDs in the final 5 minutes of a game Denver won in overtime.

“I think it was just a bunch of guys that kept fighting, that had been knocked down a bunch of times and got back up,” Tebow said. “I’m proud of these guys for their resiliency and determination.”

ENGLEWOOD, Colo. – Tim Tebow isn’t the cure-all for the Denver Broncos.

He brings energy, enthusiasm and excitement to a franchise sorely in need of all three, but he can’t stop the run or defend the pass. Nor can he do anything about all the battered bodies that have relegated run-stuffers and playmakers to the trainers’ rooms and operating tables.

Kyle Orton lost his starting job following the team’s 1-4 start, but the Broncos have been bedeviled by more than just quarterback play in coach John Fox’s first season in Denver.

Although their special teams are solid, the Broncos are ranked 25th on both offence and defence, and they’re only now starting to get healthy.

As Fox said this week: “It’s not one guy. It’s not all Kyle Orton’s fault.”

And if Orton can get demoted, tight end Daniel Fells says anyone on the team is “fair game.”

Everyone sure is.

“We’ll look into whatever we can to try to win football games,” Fox said.

While nobody else lost their starting job this week, there have been are some shifts. Rookie pass-rusher Von Miller was replaced by Mario Haggan in the base defence Sunday and is going to have to round out his game to get more snaps.

On offence, the Broncos have been without Demaryius Thomas (Achilles, finger) all season, Eddie Royal (groin) and Julius Thomas (ankle) for three weeks. They’ve hardly had defensive stars Elvis Dumervil (shoulder) and Champ Bailey (hamstring) on the field together this season.

They’ve allowed three 300-yard passing games and two 200-yard rushing games.

Defensive tackle Kevin Vickerson joined Ty Warren on injured reserve this week after playing an entire game on a blown-out ankle, further depleting a position that’s been thinned by injuries since training camp.

The Broncos scattered for a league-mandated four-day furlough following an 80-minute workout Wednesday that capped this week’s three hours of practice time. Absent for all of it was Tebow’s new blindside protector, rookie right tackle Orlando Franklin, who was excused for family reasons.

When they return Monday, the Broncos coaches will accommodate their new scrambling quarterback with different formations, protections and calls, but they’re not going to overhaul the playbook.

“We’re not going to change everything just because he’s playing,” offensive co-ordinator Mike McCoy said.

Because players aren’t allowed to meet with coaches during their break, Tebow said he’ll be staring at his iPad a lot this weekend, not to play “Words With Friends,” but to review game film he downloaded onto his tablet.

He’ll also round up some receivers to run routes and work on their timing.

Fox used to give players an extra day off following a bye week, but he won’t now because the new NFL rules state that players have to have four consecutive days off and can’t meet with their coaches during that time.

“We’re going to practice on Monday to get our timing and rhythm back, particularly in the passing game.” Fox said. “And that’s the area that I think, with an extended time off, can suffer some sometimes.”

With a scrambling quarterback replacing a mostly immobile one, the wide receivers will have to run around more and the offensive linemen will have to make sure they block longer and keep after it when defenders disengage.

“We better get some extra conditioning in,” wide receiver Eric Decker said.

In part because of key injuries, the Broncos have struggled to find an identity under Dennis Allen, their sixth defensive co-ordinator in six seasons.

“On each individual play, you can look at a guy here or a guy there” who missed an assignment or tackle. “I don’t think it’s been any one individual that’s really stood out,” Allen said. “We’ve got to be more consistent across the board, coaching, playing, everything.”

When Brian Dawkins went out with a neck injury Sunday against San Diego, the Broncos had two rookie safeties as their last line of defence in Rahim Moore and Quinton Carter, who had their growing pains.

While the speed of the game and tackling more talented players are big adjustments from the college ranks, Allen said the biggest difference for safeties is mental.

“It’s just understanding situations in the game, understanding how teams are going to try to attack you, what teams are going to try to do to get you out of position,” he said. “Unfortunately, those are things that you have to learn as you go.”

Against the likes of Philip Rivers and Aaron Rodgers.

While defensive tackle Marcus Thomas returned from shoulder and groin injuries that had sidelined him all season and posted eight tackles against the Chargers, Vickerson severely sprained his right ankle on the first play but stayed in the game.

“I was proud of the way that he gutted it out,” Allen said. “Obviously, he had a significant injury and the fact that he was able to battle through and continue to be on the field shows a lot about his character.”

Royal practiced Wednesday for the first time since straining his right groin Sept. 18 against Cincinnati, and caught a few passes from his new quarterback.

“We’ve got a lot of playmakers on our team and we just added one at quarterback. He can throw it, he can run it. It’s going to be a challenge for defences to stop him,” Royal said.

Tebow lacks polish and the elite mixture of skills usually seen in an NFL quarterback, but he brings unbridled zeal and a heralded work ethic to the job. As his legion of fans are fond of saying, he’s a “gamer.”

“One thing you can’t take away from him is that heart, that emotion,” Decker said. “That’s something he carries on his sleeve and brings every day to work. He’s a guy that won’t be outworked and that rubs off on people. It might not be the most conventional way but he finds a way to get it done.”

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Connect with AP Pro Football Writer Arnie Melendrez Stapleton on Twitter: http://twitter.com/arniestapleton