NEW YORK -- Tim Tebow is coming to New York. Really.

After a big false start, the New York Jets pulled off a Tebow-like comeback Wednesday night, getting the quarterback who turned the Denver Broncos from an also-ran into a playoff team last season and became the NFL's most talked-about player -- for a fourth- and sixth-round draft pick.

The Jets also agreed to pay $2.53 million of a salary advance due Tebow, league sources told ESPN NFL Insider Adam Schefter, after the question of who would pay that advance nearly unraveled the trade and gave the Jacksonville Jaguars one last shot at bringing the ex-Florida Gators hero back home.

Jacksonville offered the Broncos $3 million toward Tebow's salary advance and a fourth-round draft pick, league sources told Schefter. That pick, based on the draft "value chart" that teams use to determine how to use their picks, is more valuable than the picks the Jets offered, sources said.

The Jets will pay the Broncos $1.5 million in 2012 and $1.03 million in 2013, a league source told ESPN sports business analyst Andrew Brandt. The payments will be made in 1/17th weekly installments.

The Broncos eventually took the Jets' offer. And now Tebowmania will open on Broadway. There's sure to be plenty of drama -- just as there was from the moment the Jets pulled off the deal. Or thought they did, that is.

"I'm thankful they stuck with me through this whole crazy process," Tebow said during a call late Wednesday night, repeating several times that he was "excited" to be a member of the Jets and to play for coach Rex Ryan.

Eight hours after initially agreeing to a trade, the teams completed it. It was hung up when the Jets, sources told Schefter, balked at repaying Denver more than $5 million for the salary advance due Tebow. The two sides agreed to split that cost, and Jets general manager Mike Tannenbaum said the team was "comfortable with the compensation," which included Denver's seventh-round pick in April's draft.

He said there was a disagreement about how to handle the salary advance after Denver received the papers.

"We knew what the contract was," Tannenbaum said in a separate conference call Wednesday. "We had read it. ... We felt it was one way; they felt it was another. Based on that, they were well within their rights to assess their different possibilities of what to do and their alternatives. And they did so throughout the day."

The Jets and Broncos initially announced the trade just after 1 p.m. ET Wednesday. But then Denver, according to sources, asked the Jets to pay back a portion of bonuses and salary already paid to Tebow.

Tebow was given a $6.2 million salary advance before the 2011 season, the sources said. Tebow's contract required the Jets to repay the advanced salaries for the 2012, 2013 and 2014 seasons, a total of about $5 million, according to sources.

The Broncos expected the Jets to pay those advances per terms of the contract. The Jets balked at doing so, allowing the Jaguars to re-enter the picture.

Tebow denied that he had final say in where he was going.