History is funny sometimes. It’s always waiting for a chance to come around and go around again.

Long before the Broncos were trying to decide what to do with Tim Tebow at quarterback, a high school coach in Ohio, Tiger Ellison, scrawled what he called “The Lonesome Polecat” on a chalkboard, and the scrambling quarterback officially became a weapon.

Ellison’s idea, to overload the left side of the offensive line to give his passer more room to run or throw, evolved into the run-and-shoot offense as well as parts of the spread option offense that sits on the Broncos’ doorstep.

“We’re trying to put guys in position where they can succeed,” Broncos coach John Fox said. “It’s something he’s more comfortable with. He has a lot of confidence in it.”

“He” is Tebow, and after the Broncos tilted their playbook toward his college roots, they went all-in against the Raiders on Sunday. The Broncos broke out their own edition of read option, using Tebow as a front-line ballcarrier or offering the threat of him as a front-line ballcarrier just before he handed the ball to running back Willis McGahee.

In a game in which Tebow completed only 10-of-21 passes, the Broncos still ran for almost 300 yards and scored 24 consecutive points in a comeback victory over the Raiders.

Now comes the next step for the Broncos, the decision whether to do something few, if any, NFL teams have done with their most prized roster possession through the years — put their starting quarterback in a full-time option offense.

“We’ll see,” Broncos wide receiver Eddie Royal said.

“Whatever it takes,” McGahee said. “If that’s running the option, it’s running the option. Eventually we’ll have to get our passing game up and we will, I think.”

NFL teams have flirted with the option in the recent past — Michael Vick and Warrick Dunn in Atlanta or Vince Young and Chris Johnson with the Titans — but it was just spot duty. It was a change of pace, something to take advantage of the idea that when a defense designs a plan to defend the run, it usually does not assign anyone to the quarterback.

The Broncos have pushed the envelope further.

“They don’t count that guy as a runner,” Fox said. “It’s kind of been done, but maybe not to the exact level we’re kind of at right now.”

There are two substantial reasons most NFL coaches cite on why the option has not been seen in the NFL on a regular basis as much as the Broncos ran it Sunday.

The first is defensive speed. The biggest mismatch in personnel anywhere on the field is the athleticism on the defensive line, in terms of strength/speed combinations, compared to the offensive line.

Just look at the speed numbers before every draft, the 300-pounders on defense are routinely faster than the 300-pounders on offense. And there are top-tier edge players on defense who run almost as fast as wide receivers in the open field.

To send a quarterback, play after play, into that mismatch is seen as a problem over the long haul. Especially if the quarterback can’t change the dynamic and throw over the crowd at the line of scrimmage enough to get the defense to dial back the pressure.

The second reason is the hits on the quarterback. He is considered by personnel executives, the Broncos’ John Elway included, as the No. 1 position to fill in any attempt to built a playoff contender. Elway has called it far and away the most important question to answer.

To turn that football asset into a running back as an offensive staple goes against that long-term search at quarterback.

Tebow took 17 hits Sunday, including sacks, rushing attempts, hits in the pocket as he threw and plays that were wiped away because of a penalty. By contrast the Saints’ Drew Brees took three and the Packers’ Aaron Rodgers had five, four of them sacks.

Draw that out for a 16-game season and Tebow would be on pace for 272 hits, many when he is a runner and even helmet-to-helmet contact is permitted on a running play if the defender doesn’t launch himself into the tackle.

There also is the matter of what the Broncos do with an option gameplan if Tebow is injured during a game and they have to put Kyle Orton or Brady Quinn into the lineup.

“This is what have you done for me lately,” Fox said. “We’ve experimented, looked at things and tweaked things. We’re still a work in progress. We’re trying to figure out our football team. We made a change at that position and we’re in the process of that now.”

Jeff Legwold: 303-954-2359 or jlegwold@denverpost.com