The irony is not lost on the city of Denver that John Elway is judging a QB controversy between Kyle Orton and Tim Tebow. This is like Heidi Klum judging a bikini contest at a fat farm.

Doesn't matter anyway. It's over. Orton won by the kind of margin Kim Jong Il wins elections. If it had been a pee wee basketball game, they'd have turned the scoreboard off.

You knew Orton won if you attended the intrasquad scrimmage Saturday at Mile High Who The Hell Ever Heard of Invesco Stadium. Orton was poised, sharp and studied. He would've been 7-for-7 if it weren't for two drops and some clumsy sideline footwork by receiver Eric Decker.

Tebow, meanwhile, looked like a man being chased by bees. He barely got off a pass (1-for-3) and was sacked three times. Nice kid, sincere as a first kiss, but he's not ready yet, might never be ready. Somebody alert the Filipino missionaries. If he doesn't improve, he might be among them sooner than we thought.

The Heisman Trophy winner looks stiff under center. Most quarterbacks go snap-step-step-step-throw. Tebow goes snap-step-step-step-think-ponder-think-some-more-finally-decide-throw-three-feet-behind-the-receiver.

If his first read is covered, he needs a Garmin. He drops his arm as if he wants to run, then thinks better of it. He doesn't quite understand the coverages yet anyway. And when he finally does decide, he's late getting it off. He seems flustered, and it screws up his accuracy. He's much better in the shotgun, but in the NFL you need to have the threat of a run, and the shotgun gives you none.

"The Tebow Thing" is as dead as the Volkswagen Thing. Orton is No. 1 by three city blocks, as the Broncos confirmed with their depth chart Monday: (1) Orton, (2) Tebow, (3) Brady Quinn.

It's the only choice Denver could make. The entire locker room wants Orton. In the NFL, you have to start the guy the players think they can win behind. They see. They watch film. They know what's working. "If they picked Tebow now," said a source within the team, "the coaching staff would totally lose the players."

The other way you know it's over is that Orton is talking to Tebow again. He didn't talk to him all last year. He told people it was because Tebow was a "rookie," but it was more than that. Tebow, ever gracious, kept talking with reporters every day. A lot of the players thought he should've stopped, in deference to the starter, Orton, who was getting scrums one-tenth the size.

Anyway, this lockout crushed Tebow. He's such a hard worker that he would've been at Bronco headquarters every day in the offseason, learning coverages, working on his three-step drop, soaking up every word new coach John Fox uttered. But instead, he reported to camp in fantastic shape physically but still flabby technically.

"He's a great young man who is really working hard," says team president Elway, whose team will visit the Dallas Cowboys on Thursday night. "But he didn't get an offseason to work on [playing from the pocket]. He didn't get much of that in college. And it's a completely different thing than the shotgun. Plus, he's only had the one season. But he's an amazing football player. I'd never give up on Tim Tebow."

Me, either. In fact, if I were playing in a streetball game where the losing team has to move permanently to a time-share in Kabul, I'd take Tebow every time.