"John Elway broke the news on Twitter as gently as he could.

"Looking forward to seeing our QBs tonight," he tweeted just before kickoff Saturday night. "Tim went in after Kyle last week, and Brady will go second tonight. All competing."

Competing for second team, he might have added, but then, he had only 140 characters.

From the people's choice to start barely three weeks ago, Tim Tebow slipped to third team Saturday night, behind Kyle Orton and Brady Quinn, even as the Broncos tried to soften the blow to his legion of fans by suggesting it was nothing more than flopping the order of the backups a week ago.

In fact, it looked like the right order. Orton and Quinn played like the more experienced, more polished veterans that they are.

Among those who watched training camp practices, the Orton-Tebow debate lasted barely more than a day, and Orton has done nothing but increase the daylight between them. Saturday night, Orton was surgically precise, completing 10-of-13 passes with a touchdown for an astrophysical passer rating of 135.1.

Granted, it was against Buffalo, so let's not hyperventilate.

Quinn was a pretty close second, hitting 10-of-16 with his second touchdown throw in as many weeks. His night was marred only by an interception in the end zone to close the first half, but he finished with a solid rating of 82.8. Between them, he and Orton threw for 265 yards in three quarters, divided almost equally between them."