Tim Tebow is no longer a member of the Denver Broncos which means after 2 years as a circus, the Broncos can finally return to being a football team.
Though I am really going to miss the elephant act. Animals that big balancing on just their back legs – breathtaking.
Based on my Twitter timeline, Jets fans are thrilled with the pick up – envisioning Tebow playing a secondary wildcat role with the Jets, providing an added dimension to help alleviate the challenges facing Mark Sanchez. I know, because I too once held these lofty ideals of how Tebow can be used in the NFL.
But after two years spent as an unwitting customer of Tebow Ministries, Incorporated I am confident in saying this is destined to fail miserably.
What Jets fans don’t realize is that they didn’t trade for a versatile running quarterback this morning. They traded for an entire movement. It would be like be bringing in L. Ron Hubbard as a 3rd down specialist.
Tebow (and his legion of passionate, loud and football ignorant followers) has tasted success in the NFL, so to think he is willing to take on a specialist role is the height of delusion. The spotlight glared in the laid back rocky mountains, how do you think it will be in the center of the media world?
Tebow isn’t coming to be a short yardage specialist. He is coming to be the starting quarterback. He and his fans will accept nothing less. The Jets start a young, shaky, mistake-prone quarterback. It will be a miracle (no pun intended) if Sanchez makes it through his first pre-season game without some ‘fans’ calling for Tebow to start. I am guessing there are already people researching the cost of bill boards in the greater New York area.
The new “Jets” fans that the team acquired this morning will be loud and impatient in getting their hero on the field whenever Sanchez makes mistakes. No longer will Rex Ryan be able to spin funny stories or talk trash in his press conferences, instead he will be required to answer over and over and over again as to why Tebow isn’t / when will Tebow start?
Just look at Peyton Manning introductory press conference in Denver. Twice, some buffoon in the back (miraculously not Woody Paige) asked what the team and Peyton had to say to Tebow’s fan base because ‘he is much more than a football player’. As if the Broncos brass owe them more than they owe real Bronco fans.
The Jets were already a media made entity thanks to Ryan loving to hear his own voice, Sanchez’s looks and success in the world’s most self-absorbed city. Now they have brought in a player who brings with him an agenda and an entire legion of people’s whose interest in the Jets success ranks about 14th on their personal priority list.
Setting aside, the public relations nightmare of a ‘who will start at QB’ fiasco, the bigger risk is inside the locker room. Tebow divides a locker room more easily than Moses parted the Red Sea. There are those that will continue to believe in Sanchez. There will be those that get wrapped up in the mythology and publicly long for Tebow to start after Sanchez’s first bone-headed miscue. Some will want to keep with a traditional offensive system. Others will remember Tebow’s success last year and want to move that direction (especially if the team starts with a couple losses).
Unless the Jets ultimately dump Sanchez and go all-in on the Tebow experience, the Jets just traded for a man destined to divide their fan base and their locker room. At best, until he is the sole leader of the team Tebow is a distraction. At worst he will cause a civil war.
This can’t end well.
But, I bet the NYC radio talk shows are doing back flips right now.
