I make these statements knowing that I will be totally in the minority, knowing that Tebow fanboys will label this deplorable Tebow hating and Tebow haters will label this sheer idiocy.
1. Tim Tebow is a good quarterback, though not the best quarterback in the NFL: There seems to be this new notion as of late that Tim Tebow is a gritty underdog who has utilized raw desire to become a NFL starting quarterback.
Um, Tim Tebow won a Heisman Trophy.
And in spite of what Jason White may teach us, nobody should be all that surprised when a Heisman Trophy winner turns out to be a good football player. Jesus, look at his resume. Freshman year he played a significant role on a national championship winner. Sophomore year he became the first sophomore to win a Heisman. Junior year he won a national championship. Senior year he made his third trip to NYC for the Heisman ceremony and nearly won a third national title, were it not for one of the most stifling defenses that college football has ever seen. Tebow had the best college football career since Herschel Walker. Everybody should know he's good. It's not a huge surprise. He was also a first round pick. A Heisman winner who was picked in the first round. Matt Leinart was an instant dud in the pros yet received far more of a benefit of the doubt.
And look at his NFL stats. While not excellent, they're not that bad. Tebow has a low completion percentage because his offensive style comes right out of 1974, despite how many people at ESPN claim this style has never been seen before. He is not a West Coast offense quarterback--he throws deep passes. It means he has a low completion percentage but also an enormous yards per completion. Frankly, the two kind of balance out. And before you claim Tebow isn't worthy of being an NFL quarterback, consider that apparently, Tarvaris Jackson is. With the possible exception of Vince Young, has a quarterback received more unnecessary hate?
But with that said, the fanboys need to calm down their Teboners. Skip Bayless can say all he wants that "all Tebow does is win", but his NFL record, while above .500, isn't in the same class as Tom Brady or Aaron Rodgers or countless other NFL quarterbacks. He doesn't have the arm strength of Matthew Stafford or the accuracy of Drew Brees or the legs of Michael Vick or the running power of Cam Newton. He has a good arm, below-average accuracy, good pocket presence, and comes out of the Ben Roethlisberger school of running as a quarterback (not spectacular, but good at avoiding pressure and can pick up a few yards when necessary). Nothing too notable here.
2. Tim Tebow isn't an oppressed minority: Tebow is a good-looking twenty-four year old white Christian male millionaire. If you think people are hating on him for who he is, I demand a drug test.
That's not to say that hatred of Tebow is rational--it isn't. Hatred of Tebow is based on the notion that the guy can't play, mostly (unlike with, say, John Skelton, who everybody agrees can't play, people don't have to shout this because there isn't a vocal group of supporters in his corner). And while it's true that some people hate on Tim Tebow for prosthelytizing his religious beliefs (which he doesn't particularly do--but more on that in a second), there is just as large of a contingent of people propping him up exclusively because of his religion. People who don't give two shits about football are propping up Tim Tebow for whatever cause they want to endorse, whether it be that Christianity is the way to success (not sure what God was thinking when he ordained O.J. Simpson a Heisman Trophy winner) or that Tebow proves that abortion leads to us killing millions of potential Tim Tebows (a solid assumption, since it's not like abortion on Hitler would have been a net positive or anything). It goes both ways. Hell, Tim Tebow, who clearly isn't the best athlete in the world, was recently voted America's most popular athlete, a title previously held by a bunch of guys who were at least in the running for world's greatest athlete.
Okay, but now onto this idea that Tim Tebow is a sanctimonious, obnoxious Christian mouthpiece--on what basis do you make this claim? He often gives God credit for making his life good and whatnot, but unlike thousands of athletes before him who were simultaneously cheating on their wives or doing drugs, I've never heard him thank God for a victory. Which is nice. Unlike the sanctimonious douchebags who espouse that God guided them to victory (an obvious implication both that God is paying attention to sports instead of poverty and war and stuff, and also that God conspired against somebody else to lose), Tebow takes a genuine, hard-to-knock position: That he loves God, but also that he doesn't expect God to do him any favors on the gridiron. He plays for himself and for his teammates--Tebow isn't going to convert people to his cause by stiff-arming a defender.
3. Tim Tebow has a personality that neither his fans nor his detractors want him to display: You know how every once in a while, you see Tim Tebow on the sidelines screaming and getting really pumped up and you think to yourself, "Hey, this guy has an edge to him. I'm not saying that he secretly kills hookers or something, but he has personality. He has a spark. He isn't just a walking, talking biblical scholar but he's a religious guy who also probably has friends, hobbies, and things he thinks about other than football and God." Well, I don't know if you think that. But I do.
I've met many people in my life who were quite religious, not limited to clergymen, and 100% of them had interests beyond the church. My great uncle was a Catholic priest and was a genuinely religious man, but he liked other things, too. He was a die-hard St. Louis Cardinals fan, he enjoyed fishing, and he loved watching movies (and not just movies starring Charlton Heston from the 1950s). I have a really, really hard time believing that Tim Tebow only cares about football and religion. I'm sure when he was in college, he would gather with his teammates or his youth group and they'd hang out and watch movies or play board games or something to that effect. Does this make him an exceptionally exciting person? Not really. But it does make him a normal person. Tim Tebow is a human, yet even people who believe in his cause refuse to humanize him. Do they truly believe that Tim Tebow is the second coming? I doubt it. So why not treat him as a person? Just say what it is: "Tim Tebow is a good football player with tremendous physical ability who is devoutly religious and also enjoys (fill in hobbies)." Is that really that bad of a thing?
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